Here she is, parked in the driveway of the previous owner Glen, rolled out of the garage for the first time in a few years I believe. The crumpled looking nose is, I'm told, the result of Kangaroo damage... did I spell Kagaroo correctly ? whatever, Skippy should have looked where he was going.

As you can see, life is hard on old busses in Australia, the inside of the cab is pretty knarly, the seat is a mess and they've cut the front inner bulkhead in an attempt to repair the dents in the front. Luckilly for me Glen (the P.O.) works for a luxury boat builder and I got one of his workmates to re-trim the bench in gray vinyl for less than the cost of a TMI cover, looks great.

Inside the bus is pretty solid, compared to a UK bus of this age it's a dream, usually the bottom 2 feet is rust on a British Splitty. The wood you can see in there is part of a large supply of cherry finishings and vineer, once destined for one of the afore-mentioned boats, now destined for the interior of the bus ;-)

Small rear window, centre brake light, semaphores, ribbed bumpers, all the things I like best on a bus. Someone sprayed primer over the whole thing, I expect to protect it, possibly to hide the pink paint it was painted in in Oz. The Gaffer tape is covering up various holes all over the bodywork, one front screen is held in with it too, which was nice.

I expect you've realised that it's imported by now, originally from Australia the bus was shipped over by a friend of Glens a few years ago, Glen exchanged it for the price of the airfare back to Oz for his pal with the intention of restoring it. Some time later.... I come along at the right time and buy it, at the right price.

Considering the fact that it's right hand drive and solid, I'd even go as far as to say it was cheap, I'm sure Glen would say I robbed him, but the bus has gone to a good home:-)

A few weeks later and I've had the bus transported to Alex's yard, you remember Alex? He did much of the welding on my beetle, he does such a fine job I've asked him to do the bus too. He's moved out of the old garage and into a quiet farm building in the country, very pleasant indeed.

A pile of door rubbers, brake parts and assorted required junk, floormats are there, the dash paint is Horrible.

A couple of weeks later and he's begun at the front, I wanted new inner and outer valance as the old one was an ugly patchy affair. One side cab step was required, Al fitted a Schofield panel, adding a small arch lip section from the old wheelarch because the later ones are a slightly different shape. He's also started on the 4 outriggers required, and needs to fit a cargo door side inner and outer sill section. Thats about it for welding, told you it was solid :-)

Porsche Carrera Cup alloy, I've got one 16x6 rim, now I just need 3 more... I have adapters, I was going to use them to put the Fuchs from my Porsche on the Beetle for a change, but they might come in usefull here. I might get the rear drums drilled for Porsche PCD, to reduce off-set.

This is Al, the happy VW mechanic, I can recommend his work, as you'd expect.

And this is a car he's just built, it's for sale, has an 1835 dual Weber motor.

It goes like stink too, about as fast as my Porsche, I think he wants over 6 grand for it, perhaps more, I don't remember , but you can bet its well built.

The End, for now....