Good morning! Today we’re looking at two very silly ideas, but they’re the sort of ideas I can see some people I know getting into their heads. At least they’re fairly cheap, and supposedly they both run, so there’s that.
We finished out our all-manual-gearbox week on Friday with a couple of European coupes. I had some hope for the BMW 320i, but it ended up playing second fiddle once again, this time to a Capri. The BMW just wasn’t as special; you can find another one for about the same price if you stay diligent. But a Capri in that condition is a rarity these days, even in car-crazy California.
And of course, I threw in the bonus choice for that incredibly clean Chevy Corsica from earlier in the week – and almost ten percent of you voted for it. If I’m being honest, that would be my choice as well. The Capri is too similar to my MG, and I’d rather have a 5 Series if I got an old BMW. But a stickshift Corsica sounds like a unique toy.
I think most car people have done it at one point: the impulse purchase. The car that you just had to have, even though it made no sense. You’ve got no place to put it, no money or time to devote to it, yet the idea of someone else going home with your prize is unbearable. Mine was a gigantic Buick convertible that I bought when I lived in Minneapolis and had no off-street parking, and already had another car. I didn’t keep it long.
Worse than finding something you can’t live without, though, is seeing your friend beaming with pride over some crusty nightmare-mobile that has somehow gotten into their driveway, and they ask you that dreaded question: “Whaddaya think?” You smile and nod, but you just know you’re going to get roped into working on this pile. That’s how I want you to approach this matchup: not which one would you rather have, but which one would you be more willing to help your friend fix up?
1965 Dodge Blue Bird School Bus – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 318 cubic inch overhead valve V8, four-speed manual (I assume), RWD
Location: “At the end of a dirt road near the town of Cobb, CA”
Odometer reading: 160,000 miles
Operational status: “Runs”
I saw a funny post online the other day that said, “Any machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough.” I’ve seen other, cruder versions of the same joke before, as well, that I can’t repeat here. After having seen some of the vehicles on the West Coast, I’d like to add my own version: Any vehicle is an RV with enough throw rugs. Witness this old retired Blue Bird school bus, which has apparently served as living quarters for someone already.
Under the hood, where it still proudly wears its official school bus yellow paint, resides a 318 cubic inch V8, Chrysler’s polyspheric-head workhorse of the 1960s, backed by a manual transmission. The ad doesn’t specify, but I assume it’s a four-speed, probably with a “granny gear” for steep hills. The only information we get about its mechanical condition is a single word: “Runs.” That’s something, I suppose, but as anyone who has ever tried to revive a dead vehicle knows, there’s a huge difference between running and roadworthy.
Inside, all the seats have been removed, and – yep – the floor is covered in throw rugs. There’s a bed at the back, and what looks like a small wood-burning stove in the middle. Up front, there does not appear to be a seat currently facing the steering wheel, which increases my suspicion that this bus hasn’t moved in a long time. The seller says it has never been registered in California, and you’ll owe the DMV $1,000 in back fees dating back to its last registration in Nevada – unless you tow it to another state that doesn’t charge back fees.
Outside, it doesn’t look much like a school bus anymore; it has traded its stop sign for an awning, and a spare tire carrier blocks the rear emergency exit. It doesn’t look rusty, at least. I guess if you were determined to put it back on the road and use it as an RV, or a band tour bus or something, you could. But you’ve got your work cut out for you.
2022 (?) Volkswagen-Based Sandrail – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6-liter (probably) overhead valve flat 4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Tucson, AZ
Odometer reading: unknown
Operational status: Runs and drives well
The idea of an old bus as an RV doesn’t really pose a threat to me, but a dune buggy? Now you’re talking. I’m not generally a huge air-cooled VW guy, but I’ve loved Baja bugs, dune buggies, and sandrails since I was a kid. How does a kid from Illinois end up falling in love with vehicles that are basically useless on the prairie? I blame Tamiya. You can’t do much with a real sandrail in the Chicago suburbs, but a 1/10 scale version turns any vacant lot or baseball diamond into a miniature Baja 1000. This sand rail is in a part of the country with plenty of places to play off-road, and even better, it’s street-legal, so you can drive it out to the desert to have fun.
There are a thousand ways to build something like this, and no two are alike, but they’re all mixed up from the same basic ingredients: Volkswagen Beetle front and rear suspension hung off a steel tube frame, usually powered by a VW flat-four. The seller doesn’t give many details about what was used; all they tell us is that it’s a “bus engine” and trailing-arm rear suspension rather than the earlier swing-axle setup. They say it “runs strong,” and a couple of photos in the ad show it pulling out of a driveway and motoring off down the street.
A lot of vehicles like this are strictly two-seaters, but the builder of this one saw fit to include a rear bench seat. I don’t see any seat belts for the rear, however, which seems like an oversight. I fear for the safety of that girl holding onto the roll cage in that photo above. The spare gas can looks well strapped down, though. Strange priorities, but whatever.
Up front, it has racing seats with padded four-point harnesses, which look much safer. Personally, I’d put some floorboards in it, though; you’re going to get pelted with rocks and sand through that steel mesh. Some sheet aluminum bolted to the mesh should take care of it. I also want to point out something else in that photo: see those two handles between the seats? Those are “turning brakes.” Each one of those handles acts directly on one rear brake or the other, slowing or stopping one rear wheel to help slide the rear end around on the sand. Cool, huh?
We all know these are both really dumb ideas. But I know, as I’m sure some of you do as well, someone who would buy either one without taking time to think it through. So, just imagine you show up at a friend’s house after getting a call asking for help on their new project. Which one of these two are you hoping it is?
The only way I’d vote for the bus would be if my friend needed no help in picking it up. “At the end of a dirt road” in that part of California means being comfortable with potentially picking it up outside of a working meth lab. Better go in well armed. If that friend were to pick it up, then it might be fun to help him turn it into a Taj Mahal sort of RV, but I’m still going with the rail. It would be much easier to get that into shape and a hell of a lot of fun.
Just get DT to go pick it up
I like seeing old workhorse vehicles put back on the road (school bus, tow truck, police cars, etc.), but that looks like a massive project. Unless I co-own it, that’s a big old “negative ghost rider” from me. Sandrail all day long.
The bus for me. I have no use for a dune buggy. And the bus is cheaper. So if the bus purchase doesn’t work out, I can get more money for it in scrap metal.
So how is a $2,000 bus with $1,000 in back fees with needed tow and no title cheaper than a $3,000 running and street legal sandrail?
When you bring it to the scrap metal dealer, you get more money because the bus has more metal.
I’ll take the dune buggy. The jerry can is non-negotiable and must come with it.
Easy choice: sand rail. It’ll end up being the Rail of Theseus when all is said and done. Being already street legal helps a lot. Those VW engines can be fixed with a hammer and baling wire. Someone out in the dunes will have the first two and the knowledge of how to apply them to get you out.
Either for personal purchase, or as what I’d want to help a friend wrench on, I’m choosing the sandrail. Hell, could wrenching be any easier? Every fricking bolt is exposed! And, an air-cooled VW engine is one of the easiest engines to work on.
As for personal ownership, I’d love to drive it down to the coast and get a beach-access permit and go as nuts as the authorities will let me.
Easy choice, sand rail all day. $3k is almost throw-away cash for a toy, and cheap enough to allow fixing whatever is screwed up. Hell, talk him down or sell something off, you’ve got a Grassroots Motorsports $2K Challenge car.
Looking at these two projects, I assume someone bit off a lot more than they could chew with the bus conversion, though it could have also been a case of deciding bus life wasn’t for them. It looks like it could have some significant issues, though.
The sandrail might have just not been worth keeping around because someone didn’t get the use they thought out of it, might have been less fun than expected, or the kids may have been zooming around dangerously.
I’d have to check either out thoroughly, but the sandrail seems like it would be fun a lot faster and cost me a lot less overall. If it were local, I’d be tempted to check it out, though I might also have to find a new place to live if I tried to bring it home.
I’m not sure the current resident of the bus didn’t just find it abandoned in situ and move in. Now he needs bail money and is selling to anyone willing to buy it.
That does match up well with the photos. If there weren’t the mention of owing $1000 in DMV fees, I’d absolutely assume that’s correct.
I’m close enough to the Great Sand Dunes National Park that I’ve been tempted to buy a sandrail several times, so this is an easy win for the VW from me today.
Everything about the bus tells me that it would be a PITA to work on. It’s been sitting, it’s basic enough to still run, but there would be sooooo much to do on it in order to get it running legally, that would make me shudder. It’s balls heavy, and every nut and bolt are probably rusted to the point of fusion – you’d probably need a breaker bar to change the damned wiper blades. That little dune buggy looks like a go-kart by comparison and would be an absolute joy to work on by comparison.
My dad had a VW buggy in the 70’s, but had to sell it because everyone wanted to borrow it, and he was afraid one of them was going to die or get maimed in it very soon.
So I’d go with the buggy, so I could re-live my dad’s experience.
That sand rail looks like a death trap. Besides the lack of rear seatbelts, the front belts look to be attached in a way, that if I remember correctly, will crush your spine in just about any kind of collision. Who knows how well that cage is designed or if any of the welds are actually good.
I spotted the front belts too. Why bother adding safety features half-arsedly enough that they become dangerous?
The sandrail gets my vote. The bus isn’t better than most RV conversions and would probably be hot to work inside. You could drag the VW into a garage with a big fan and a cooler of cold ones and tinker all weekend.
Instead of replacing the windshield on the buggy I would highly, HIGHLY recommend buying helmets for anyone who might ride in it. The old bus looks like a future mysterious and gruesome deaths podcast waiting for a subject so I’ll go with the buggy.
Looks like a Type3 engine on that rail. Could be a 1600, but it’s hard to see what’s going on under there. It’s the better choice. That bus would just be a PITA with no good payoff.
Where’s the poll? I gotta vote for the sandrail!
Sand rail, please!
That appears to be a Type IV (later) bus engine, which IIRC would have a displacement of 1.8 or 2.0 liters. There was also a 1.7-liter T4 but I think that was used primarily in the 411 and 412 (the descendants of the T3 Squareback).
Now that I think about it, both entries today have bus engines.
I was looking close at it, but I think it’s a Type3, not a Type 4. The exhaust port that you can see in the one pic is coming off the end of the head, not underneath. Plus, the generator is up to the left where a T4 would be hung way out on the right.
I believe you are correct: the generator location should have given it away. Thank you!
In my defense, I’m a little better at T1 stuff. 🙂
Years of staring at piles of all the engine versions in my horde o’ junk has left an indelible imprint on my memory.
I’m not proud of any of that.
People acquire knowledge in different ways 🙂
Do you still have the
junkcollection of stuff?Yes, but I have to thin the herd. I never thought I’d say it but I have too many cars (and engines, and parts, and…).
Skip.
Bus because I have a track record and a type
Today is a Both day. Turn the bus into an RV and tow the sandrail to the dunes. Fun weekends ahead.
But only the sandrail is road legal, so you’ll have to tow the bus with it…
There is so much work to do with getting that bus converted into an RV, the paperwork issues would be the least of my concerns.
It would be a pain to tow it out of California and get it to the Midwest, though.
If that bus ad were truthful, it would read more along the lines of “Cleetus done blowed all his fangers off’n his left hand. He ain’t gettin’ outta jail for at least 6 months, so he got no need fer a house, and we needs beer money! Too thousand bucks OBO. Runs.”
Gimme the rail.
“We was gonna have a doctor stick ‘em back on, but them dang fingers landed right in Memaw’s stew pot. I’ll be got damned if I can figure Cletus’ fingers from all them possum tails.”
California so probably more like Sundance got way stoned and his spirit guide told him to move the school bus to a new spectral plane buy selling it to a buyer and using the proceeds for weed and petrolie oil.
Love the idea of a conversion bus, but that’s an albatross around my neck as a resto project. Sandrail looks like a blast
Is that a coal stove in the bus?
Voted rail.
I would love to have the sand rail and somewhere to use it.
The sand rail, almost entirely because I have an air-cooled Beetle and am very familiar with them.
Besides, you just know that bus smells awful.