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nick

 2009-08-01

Like the New Beetle, which sprang almost directly from an earlier show vehicle, the Microbus prototype borrowed freely from the design of a cult favorite. But as it faced financial problems, VW management decided that a revival of the seminal minivan, a symbol of the freewheeling 60's to many who are now in their 60's, would have limited appeal outside the United States.

The devotion of American fans, though, has not faded, if a gathering of pre-1968 buses in Southern California last month is an accurate indicator. Even so, their commitment is not unlimited.

"Are you kidding?" Rick Clark, a veterinarian in Carmel, Calif., said when asked whether he had driven his '54 panel van the 400 miles from home. "I'd still be driving it. This can only go about 40 miles an hour."

Mr. Clark, who bought his bus - formerly a potato chip delivery van in Gloucester, England - in 2001, counts himself a lover of Transporters, as the buses are known, and the people they attract. "I can go to events like this anywhere in the world and meet, like, a retired industrialist talking to a bald guy with a tattoo on his head about the merits of the air-cooled engine. Where else can you find a community of auto collectors as diverse?"

The Huntington Beach event was billed as the largest in the United States for "Splitties," a nickname given to 1950-67 buses because of their divided two-pane windshield. The meet attracted Deadheads in graffiti-covered buses, lowered "Cal-look" surfer vans, day campers, families with enough children to fill nine seats and even a gardener with his lawnmower and landscaping tools in back.

VW, famous for sticking with designs like the Beetle for decades - for generations, in fact - introduced its utilitarian little bus in 1950, and completely restyled it just once over the next three decades. The later generations, the Vanagon of 1979 and the Eurovan introduced in 1992, bear little relation to the originals aside from the basic big-box shape.

Not everyone was enraptured with the ungainly "bread loaf," as kinder critics called the early models. The first Microbus was skewered for being a 2,500-pound vehicle with motive power on par with today's riding lawnmowers. The van's size and shape brutally overtaxed the 1,131-cubic-centimeter, 25-horsepower engine, which was limited to a "long-distance maximum speed" of 47 miles an hour, according to the manual. The van porpoised down the road, its wheels tended to fold under in turns and it would all but stop in a headwind.

The versatile rear-engine layout was adapted to many forms including a pickup, a high-roof delivery van, a camper and the Kombi model with removable seats. As a public service vehicle, versions were produced as mail trucks and even ambulances, albeit very slow ones.

The VW bus was both crudely primitive and cleverly innovative.

As Mr. Clark demonstrated, it could be started with a hand crank, like a horseless carriage, until the late 1950's. It was so minimalist that a dashboard was an option. The heater pulled its warm air supply from across the engine, with all the attendant smoke and aroma. Air-conditioning? Surely you jest.

In original form, the turn signals were not blinking lamps, but lighted semaphore arms that flipped out from the side pillars. The headlights were weak, a result of the 6-volt electrical system used until 1967, more than a decade after most cars had switched to 12 volts.

But it was also available with dual cargo doors on each side, years before any competitor had them. A four-door Double Cab pickup - like today's popular crew-cab trucks - was another early innovation.

Chris Horan regularly takes his lowered custom Microbus to vintage-car "cruise nights" near his home in Pasadena. "Mine is probably overrestored," he said. "There is always some extra part you're looking for, something else you want to have chromed. These things are a way of life."

Mr. Horan bought his bus 14 years ago while he was still in high school, for $1,600 from a desperate seller who was trying to raise bail. "It's probably worth $30,000 to $35,000 now," he said. "I've heard of some going for upwards of $50,000."

Mr. Horan's 21-window Deluxe model is prized by collectors for its quaint features like Safari windshield panels that open outward from the bottom, "vista windows" lined up on the roof like a sightseeing railcar and an enormous canvas sunroof.

Greg Guenthner, a Microbus owner from Northridge, Calif., keeps his baby swathed in blankets in the garage when he is not driving it. It survived one major earthquake with only a few scratches, but Mr. Guenthner worries that it would not last even one night on the street.

"These things are so popular, and in so much demand," he said, "it wouldn't be there in the morning."

That's exactly the fate of a 21-window bus belonging to John Saavedra of Whittier, Calif. It disappeared three days before the Huntington Beach meet.

"The city paved my street, and I had to park it overnight one street away," Mr. Saavedra said as he passed out "Wanted" posters. "The next morning it was gone."

Niels Ouwersloot considers himself lucky to have found an abandoned '66 camper model that he picked up at an auction for "virtually nothing."

"It was ugly on the outside," he said of his diamond in the rough, "and stinky, slimy and dirty on the inside."

But he and his girlfriend restored it in minute detail, as a true labor of love. When it was finished they took it on an overnight stay at Joshua Tree National Park. The next morning, Mr. Ouwersloot proposed.

"It was very romantic," he said, teary-eyed. "Of course she said 'yes.' What do you think?"
 2004-12-02
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