4th blog – date: December 21st, 2017
This week we finally managed to get in contact with the previous owner of Eve, living in California. Many tries via Facebook, E-Mail and TheSamba didn’t bring a result – but the last try was successful. Now we are exchanging messages with Mark nearly every day.
Previous Owners
Mark owned the 1967 Volkswagen Bus since 1990. Back then he bought it for less than 1.000,- Dollars in San Luis Obispo. His mother went with him to do the test drive and fix the deal. His father lent him the money, but he paid him back within several days.
Earlier a women owned the bus. She sold the bus to her brother because she met a new guy who bought her a brand new car. After some time the brother also had to sell it, because he struggled with liver problems and wanted to travel through USA by train before he died. So he sold the bus to Mark – as he liked to gentle way how Mark managed to shift the vehicle.
Back then the bus already did not have the original paint anymore – at least on the outside – as it received a respray. But on the inside everything was original, except some items that Mark found: a bag of old veggies and a huge knife behind the driver seat. As time went by, the respray wore out and so Mark used light grey primer to cover those areas. On the rear side he tried several colors. At some point the children in the neighborhood called it „The Cloud-Bus“ because it had so many different paint spots.
Visit our gallery to find more photos of Eves time in California, USA.
During all those years of course many works had to be done on the bus. For example in 2008/2009 a professional VW workshop in Huntington Beach overhauled the engine. Mark kept all of those bills as well as different small parts and the original „For Sale“ sign from 1990 and stored it in a plastic box. As he sold the bus to a guy from the Netherlands back in spring 2017 he gave him the box. So luckily we received that box too and now there are many photos, stories and lots of memories from the last 27 years waiting for us to be discovered. From time to time we will publish some blog articles about it. Never miss a post by following us on Facebook and Instagram.
„How to keep your Volkswagen alive“ – Book by John Muir
In the plastic container we also discovered a very used book with the title „How to keep your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot“ by John Muir. The book has first been published at the very end of the 60ies and as the name says it is a very simple repair guide for owners of aircooled Volkswagen cars. I liked it from the first moment on as it isn’t just very simple and helpful, but also shows many funny illustrations. Maybe you also noticed, that a part of the title is spelled wrong. Another funny and ironic detail that the author did on purpose.
Short Video
As Mark bought the Bus about 30 years ago, this book already came with the bus. And now a very interesting note that we just heard about this week – as Mark told us so… He named the Bus „Eve“ in honor of Eve Muir, the wife of John Muir who is the author of the book! Of course i did some research and so i stumbled over this video. It doesn’t just describe the book, but also shows John and Eve Muir!
Of course i had to buy a new book, as the old one was written in english language and already lost some of it sites. Luckily i found a new version – it also is a very recent one from 2017! Additionally it is the workshop version and it’s written in german. I ordered it an already received it. Now i will use the cold months to read it and learn more about our 1967 Volkswagen Bus Deluxe called Eve. 🙂
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