Time does a lot to a person. You get older, usually more experienced, and hopefully a little wiser. You learn your limits and your skills. Mistakes you made in the past are finally laid bare. My biggest automotive mistake was blindly following my childhood dream and buying a cheap variant of the iconic GMC RTS-II transit bus. I was perhaps the happiest person in the world five years ago, but today, I must admit defeat. I should never have purchased this bus, and now I must send it to a new home before it’s too late.
I suppose I’ve never been a typical car enthusiast. When I was a teen, my classmates talked about Ford Mustangs, Chevy Camaros, and the Ferrari of the week. I talked about Smart Fortwos, cargo vans, and buses. Some of my fondest memories in school were listening to the growl of the big block V8 that powered the GMC school buses I rode in, and the International DT466E engines that powered those buses I rode in. When I was in fifth grade and was given an exercise to make an imaginary budget, I imagined myself owning a Ford F-350, not because it was a pickup truck, but because it was yellow and had a large diesel engine.
In 2021, I achieved what was a childhood dream. For as long as I could remember, I adored the domineering transit buses of General Motors, particularly the New Look and the RTS-II. I loved the genuine innovation baked into these buses, and thought they were the coolest-looking transit vehicles in the world. So, when an opportunity to buy an RTS derivative for only $5,500 presented itself in 2021, I took it. I went in without a real plan. I just wanted the bus.
Now, I have it. I had some fun with my bus, and it was the member of the fleet that I was the most attached to that wasn’t a Smart, Saturn Sky, or Suzuki RE-5. But the fear that was at the back of my mind became reality. I was ill-equipped to take care of this bus from the start. I remain in that position today. It’s taken a long time, but I must admit defeat and let go before it’s too late. So, I’m saying goodbye to the bus that I probably shouldn’t have bought in the first place.
How I Got GM’s Legendary Bus
I’ve written about the history of the RTS pretty extensively. Click here for some history. Otherwise, I’m going to skip to how I even got an RTS.
My love for transit buses was an extension of my love for school buses. I’ve always lived in places with lousy public transit, so I never took an RTS-II while it was still in service. Instead, I discovered the RTS-II through books and video media. Kid me thought school buses were awesome, but transit buses? I thought those were the apex of buses. At the top of my list was the New Look, possibly from watching Speed, and tied with that was the RTS-II, the bus of the future.
As luck, or fate, would have it, one of the last operators of the RTS series was Texas A&M University (TAMU). The university runs a transit system that it calls Aggie Spirit, and something that’s pretty neat about Aggie Spirit is that the bus drivers are students. TAMU offers paid training for a commercial license, and then you get to drive TAMU buses, hauling other students along the line. I am one of the only non-TAMU alumni members of a TAMU bus driver group, and I love it because the bus operators are so tight-knit. These lovely people found camaraderie in driving big buses.
TAMU’s bus fleet was also unique in that it used to be full of Nova Bus RTS-06-series units. However, by 2020, the youngest of these buses was 18 years old. TAMU began auctioning these buses off on GovDeals, and soon enough, the buses began spreading out all over Texas. Many of those who bought the old buses were the students who drove them when they were in school. Sadly, I didn’t know about the auctions until after I bought my bus.
Anyway, I saw my bus for sale on Facebook for the princely sum of $6,000. I negotiated the guy, a former TAMU student, down to $5,500. Then, Sheryl and I piled into her Chevy HHR and sped 1,200 miles south to a location just outside of Austin.
A Dream Made Reality
My heart raced when I saw my bus for the first time. So many thoughts were going through my mind. A part of me wanted to back out at the last second. This was crazy! It’s one thing to buy a cheap diesel Volkswagen Jetta in Wisconsin; it’s an entirely different game to buy an entire 35-foot transit bus. Deep down, I knew I had no business buying this bus. I didn’t have a CDL, I had to convince Liberty Mutual to insure the thing, and my license plate was a paper temporary plate I got from the state of Vermont after I pinky-swore the bus was totally an RV. I hadn’t even driven a transit bus at that point in my life.
But that childhood dream powered through my doubts. I gave the seller his cash, hopped in the Recaro air seat, switched on the air-conditioner, and hit the road. I was in love. I quickly discovered that, due to its cab-forward design, my bus turned on a dime compared to a school bus. Between the air seat and the air suspension, it was supremely comfortable, too. The air conditioner is the best I’ve experienced in a vehicle to date. The air was so strong that it frosted my windows over on a hot Texas day that was well over 100 degrees. I had to open the windows to keep myself from freezing. I even saw my breath!
My bus is powered by a Detroit Diesel Series 50, a massive 8.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder making at least 250 horsepower, and it’s paired with a five-speed ZF 5HP592C automatic. But the coolest part may have been the top speed. Many transit buses are geared to go no faster than 45 mph or 55 mph. However, TAMU used these buses on higher speed services, so the Aggie Novas cruised at highway speed without breaking a sweat.
Immediate Cracks
I wrote about my experience driving the bus 1,200 miles home for Jalopnik back in 2021. Honestly, the red flags appeared immediately. From that piece:
Unfortunately, not all appears to be well with this unit. Only a few miles into our drive home and the low oil pressure alarm started blaring at about 70 mph. That was odd, as the seller never mentioned anything about low oil pressure and even showed that it passed an independent inspection.
It was 98 degrees in Austin that day, so we thought that maybe the heat was too much for the speed I wanted to go. To make matters worse, the ECU’s programming shuts the engine down if it reads low oil pressure for too long. The bus stranded itself and blocked traffic for a while. I later discovered an engine overrule switch that overrides the engine protection system and keeps the engine running.
Sadly, I’d spend much of the trip hitting that button as the oil pressure warning would come on at completely random times, but only at speeds above 60 mph, and temperature didn’t really matter.
My bus is a thing of mystery. I was told by TAMU drivers that the buses are electronically limited to 62 mph. Yet, mine hits 70 mph just fine before hitting the limiter. Sometimes, I saw a GPS-claimed 75 mph (70 mph indicated) before the limiter kicked in. Nobody could explain why my bus was much faster than it should have been. One of my good friends is a heavy diesel mechanic, and his best guess is that, at some point in the past, the ECU was replaced with one that wasn’t meant for my bus.
TAMU’s maintenance department was kind and sent me the entire service history for the bus. It was over 900 pages long and featured entries including several transmission overheating events, an engine overhaul, air suspension replacement, and a million other things. For over five years, I never really figured out why my bus was so fast, and just considered the extra speed as a nice perk.
As for the oil pressure warning indication, I did find out the sensor was bad. But I had never pressure-tested the bus, so I didn’t know how much oil pressure the engine actually makes. There was enough pressure for a cross-country road trip, but I don’t know the actual number. Maybe I was too scared to find out.
What I can say is that oil analysis showed a shocking amount of lead, but no other wear metals in the coach’s oil. I would later join a Facebook chat that just so happened to have the previous owner of my bus in it. The chat’s records indicated that the bus was giving low-pressure warnings for almost a year before I bought it, and the warnings were one of the motivating factors for TAMU to dump the bus. The previous owner knew about the issue because, as the chat logs showed, it worried him when he owned the bus. He never disclosed the issue to me.
But again, I was so deeply in love with my bus that I ignored the red flags. I didn’t even ask the guy why he hid the oil issue from me. To paraphrase the show BoJack Horseman, “When you look at a bus through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”
My Dream Meets Reality
But things were good for a while. I initially bought the bus for an RV conversion. But then I figured out that I don’t have the skill or the time to build my own RV. The dirty secret is that a decent DIY RV conversion could take you half of a decade, and that’s if you’re investing all of your free time into it. I also learned that my bus was sort of a rare-ish piece of history. Most RTS end up scrapped or turned into an RV, so I had an opportunity to preserve one as it was in service in 2020.
So, I did that. I didn’t change a thing. Instead, I sometimes drove the bus to the beach and back, sort of treating it like it was a Corvette. Amusingly, if I happened to stop the bus at a light that was beside a bus stop, sometimes people would try to board. It’s weird because the Illinois Pace bus system uses vastly different, much newer buses with a very blue paint scheme. I’m not sure why folks thought I was a bus that was in service.
My dream finally met reality in roughly 2022 when law enforcement kindly suggested that having a Vermont license plate and an Illinois address wasn’t kosher in this state, and should a cop think something was a bit too goofy, they could order the bus impounded. Sure, I might be able to get the citations dismissed, but I would still be on the hook for the towing and storage fees, which wouldn’t be cheap for such a huge vehicle.
Until summer 2023, Vermont registered any bus as an RV without proof of a conversion, and happily sent the license plates anywhere in America. The so-called “Vermont Registration Loophole” was a lifeline for people who bought old school buses to turn into RVs, but needed to legally drive them home from the auction or from the seller. Then, you just turned the Vermont registration into your DMV and got a shiny RV plate from your home state. This didn’t work for me because by the time I tried to do this, the secret about the Vermont loophole was out.
Illinois requires a moderate RV conversion before issuing similar plates. I also needed a license in the correct weight class. Illinois is not like many states in that an RV plate is a loophole out of weight class requirements. While Illinois doesn’t require you to get a CDL to drive an RV, it does require you to upgrade your license’s class. In my case, I’d need a Class B.
Truth be told, I always knew this was the risk with going all in on Vermont. Yes, Vermont was willing to mail license plates and registration to anyone living in any part of America, but your mileage always varied. You might get away with a Vermont plate on a Toyota Corolla, but a big white old transit bus sort of sticks out. But again, rosy shades.
So, I parked the bus until I could figure out my next steps. Obviously, I needed to fix the license issue. I don’t have any local friends with a Class B or better who could drive the bus to the testing station. But also, I needed it to be registered in Illinois, too, which was another can of worms. Ultimately, I just kept kicking the can down the road. Other things kept taking priority, from work to dealing with what was then my wife’s cancer diagnosis.
Way In Over My Head
Then, I realized that just taking care of the bus was darn near impossible for a single person. Unlike the transit bus, my school bus felt like a pickup truck that was scaled up by a factor of five. It had somewhat pickup-like hydraulic brakes, a big ol’ pickup-like alternator, leaf springs, and an engine and transmission that could be serviced by one person with an adjustable hammer. Working on the school bus felt like working on a pickup, only everything was bigger. Even parts weren’t that expensive. It even took two cheap car batteries from Walmart.
The transit bus, on the other hand, is like working on a space shuttle. For starters, there is no key. The bus is technically always active, and you start it by turning a dial and flicking a switch. Because of this, the bus will drain its batteries after only a week of sitting unless you disconnect the batteries. The bus has a tray of batteries that, combined, weigh more than I do, and a pair of compatible batteries costs more than $1,000.
The bus is computerized, and all warning indication is done through lights, a beeper, and a buzzer. If I want to check diagnostic codes, I have to put in a darned Konami Code to enter diagnostic mode and then count each beep to determine the check engine code.
Then there’s everything else, from the air brakes and air suspension to the jungle in the engine bay. This bus is too much for one person to handle. I’ve been told that transit operators tend to have crews for this, and those folks have education and certification, so they know what they’re doing. I’m one person working outside in gravel. Don’t even ask about any parts, as parts are both hard to find and are often ludicrously expensive. Heavy diesel mechanics aren’t cheap, either.
I didn’t even get around to replacing this deteriorated baggage door hinge. The 5-foot section of rubber alone was $55. GM made its hinges entirely out of rubber, and over time, this rubber becomes as hard as a rock, ultimately causing a baggage door failure. Replacing the rubber hinge involves chiseling and grinding the old rubber out, and then fighting to fit the new rubber into place. You might wonder why I haven’t shown pictures of the battery tray, and honestly, it’s because I don’t trust that the hinge rubber will hold together.
It has taken me two, maybe three years to admit this, but this bus is way beyond my pay grade. I was in over my head years ago, but I was too stubborn and too in love to admit it. Honestly, this seems to be the curse of any coach bus or transit bus that falls into private hands. Many private owners figure out the hard way that these beautiful buses are a full-time commitment. It really takes watching only one Bus Grease Monkey video to figure that one out.
Time To Pass On My Dream
So, I have to admit defeat and rehome the bus. I took terrible care of this thing, and it needs a better home than the one I can provide. It’s taken me a long time to get here, but it is the correct conclusion. Technically, I should have never purchased the bus in the first place. Now, I fear that I reached this conclusion too late. But I guess, at least, it didn’t take me decades to get to this point.
I am offering the bus entirely for free to any museum that wants it. I have already contacted the Illinois Railway Museum and the Midwest Bus Museum. IRM’s bus department doesn’t have the resources to take on my bus right now, and MBM hasn’t responded to my inquiry yet. The bus is a piece of history that deserves to be preserved.
However, I won’t lie, my bus is not a perfect candidate. It hasn’t been started in a couple of years. So, right off the bat, it’s going to need new batteries. Then, who knows what the condition of the air system will be once the bus is running. That assumes it even starts. Then, that unresolved issue with the oil pressure warning indication remains. The bus also had a knack for blowing a lot of black smoke when under load. What I’m saying is that the bus has over 400,000 miles, and it’s probably pretty tired.
My hope is that there is a museum that’s somewhere, anywhere, that wants a free bus to add to their collection. I’d rather see this bus saved as a time capsule than turned into scrap. I’d also give the bus to a collector for free. But if all else fails, I suppose I’ll toss it to the unwashed masses of Facebook Marketplace and see what happens.
Despite the top graphic, I don’t think I regret buying the bus, though I’m convinced that I shouldn’t have bought it. But I did, and I had a thrilling time with the bus while the good times lasted. I drove it basically across the country, narrowly missed a tornado, and provided a guiding light for travelers stuck in a torrential downpour. The bus put smiles on people’s faces, and driving the bus gave me some of the last trips I took with my beloved late chihuahua, Malört (above).
I get to keep the photos and all of those memories for as long as I remember them. I also get to say that I owned my dream transit bus. I mean, how many regular people can say they’ve ever owned a whole operational city bus? But I am not the person to own this bus. I got to live my dream, now I must let go. If you know of anyone or any museum that might want my bus, comment them down below, or have them email me at mercedes@theautopian.com.
All photos by Mercedes Streeter
Top graphic image: Mercedes Streeter
I did the same thing with a 1972 VW Karmann Ghia back around 1997. It basically needed everything and regardless of how simple old air cooled VW engines are, I didn’t have space, tools, money, or experience working on engines (still don’t) to tackle it. It ended up sitting in the parking lot at my apartment complex for a while and when I moved to a new house, I had to throw a for sale sign in the window because it wasn’t moving under it’s own power. I considered having it towed to the house, but knew it would just continue to sit and deteriorate. Part of me wishes I had kept it, but the logical part of my brain knows letting it go was the correct choice.
Simple solution- Get your CDL!
You’ve got one of the best busses ever built there with two thirds of a Series 60 Detroit and the best stainless steel bones possible. RV conversion would just get in the way of hauling motorcycles (got wheelchair lift?), just pull out seats as needed, add cots and shades, and go camping! Writing studio, parades, mobile workshops or whatever, ferrying a busload of trans refugees to safety- You can’t give this bus up!
Lotsa school districts and cities will train you and help you pass the CDL test, always good to have more marketable skills and then you can test big rigs too… Go for it!
One of my goals for 2026 is to up my license count, first with a private pilot license and then a CDL. I never thought about seeing what school districts could help with this goal! I sort of thought that I’d just pitch the idea to a CDL school for a series of articles on what it’s like to get a CDL.
I see lots of companies offer CDL training, but usually that’s coupled with rules like “if you leave within 2 years of attaining the CDL, you owe us the schooling and test fees.”
What bums me out is that I really want to get a non-commercial class A license–just so I could buy or even just drive an empty school bus or similar–but it seems that even if that would get past the formal schooling requirement, I’d still need a class A driver friend to help me practice after I acquire a permit, and then also provide a vehicle for the actual test.
An F endorsement here will allow you to drive many commercial vehicles up to the 13 ton limit.
It’s a commercial use endorsement.
I presume you mean biggest mistake as in terms of actual physical dimensions, because if you’ve made it this far in life without make a mistake of bigger magnitude you are one blessed lady!!
Came here to say this.
Municipal transit buses are a much more complicated beast than school buses, as you mention. It’s part of the reason they can be pounded on day-in-and-day-out in thankless municipal transit use for untold hundreds of thousands of miles. But that means big bucks for maintenance and repair; far beyond what most can really cope with on an amateur-level budget and knowledge.
It’s kind of the difference between a Cessna 172 and a commercial jet.
Anyway, glad you had your adventure with it, but it is best to realize it wasn’t going to be sustainable before big bucks got involved.
It seems like many levels more complicated.
I looked at full sized school buses for a little while, and there you can at least get something that has a pickup truck drivetrain. You still need to deal with everything else being unique and heavy duty, but if I get one with brakes and tires in OK shape I’m probably never putting enough miles on it to worry about those things. For me, though, the lack of comfort dealing with a diesel was a dealbreaker even if it was powerstroke and mounted up front. Hidden in the back and with parts you can’t grab at autozone? No way.
Ended up with a minibus that is just an Express 3500 cutaway. Parts are cheap, plentiful, accessible, and it’s a gasser so that’s a load off my shoulders.
Proper commercial grade diesels have more expensive parts, but they need work less often, and most are rebuildable, not throwaway.
My vacuum pump, apparently carved from. a block of steel, costs $$$ new, $300 for a retail rebuild, $30 in parts to rebuild it.
Older costs less to repair.
The fact they sit so low is probably one of the biggest challenges. School busses at least you can get under them pretty comfortably with a creeper. Rear-engine isn’t too awful (well, at least as long as it’s longitudinal) since if anything it means not having to work around a big hood flopped open to get at the accessory drive where you probably would need to do most work.
Good pint, a double edged sword for sure. The under storage makes it a fantastic base for an RV conversion, but also makes working underneath a lot harder.
If you sell the bus, where’s the dog going to sleep? Priorities!
Sadly, that hasn’t been a problem since about 2022. Don’t be sorry! Little Malort’s final years were full of adventures! ♥
Oh. Sorry about your friend. I see who really owned the bus, though.
Malort is the most Chicago name for a dog and I love it.
>my school bus felt like a pickup truck that was scaled up by a factor of five.
>The transit bus, on the other hand, is like working on a space shuttle.
I have learned another thing not to attempt unless I can devote all my spare time to it.
Note to self: Don’t buy a used space shuttle. Got it! /s
Sometimes last year’s race car is still a deal.
Maybe you could convince the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke to take it to exhibit along with their trains, cars, etc.
You would love the museum.
https://www.vmt.org/about
Scene: The bus gets hauled out of its parking spot where it’s been sitting for a few years.
Mercedes: Wow. I wonder where all the rats are gonna go.
DT: Okay, everybody, tuck your pants into your socks.
I faintly heard Moe Syzslak there…
“it’ll flash fry a buffalo in 45 seconds.”
YouTube’s Car Wizard tried an RV conversion on a city bus and ultimately gave up. It must be one of those things that is a lot harder than it sounds.
From what I observed, it’s just a huge time commitment to do it right more than anything else. You have to gut the bus, and then build out your entire interior by hand. Then you have to do electrical, plumbing, and all of that stuff. Or hire people to do that, which will cost big money.
You could do a low-budget, low-skill build by tossing out the seats, sliding in a bed, and then using portable equipment like a power station, cassette toilet, mini fridge, and so on. But then you end up with a crappy RV that isn’t any better than a cheap RV from Craigslist.
All of my friends who tried to build their own bus conversions either ended up buying a pre-built conversion or gave up and bought a normal RV. I was basically doomed from the start.
We had a number of 40s buses I put in Hemmings, so I talked to a number of bus builders pre arpanet.
They’re out there and it’s easier to find them and ask advice now.
There are all sorts of approaches to RV conversions and people to ask.
I don’t think it was a mistake. I mean, you fulfilled your dream of owning an RTS-II right? You got to drive it and everything. Sometimes what we think will be great ends up turning out to fall below our expectations and that’s OK!
My biggest car regret was buying that 95 S10 Blazer with the check engine light on, from a Chevy dealership that claimed they couldn’t read the code for some reason. $500 in fuel injectors later, that was only the beginning of my problems.
All I had to do was get t-boned in an accident to get rid of my mistake. Luckily you don’t have to resort to such measures.
Let me guess… CPI Vortec V6?
My neighbor bought an Astro van with that system. He got it cheap at an auction because it barely ran (completely flooded and kicking out clouds of smoke). We replaced the spider injector system and it ran surprisingly well. I figured it would have scored cylinders and a plugged cat, but being a GM, it just kept going…
I had an S10 with it when I was in high school and the injector assembly failed. GM knew that assembly was a problem and did a TSB for it on CA smog equipped trucks, saying the gas in CA was the cause. I was in CA, but my truck was originally from out of state with Fed Emissions, so they wouldn’t cover it. So dumb.
Not sure. It was never right, full of problems I discovered later. My ex-wife went back with her mom and in typical fashion blew up and got kicked out. About a year later that Chevy dealership was no longer in biz, shocking.
I only paid $2500 and that was years ago when $2500 was big bucks for a car.
So much for the “Jalopnik Reality Bus Tour”. Do we still get pizza bagels and mini Three Musketeers?
They are renting the showers in the UCLA locker room and hosting a spaghetti dinner instead.
You get a wheelbarrow of shrimp, but only 1 bag of ice. Eat those shrimp fast!
I’m glad you’re ready to send it on. You’ve learned a lot, you’ve grown a lot. Anytime we do something really stupid, and manage to learn without getting hurt, that’s a win. And you had some fun along the way!
Seems to match the old adage that GM first designs an AC system and then designs a vehicle around it.
From personal experience (if I didn’t ride that exact bus I definitely rode it’s brethren) those A/C systems work great up to about 80% capacity in Texas summer. Once you’ve packed every last student you can cram in there and it’s 105 degrees out the A/C is just a vague hope.
Ah. I was thinking it sounded crazy it was built to be powerful enough you could see your breath. But of course it would have to be to keep up with that many passengers (or, apparently, not). Makes me wonder how cold a modern bus could get empty and on full blast.
You have nothing but my admiration for diving into a regretful purchase on such a grand scale. Have I regretted any of my cars? Mostly yes. In hindsight, buying a ’63 Corvair that was made out of rust and bondo and would likely never run again was a bad idea. Replacing it with a ’65 Corvair convertible that actually ran was a good idea, but using that car as a daily driver was a very, very bad idea. And splurging on a collector-owned 1991 Thunderbird SC was to use as a daily driver turned into a bad idea when it got rear-ended and totaled. That car was likely to veer into bad idea territory given how complex things were under the hood.
But just like you I’m glad I bought them and on the few ones that ended up costing me money – I’d say it’s money well spent. There’s something special about owning something that has always captured your aspirations. It was cool to wake up in the morning and think “I have a Corvair. I’m going to go poke it again and make sure it’s real.”
Mercedes, try the Wheels O’ Time museum in Dunlap, IL. I don’t know if they have the space right now but who knows. Also see if the IRM or MBM or…anyone you call, I guess, if they know an institution who would take it.
Another shout might be the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis – actually, that’s probably more likely than WOT. I don’t know any other places that might be interested in mass transit equipment off the top of my head. Don’t think Monticello Railway Museum down in Monticello does busses, think they’re strictly rail equipment. Might be something in Indiana I’m not thinking of either.
The Henry Ford museum (now oddly just called “The Henry Ford”) in Dearborn, MI., might be interested as well. They have a lot of different vehicles, not just Fords.
Unfortunately with as spectacular a collection as they have, I don’t think this one will be quite up to their standards. It’s not quite rare or interesting enough to fit in there.
Yeah, they have the Rosa Parks bus, and examples of almost every Presidential Limo. For them to want this it would need some sort of historic pedigree. They also spend a ton of time and money to restore or preserve everything in their collection. Not sure this example meets the cost required to do that.
Funny, so does the museum in Memphis.
I bet there’s a lot of them out there.
Ha. yeah I was gonna say I’m pretty sure I sat on that bus in Memphis. Sort of like finding out The Village People are playing multiple shows at the same time on different sides of the country.
When I visited the Vatican there were two Pietas.
One out in the open under lights.
If you took a tour through narrow passages, at one spot there were two locked wooden doors with a small peephole, with the statue inside.
I might have to dive down this rabbit hole. I’m close enough to The Henry Ford to be pesky about it, and I’ve always wanted to visit Memphis and Nashville.
It’s at the national civil rights museum/loraine motel (where MLK was assassinated). It’s a fantastic museum but as you would imagine, intense.
Yeah, honestly it’s gonna be a hard sell for any reputable and well-resourced museum. I get and respect that Mercedes is passionate about these things but not enough others are to justify it be a worthwhile exhibit. Any place that would be willing to take this probably doesn’t have the resources to properly care for it either and it’d just continue to sit and rot.
Last resort, a rural bnb might use it as a cabin?
“Come stay in our big-ass van down by the river!”
$499/night
Yeah, I’m quickly beginning to realize that this thing is probably going to end up in the hands of a scrapper, which is sad, but was probably always going to be the coach’s fate. But now I wonder how the heck do I even scrap something of this size? It’s probably worth something in scrap, but it’s not like you can just call up a rollback.
I’ve just had another thought that might help grease the wheels so to speak: offer to cover the transportation costs yourself, or, do a fundraiser to do it. The latter might help convince the curators that you’re serious about preservation and not “just” dumping this thing. Any extra from the fundraiser can help to restore it as well.
What’s the scrap value? Asking for a friend 🙂 That’s the easiest way to clear out the oversized issue.
Well, it’s something like 20,000 pounds of mostly stainless steel. I’d rather not see it scrapped, but if that ends up its final disposition, then I guess so be it…
I think I would rather scrap it than deal with the Marketplaces offers to trade for a shotgun and motorcycle or other goofy trade offers.
At this point, a shotgun and a motorcycle would be more than a fair trade. lol
I dunno, if she got a trade offer for a Track T800 CDI Diesel motorcycle, I bet she would jump at it.
I think Mercedes could be talked into it for the right model of shotgun and motorcycle.
The motorcycle alone would be worth it! I could fix the bike and ride it for a while (yes, I’m assuming the theoretical bike doesn’t run) before selling it. I’ve also long wanted to learn how to shoot, so the shotgun hits that desire, too!
OMG. Malört is possibly the best name ever for a chihuahua. I’m no huge fan of either one, but the combination is perfect.
Good on you for admitting defeat and taking the loss. There are other hills to climb, or to die on.
About 10 years ago, I almost bought an airport firetruck. Only 10k. I later met the guy who bought it. He was familiar with big Diesels (I’m not). It got part way up I-80 i the Sierras and died. Ended up needing a very expensive tow for 200 miles. The firetruck sits across from the guys house to this day. I dodged a bullet…
You made the right call. I oddly somehow know of two families who own (running, operational) firetrucks that they keep at their vacation homes and tool around in a few times a year. What’s the common denominator? They’re both extremely wealthy and can pay someone else to keep them in tip top shape. These things are money pits and it’s the only way to own them, unless it’s somehow rewarding to you to watch them deteriorate in the backyard.
Some of those are special.
High performance with aluminum construction.
The giant VW bus is built on one.
I know of one souped up for even faster response times during land speed runs.
Don’t take the population here as a representative sample of society.
Not many people have a childhood dream bus.
Something I have learned to do over the years is ask myself the question “do I actually want this, or do I just want to try it?” It has saved me from myself on a few occasions.
But, you clearly had a passion here. And it’s not like I haven’t done something similar (cough, cough, used BMW, cough, cough). Sometimes the heart wins. And that’s OK. Heck, it’s even fun.
Until it isn’t.
That would be a great question of the day: what passion purchase put you in over your head?
For me it was a very low mileage Jeep TJ, like 55K original miles at 19 years old. Unfortunately they were all in Michigan and I’m pretty sure it never got washed, like ever. The “Just surface rust” was correct on the frame, but the body was wasted, it needed an entire new tub, windshield frame, rear door and on and on. I convinced myself I could source a replacement tub and have it all back and tip top in a summer. After two years of ownership, I had to admit I would never get around to it and move it along. I lost a lot of money on that dream, but I did enjoy tooling around in it.
If only you had a partnership with E-Bay…
Even if I had the parts, the whole project would have required several preparation projects before I could even start.
First I’d have to make the garage functional, IE clean it out. Then there’s the whole it has no electricity.
Once I had a functional workspace I’d have to build some sort of jig to hoist the body off the chassis. Since I’m in there, I’d probably have to strip the whole thing back to fresh(ish) metal and POR 15 the whole thing. Make sure all the wiring was good, replace any bushings/etc.
Then there’s the whole problem of storage. I’d need space for two bodies so I can move everything from the original to the new one, and eventually dispose of the old stuff.. It was gonna take me ten years to do all this and I don’t have the motivation for that. Better to sell it off as a functional running vehicle while I could.
About a decade ago I bought a pair of motorized business class airplane seats. Maybe some people here know what 3 phase 400 hz power is and how to produce that in your home, but I sure as hell didn’t.
So after I destroyed them in my efforts to get them working, I found an identical pair on ebay. They’ve been running great for about a decade now and I have learned so much about electrical systems from the literal blood sweat and tears. It was no doubt the dumbest and least efficient way to gain that knowledge but I never would have gotten it otherwise. No regrets.
I think we all know why I am here.
Oddly enough I want to say that there is nothing wrong with having regrets. They are a part of all our journeys on this tiny rock in a massive universe, and ultimately there are so many positive experiences that deserve your attention. If I hadn’t been medically disqualified from ROTC I would have gone into the Army during some of the worst fighting in the WOT, so who knows if I would still be here today? If I had gotten that job I really wanted with the Red Cross I wouldn’t have been in the country when I met my wife.
You got to own your dream bus. It may not have gone the way you hoped, but you can say that you took the opportunity.
TAMU 214 shall henceforth be forever known as The White Elephant.
For reasons.
I own what is basically the house equivalent of this bus, so I totally understand.
No regerts.
What about ragrets?
As long as there aren’t rugrats.
If buying this bus was your worst mistake, good for you, keep up the good life. Many of us have vastly worse mistakes in our pasts, automotive and otherwise.
My single worst mistake was helping someone out by agreeing to be the primary borrower on a predatory business loan pretending to be a mortgage. It destroyed my credit and almost ruined my life. Second to that was not getting tooth implants when I could have gotten them done for free. But those are stories for a different website. Car wise? Definitely the bus by a country mile.
DT tried to get me to cosign that.
I’m glad he found someone.
Oof, I don’t know what implants cost, but I’ve had 5 gum grafts and they are not cheap (or fun)!
Gotta say, both of those mistakes sound like waaaaay more expensive regrets than this bus. Fixing credit and dental work can both be really really pricey.