My First Air-Cooled Project Car
If you are familiar with SoCal Cars & Coffee and Porsche gatherings, you may recognize this bright red 1971 VW bus. It is directly responsible for kickstarting my entire air-cooled car journey.
Pete’s Bus
This tale began with an old gentleman that the neighborhood kids simply knew as “Pete”. As far back as I could remember we would see him drive his little white 71 VW Transporter up the street with a great big German Shepherd named Duke in the back seat. He was a daily part of the memories I have of where I grew up. We didn’t chat with him too often but every day the bus rattled by, we waved at Pete, and he waved back. This went on from elementary school (in the mid 80s) all the way through high school. After I started college, life accelerated to the point where I lost track of everyone in my neighborhood, including old Pete. I was the first to go to college in my household so everything else took a backseat to my studies. Even playing with cars.
I got my driver’s license at 17 but did not own my first car until I was 20 years old. That car was a 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS. It was my daily driver while I was at UC Irvine. I could always count on it to break down every few months and my dear old Dad helped me however he could to get it back on the road and get me back to class. I have a lot of good memories with that car but it definitely did not set my heart on fire.
I was lucky enough to find a full time job immediately after graduation at a small aerospace composites company close to home. The life of a newly graduated engineer at a small company is not a relaxed one, so off I went working my butt off to pay off college debt and learn as much as I could. At some point I started getting the itch for a project car.
Eventually old Pete passed away. I’m not sure exactly when but probably around the time I graduated in 2003. So much of that time was a blur. Once while driving home with my Dad discussing potential project cars we passed Pete’s old bus parked on the street with a “For Sale” sign on it. We went to check it out and immediately liked it. My dad liked it because it was mechanically simple and low risk. I loved it because it was Pete’s old bus! It turns out Pete had left it to his neighbors across the street, who had no use for it and put it up for sale. I bought it in April 2004 for $1200, drove it half a block home, and parked it in my parents’ driveway. I named her Velma, after the cooler of the two Scooby-Doo lady sleuths.
Velma the Bus
According to research I did on The Samba Forums, this bus had 2-panel louvered side windows like a Sportsmobile camper conversion. Sort of like a different flavor of Westfalia camper. According to the VIN breakdown it started life as a panel bus with no windows or interior aft of the front seats. When I bought it, it had no interior except some strange 70s wood paneling with moldy pink fiberglass insulation underneath it, a fixed wooden rear bench for Duke, and dog hair. Lots of dog hair.
Immediately I started cleaning it up and fixing small things like replacing the rusty muffler, broken front turn signal lens, and cleaning some surface rust on the floor. This was my little brother’s intro to project cars as well. At some point he and a friend camped in it overnight, in our driveway.
My family and I went down to Ensenada, Baja, Mexico often so on one trip we took the seats to get reupholstered in genuine Volkswagen-de-Mexico vinyl.
I mostly drove it to work and around the neighborhood for fun. It was running fairly well considering I had not done any mechanical maintenance on it. Eventually my parents moved and the bus went to their new house too. I had moved out and was chasing work wherever it was available so it became impossible to work on it on a regular basis. It was during the mid 2000s when the bus just sat and wouldn’t start, as most neglected cars eventually do.
I would occasionally dedicate a weekend at my parents’ to go work on the bus and knock out some mechanical tasks. I somehow managed to drop the engine, clean it, fix a bunch of oil leaks, rebuild the carb, and put everything back together again. I got it running again, though not well-tuned to be honest.
The Magic of Wrenching
Eventually I got married and my wife and I finally bought our own place. In our tiny 1-car garage I did my wrenching after work in the evenings. I became very immersed in learning and wrenching. This became my Zen activity as it was the only time I could concentrate on a hands-on mechanical problem, study it, and fix it at my own pace and under my full control, devoid of the presence of Gantt charts, conference calls, CYA documentation, and project managers. The fixing became just as enjoyable as the driving.
It wasn’t all wrenching all the time though. I did make it out to quite a few VW meets and met some fantastic people.
I quickly fell in love with the air-cooled VW community. I think it was their easy going DIY nature that I connected with the most. I loved that they came from all walks of life: young, old, rich, poor, and very diverse. Most of all I enjoyed their friendliness and generosity. I had never seen a group of car folks so eager to help others who needed mechanical assistance, much less pull out a jack, tools, and spares from their own car, on the spot, to help someone else in need.
After attending a few VW shows I started dreaming big about how to make Velma my own. I bought this tiny 1:87 scale model of a bay window panel bus wearing PORSCHE across its broad sides.
I found out later these buses existed as track support vehicles for Porsche races. Since I was also a Porsche fan, I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my bus when the time was right.
I found an uncut panel sliding door at a junkyard. I now had one less window to weld up! Then I found a rear bench seat and a spare tire cover. I started collecting spare parts for future needs.
Letting Go
My wife and I were both very career-focused and Velma eventually sat for more time than she was driven, and once again, started having chronic running issues. I struggled to find spare time to work on her. I came to the realization that this poor bus deserved someone who could keep her on the road more than I could. I am not one of those “someday I’m gunna fix it” guys who lets a car sit and rot for years. At the same time, I don’t give up often. My line of work is very long-term target based and if there is one thing I know how to do it is to take a project to the finish line at all costs. It broke my heart to just see her collecting dust and I knew she wasn’t going to get any better just sitting there.
In November 2009 I sold Velma to a nice lady who wanted it for her 16-year old son. Seeing her hauled away on a flatbed to be delivered to her next owner crushed me. Failed project cars are a part of a gearhead’s life, and this time it was my turn to experience it. Sorry Pete, I tried my best.
Moving On
Fast forward a few years later and my wife and I had moved again, now with our first daughter and a second on the way. I had a rusty orange 69 Ghia that satisfied my air-cooled itch for a short while then I sold that off as well. Then air-cooled Porsches caught my eye again and I started saving up for a 911 after realizing they were skyrocketing in price. I was a fan of them since discovering them in magazines as a kid. This was probably my last shot at ever buying one at a reasonable price.
In 2014 I got invited to a hip little Porsche gathering in LA called “Luftgekühlt”. Apparently it was dedicated only to air-cooled cars and this was the second annual event. I figured this would be the perfect spot to get some 911 inspiration.
I showed up to Luft 2 with my camera in hand and immediately start snapping photos of some beautiful cars.
Then things escalated VERY quickly. I saw a RUF Yellowbird.
Then Wayne Dempsey of Pelican Parts pulled up in his 959. Whoa, is this real life? I had just read his 911 Engine Rebuild book a few years earlier.
It was quite overwhelming being surrounded by so many cars I had only seen in magazines before. Then Luftgekühlt delivered yet another surprise. Wow, one of those track support VW buses! It drew me in and I aimed my camera at it.
Wait. Those seats.
That dash. I once painted my old bus dash flat black and re-riveted the VIN plate back on. Just like this.
I bought that exact EMPI license plate frame for my bus back in the day! I KNOW that old faded California plate! Could it be?
My hands were shaking and sweating, I couldn’t breathe, and my heart was pounding. I pulled out my phone and tried to log into my abandoned Photobucket account where I thought I still had the old bus photos from the For Sale ad. A few password attempts later, I found them and the license plate number matched! Even the tires were the same ones I put on! This. Cannot. Be. Real.
I could not believe what I was seeing. My old bus, that I dreamed of someday turning into a red Porsche track support bus was here before me in that very condition. I had not told anyone except a few close friends and yet my vision had come true under a new owner’s care. I am too scientific to believe any kind of spiritual forces were at play here but the next few minutes I just stood there staring, trying to process the situation. Pete driving and waving, his dog Duke, my old neighborhood, riding bikes in the street, then my brief ownership. All those memories just hit me all at once. It was overwhelming and I was so happy. My old Velma had made it.
Surprise
I was just dipping my toes into the car meet scene again and eventually found the red bus on photos from past Cars & Coffee events. I searched my own photo archives and found it had been at previous events I attended, but for whatever reason I completely missed it! There is so much eye candy at these SoCal events that its easy to overlook entire cars.
I made it a point to seek out the red bus next time I attended a Cars & Coffee but shortly after I purchased my 1983 911SC currently being restored on this very blog. Once the Porsche arrived attending car events took a back seat to wrenching. I kept my eye on Velma through social media instead, hoping someday I could park my 911 next to her once it was running. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I saw that it was up for sale.
The Future
After seeing it posted for sale, I reached out to its current owner, Claude Dudouit, to introduce myself. I shared some old photos with him and he shared some of his photos with me. It turns out he bought it from the very person I sold it to, cosmetically unchanged. He had the bus turned back into a panel and painted red with Porsche graphics. He is the owner of a motorsport memorabilia business called CD Automobilia. I found out this bus is world famous, having appeared on a French TV show called Direct Auto along with Claude!
Project car stories don’t usually end up like this. Imagine selling an incomplete project and requesting that the new owner fulfill your wishes and fix it up the way you originally wanted it. This is a literal project car fairly tale.
At this time the bus is on its way to Denmark. I wish the next owner the best of luck with the red bus. It was lucky enough to be loved by all its previous owners and I have no doubt that it will make its next owner very happy. I was hoping it stayed local for my own selfish desire to see it on a regular basis. I guess Ill need to plan a trip to Europe with my family and ship my 911 so I can park next to it at a future Porsche event someday. 🙂
Godspeed Velma. I hope that someday you get to perform some Porsche track support duty at your local racing circuit. Pete and I would be proud.
