Sunday, February 1, 2009

The FAMILY BUS: 1972 Deluxe Kombi

Clark and his fiancée Fina have been together for five years now. And also have a love affair with vintage air-cooled Volkswagens. The couple owns a 1968 Econo Beetle named Bacchus, which they use as their main transportation on a daily basis and special occasions. Their passion for air-cooled VWs also transcends to their choice of their soon to be family car. Fina wants a big and spacious family car. Something that will be easy to maintain and troubleshoot. As expected, that “family car” should also be an air-cooled VW… a Type II Bus… a Kombi.

They searched around Batangas, asked every VW enthusiast they know and searched for that “family car” in the internet. Clark searched VWCPs official forum/website and looked for Kombis for sale. He found one and thought that the search was over. He found an orange Kombi (what a coincidence: orange is Clark’s favorite color and Bacchus’ paint is orange). But during that time, Clark is expecting for a sum of money from his work which he will use to purchase the orange bus. But the money came late and the bus slipped off the couples hands. How sad.

Clark, being a die hard VW enthusiast continued the search in the Oto Resiklo (Cars for Sale) Section of vwcp.org. He found an old post in that section of the forum. He saw nice green 1972 Deluxe Bus. An idea popped from his head, “This one is it. Green. Fina’s favorite color”. But at the end of the Green Kombi’s thread is a sad post, “Sold Already”.
Luck might not be on the couple’s side. But Clark pushed fate and luck to the limit. He tried to contact the seller if the bus was really gone. He phoned the seller for three days, but no one picks up the phone from the aside. But one morning Clark just got lucky, he had a phone conversation with the seller. The Bus was not really sold. He just said it for him to continue with the bus, but if there will be a buyer and the price is right… why not!
Four Days Clark went to Posadas, Sucat, Parañaque to see and get the bus.

The bus is perfect for the couple. It has its deluxe body trims intact. The dash knobs (headlight, interior lights, wiper, emergency lights) are also intact and correct. Complete stock seats are newly upholstered but the middle bench lost its legs. The bus sports white wall tires and was lowered a bit to give it that cool stance.

As for now. The walk through feature was sacrificed to accommodate the middle bench which now sits on a speaker/utility box and faces the rear bench, making more spaces for dining and sleeping. Clark opted to replace the old Bosch alternator which has the external voltage regulator with a brand new unit. Sweet!

The bus can now be seen on the roads and streets of Batangas. And Samantha is truly a head turner.



One Sweet Bus...



The stock front seats.



The area behind the front seats. That walk through between those seats is blocked by the middle bench facing the rear bench.

The rear Bench...

2 comments:

  1. how much would a bus like this cost? am interested in getting one.

    salamat po,


    monching

    ReplyDelete