We have featured any number of seemingly over-priced and over-rusted old Volkswagen buses over the years. The early ones have seen prices literally go crazy over the past few years. Personally, I don’t get it, and I lived through and enjoyed the original days of the “hippie bus” craze.
At least in my experience, while they were incredibly practical, inexpensive to operate and easy to maintain, they were also dangerously slow in both acceleration and maximum speed, handled terribly, and worst, were prone to acting like giant sails in strong winds.
Since Transporter buses were extremely light, wind could move them across lanes on highways pretty easily. I was a passenger in one of these on the Bay Bridge going from San Francisco to Berkeley. A strong wind took us across two lanes of traffic and we were just incredibly lucky that it was at night, and that there were no cars in the lanes next to us. That was not a thrill, and pretty much cured me of any desire I had to ever own one of these VW Kombis for myself.
And
of course, with almost no structure in front of the front seats, if you
happened to hit anything head on, you were much more likely to be
injured or killed than if driving just about any other vehicle.
This 1970 Transporter (also called a Kombi station wagon) for sale here on craigslist in Trumbull, Connecticut appears to be in much better condition than many (though not all) of the other similar VW buses that have appeared here over the years. The seller says his bus is “all original, runs, shifts thru gear, no brakes need to go thru….Solid body, floor and rear area. Minimal rust, only surface rust. All jack points and frame solid.”
This bus also comes with some extra parts and a modest $4100 asking price. At least from the pictures, it appears to have solid floors, a far better than average interior, and an engine that must have been rebuilt or at least kept very clean over the past several years. Mileage on the bus is said to be a very modest 93,000 miles, which could be true based on the condition of this Vee Dub. The older Connecticut license plate suggests it has been off the road for some time as well.
On the other hand, the rust shown here appears, at least to me, to be much more than superficial, and there is pretty clear evidence this bus has had some amateur body work done to it in the past. Given that it’s now more than 45 years old and seems to have been in Connecticut for some time, it’s impossible for it *not* to have rust issues. But for $4,100, this seems like a good deal, especially if the floors and frame do turn out to be solid.
I’ll
be very interested to hear what our readers have to say about this old
bus. NADA says the low retail for one of these is now about $7,400 – so
is this one a good deal or not?
Source: barnfinds.com
This 1970 Transporter (also called a Kombi station wagon) for sale here on craigslist in Trumbull, Connecticut appears to be in much better condition than many (though not all) of the other similar VW buses that have appeared here over the years. The seller says his bus is “all original, runs, shifts thru gear, no brakes need to go thru….Solid body, floor and rear area. Minimal rust, only surface rust. All jack points and frame solid.”
This bus also comes with some extra parts and a modest $4100 asking price. At least from the pictures, it appears to have solid floors, a far better than average interior, and an engine that must have been rebuilt or at least kept very clean over the past several years. Mileage on the bus is said to be a very modest 93,000 miles, which could be true based on the condition of this Vee Dub. The older Connecticut license plate suggests it has been off the road for some time as well.
On the other hand, the rust shown here appears, at least to me, to be much more than superficial, and there is pretty clear evidence this bus has had some amateur body work done to it in the past. Given that it’s now more than 45 years old and seems to have been in Connecticut for some time, it’s impossible for it *not* to have rust issues. But for $4,100, this seems like a good deal, especially if the floors and frame do turn out to be solid.
I’ll
be very interested to hear what our readers have to say about this old
bus. NADA says the low retail for one of these is now about $7,400 – so
is this one a good deal or not?Source: barnfinds.com
