Here we have a 1968 Volkswagen Microbus. First year of the Bay Window buses. The early bays are becoming desirable buses due to the ever growing prices of split window buses. This is currently my daily commuter and has served me well for the past 2 and a half years plus. As an added bonus this bus come with one of the coolest bus names ever! This bus is lovingly known as Scott Bay-O (read Scott Baio) It retains a fair amount of its original Savannah Beige paint and white roof. There are obvious spots of touch up from over the years but I have seen no evidence of any major accidents. The bus was originally an 8 passenger but but it appears some previous owner cut the original full width middle bench down to a 3/4 bench and made it a 7 passenger. The original upholstery for the seat bottom is folded and tucked under the bench. It is equipped with a 1600 Dual Port motor and a stock 3 rib transaxle.
If you're still reading then lets go a little deeper. I pulled this bus out of a backyard in a neighboring town. I brought it home and got it running, installed new load range C 27 x 8.5.14 truck tires, that fill up the fender wells quite nicely, and started driving it. I fixed whatever needed to be fixed and replaced what couldn't be fixed over the next few months. Soon enough the original transaxle gave up on me and I had it rebuilt by Bill Shanks at T&H transmissions here in Tulsa, OK. Bill's shop specialized in VW transmissions before Bill's recent unfortunate death. The transaxle has a '71 bell housing on it and therefore uses the later throw out bearing and pressure plate which can be considered an upgrade. It is a quiet, smooth operating transmission now. The next obstacle was the motor. It began leaking at the front seal and upon tear down I found the front bearing had beat out the case to a point that it was necessary to find another motor. I obtained an incredibly low mileage motor from a local VW shop and installed it and it is still in there today after many worry free miles. A few other projects over time have been; Installing a rebuilt wiper motor and new wiper pivots. New aftermarket plastic glove box to replace the old weathered cardboard one. Installing all new KYB White Gas-A-Just shocks which improved the ride and handeling. Replacing both the headlight and emergency flasher switch in the dash. Recently installed a brand new EMPI 34 carb to replace the leaky old original 34 and what a difference that made. I rebuilt the original horn when it stopped working a while back. Removed the clutch pedal and cleaned and greased the pivot along with repairing the cable attachment piece for effortless clutching. Replaced the rusted and deteriorated gas pedal and pivot with a new pivot welded to the floor and a new pedal, pin, and pivot kit. The ignition was just replaced too after the spring back feature failed. Recently we did a top end on the motor replacing the heads and pistons and cylinders with brand new parts as a little freshen up after some miles. The list goes on and I can't recall it all. The bottom line is this, I built this bus as my driver. I built it to not let me down. When something broke I repaired or replaced it. There were no short cuts because I relied on this bus to get me to work,home and everywhere else I decided to go.
Speaking of going, this bus has taken me all over Oklahoma and from Oklahoma to Northern Kansas, Arkansas, colorful Colorado and most recently to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the world premier of Circle the Wagen, a documentary about driving a bus cross country, at the Albuquerque Film and Media Festival. This bus lined main street in front of the theater along with 20+ other buses that day for the premier. I drive this bus daily and don't hesitate to jump in it and head out on the road.
All the electric works on this bus. The gas gauge reads a little off but I have learned to read it. I also recently upgraded the dash lights to get rid of the notoriously dim bay window dash. The rear hatch, cargo sliding door and ignition all work off the same key. The cab doors have never locked since I have owned it due to the fact that they have been replaced with earlier door handles. I am including to 1968 only cab door handles in the sale that you can take to a locksmith and have matched to the key so the entire bus will lock and start off one key. The bus has a lot of 1968 only features and all parts are there including the '68 long rear view mirror arm, '68 doors with pull knob locks, '68 wiper arms, early profile dash, early round reflectors and so on. It has a real great look with it's original paint patina and little touches like headlight rock guards that along with the bigger tires make this bus look ready to take on anything. I recently painted the wheels and bumpers to freshen up the look of the bus too.
As for the bad on this bus, it does have early bay rust around the front valance and dog legs. There is some damage to the rear engine vents on one side. The battery tray is rusted out but a temporary tray is in place and a new battery tray is included in the sale and can be easily installed at the next convenient time. One or possibly some of the previous owners have done some "body work" to the bus. There is unnecessary primer sprayed on the paint and some questionable body filler and fiber glass around the rockers. I never removed any of this because as my daily driver I didn't want to disturb anything but some of the work looks like overkill applied by an amateur. The sliding cargo door does not slide all the way back as it should. What you see in the pics is as far as it goes. I am unclear as to why because again since it didn't interfere with my driving of the bus I let it be. I have done no body work to this bus and I have replaced none of the seals. Just mechanical and electrical work. The bus currently has a cracked windshield. It does not interfere with the drivers line of site so again I did not replace it being concerned that it might turn into more work on a vehicle that was my daily transportation. Included in the sale is a decent used windshield that I have collected thinking of the future of the bus. The drivers seat is slightly more broken down than the other seats but that is known to happen. The dash has been opened for a modern stereo and the door cards cut for speakers. These aftermarket components were gone when I bought the bus and I'm not much for stereos in my cars so I never replaced them.
In preparation for this sale the bus has, in the past week, received a tune up including valve adjust, points gap and timing set, carb tuning, fan belt adjustment/tightening, oil change, greased front end, brake adjust and four new CV boots to replace cracked and torn old ones. The bus comes with a spare accelerator cable, spare clutch cable and spare fan belt. I always drive with these and no VW should be without them. Other miscellaneous bay window parts are included in this sale. Parts I have collected for the bus over the past couple years. The bus is currently tagged, titled and insured in my name clean and clear. I'm sure I have forgotten a few things so please feel free to ask questions or request additional pictures.
Volkswagen Bus/Vanagon for Sale
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Auto blog
Sun, 31 Aug 2014
Volkswagen is not messing around when it characterizes its new MQB architecture as modular. It's already underpinning the VW Golf, Audi A3, Seat Leon and Skoda Octavia, and will soon form the basis for many more. And here is the latest.
Unveiled at the Chengdu Motor Show in China this weekend is the new Volkswagen Lamando, a four-door coupe similar in size to a Jetta but with the svelter roofline of the larger Passat-based CC to go after the Mercedes-Benz CLA. It's essentially the production version of the New Midsize Coupe concept that previewed its arrival at the Beijing Motor Show this past April, and will be built locally for local consumption by VW's joint venture with SAIC.
Power comes from either a 1.4- or 2.0-liter turbo four mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, with an equivalent price tag below $30,000. Whether this or any similar vehicle ever arrives in North American showrooms remains to be seen, but we'll be watching to find out. In the meantime you can scope it out in the trippy video below and the photos in the gallery above.
Fri, 16 May 2014
The Volkswagen brand sold 407,704 cars last year, a 6.95-percent decline compared to 2012, and it's down a further 8.36 percent through the end of April 2014 compared to this time last year. In order to to put the sales football between its Strategy 2018 goal posts, the brand would need to add 100,000 more sales every year to achieve the lofty 800,000-unit target. Coming to grips with how unreasonable that is, VW US CEO Michael Horn has said, "For now, we have to have realistic targets."
The reasons for the brand's slow-down are imprecise, but lots of folks are throwing lots of reasons around. Last November, VW Group Chairman Ferdinand Piech told Bloomberg, "We understand Europe, we understand China and we understand Brazil, [but] we only understand the US to a certain degree so far." Analysts say the brand hasn't had midsize and compact SUV offerings, especially an overdue retail version of the CrossBlue, and the ones it does have are priced too high for their segments. It "didn't introduce enough new engines, or alternative technologies or model variants" for the Passat and Jetta. It devoted so many resources to China that the US market suffered. It was being outspent two-to-one on advertising by competitors. Its J.D. Power dependability ratings aren't high enough to overcome its past. It "has never really taken the US customer seriously." And so on.
There's still no official admission of defeat concerning the target, but reading between the lines there are some VW execs that appear to accept it won't happen short of some deus ex machina. Still,
Fri, 19 Apr 2013
Think back to January's Detroit Auto Show. Those of you that are fans of the Volkswagen brand, impressed with green technology or simply fall into the "diesel geek" category, will almost certainly remember VW's CrossBlue concept with its diesel/electric hybrid powertrain, seating for seven, and somewhat awkward crossover styling. It was an impressive piece of future tech, to be sure, though it left something to be desired in the, well, desirability department.
Here in Shanghai, VW has brought along a CrossBlue Coupe concept that would seem to include most of the goodness of the original, but flavored with more sport and style this time around.
The CrossBlue Coupe makes use of the same electric drive components as the larger three-row concept: two electric motors (front and rear) powered by a 9.8-kWh lithium-ion battery. However, where the original concept made use of a TDI four-cylinder, the Coupe substitutes a 295-horsepower, direct-injection, gasoline-burning V6.
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