a new story of a VW mini bus beyond normal conditions of restorable, reachable, or desireable.. but they pulled it out of a Swedish swamp anyway, with a helicopter

Found on http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/car-culture/rescuing-1951-vw-barndoor-bus

For the other astonishing stories of VW vans that people went to great lengths to save:
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/1957-deluxe-vw-23-window-bus-pulled.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-too-far-gone-to-save-because-in.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-happened-to-bury-this-1950-vw-213.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-embarassing-i-accidentally-deleted.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/forest-find-kombi-and-great-effort-to.html

How embarassing, I accidentally deleted the Bullet Bus post.... so I'm reposting it

a 1966 21-window Volkswagen Type 2 bus. Abandoned somewhere in the Nevada desert, it was partially stripped and left to rust, then shot up by gun-toting desert wanderers looking for a bit of target practice.

Over 500 rounds pierced the already fragile tin walls of the bus before a member of TheSamba.com, legendary vintage VW forum, put it upon a trailer and drove it 100 miles home. Within about a week kombisutra had installed a front end, transaxle, steering box, steering wheel, and brakes. As the Kombi was missing “virtually everything,” a massive donation effort was started. Seats, windows, electrics, ignition locks, a semi-functioning interior, DMV bribes—parts streamed in from every corner of the country, sent by enthusiasts who probably just wanted to see how far they could take such an improbable machine into the realm of function. And eventually the answer was, all the way

Text from http://hooniverse.com/2011/02/15/the-strange-beautiful-saga-of-the-bullet-bus/

Story from the guy that found it here: http://www.rollingheads.org/rigs/bullet-bus.html

Forest find kombi... and the great effort to pull it off a mountain with a helicopter. Extraordinary

found on http://volkkaripalsta.com/keskustelu/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=38216

you might want to skip ahead frequently, I did. But skipping every 30 seconds gets you through it a lot better... to see where it was found, the clearing they had to make for the helicopter to access it, and the extraction and transfer to a tractor trailer to get it home.

For the other most amazingly beyond salvage kombis I've posted about that people have went crazy for:

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/1957-deluxe-vw-23-window-bus-pulled.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-too-far-gone-to-save-because-in.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-happened-to-bury-this-1950-vw-213.html  
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/bullet-bus-aka-while-taking-on.html

What happened to bury this 1950 VW 213 van will always be a mystery, but someone with a shovel and determination is restoring it!

I think the word BURIED describes it accurately

full gallery and story : http://www.ssvc.org.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=35155 thanks to Chris who read all the 61 pages of thread, and summarized the story for us

how the bus got buried:

In a nutshell, a guy had his kid bury it in the late ’50s or early ’60s so they could have a hunting shack in the woods. The guy who found it also found the ‘kid’ who buried it, only now the kid is an old man. The restorer is English but on a run through northern Europe ( Sweden ?) he stopped by and showed the bus off to the guy who buried it. It was good timing, too; the guy who buried it died recently.

The current owner also took it to the site where the lumber mill stood that owned it first. He then took it to Kempes. The current owners didn’t know anything about the bus but they were pretty thrilled that the current owner came by with it to tell the story. The employees gave him some older (but not period) Kempes coveralls and goodies.

and also from the link that I had yesterday from Gary: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=print&thread=67766

For the other incredible resurrections of 21 or 23 window mini bus: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/1957-deluxe-vw-23-window-bus-pulled.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-too-far-gone-to-save-because-in.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-happened-to-bury-this-1950-vw-213.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/forest-find-kombi-and-great-effort-to.html

1957 Deluxe VW 23 window bus pulled from a lake in Norway after 36 years submerged... Is it this hard for people to find a VW Deluxe bus?

And here is a photo from before it went into the water in 1973 because the transmission broke, it was the fastest easiest way to get rid of the bus.

Thanks to Gary for the link to the story!

http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=print&thread=67766 for more photos of how bad it looked when it came out of the water and the full story with details

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/28256355@N05/3835484697/

For the other resurrected VW mini bus stories:
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/1957-deluxe-vw-23-window-bus-pulled.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-too-far-gone-to-save-because-in.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-happened-to-bury-this-1950-vw-213.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/forest-find-kombi-and-great-effort-to.html

Not too far gone to save, because in Pakistan, there are only about a dozen VW Kombis / microbus remaining in the 6th largest country in the world.

From what I recall of my talk to Romano, the VW's were never built in Pakistan, and never imported as a car dealership item for sale, they only came into the country when Churches brought them in to use as kids school buses. So very very few ever came into the country. When there is no dealerships with parts to use for repairs, they don't last long, and never as long as you'd expect. Once a motor has a major problem, that's it, and the motors get replaced with modern easy to find diesel engines. If I have any of my info wrong, please correct me so no one gets misinformed!

images via: http://picasaweb.google.com/vwclubpk/VWCOPShutterbug#

For the most incredible resurrections of other 21 or 23 window VW mini bus:
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/1957-deluxe-vw-23-window-bus-pulled.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-too-far-gone-to-save-because-in.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-happened-to-bury-this-1950-vw-213.html
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/forest-find-kombi-and-great-effort-to.html

"The Old Man of the Mountain"

An early Peerless auto was found in 1965 about to fall off a narrow ledge in the San Mateo Canyon http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=wildView&wname=San%20Mateo%20Canyon%20Wilderness (near San Juan Capistrano Ca.).

Seen first by a helicopter pilot who was looking for a good place to prospect for gold, and related to a San Diego restorer of Peerless automobiles, who got a team together and the services of a heavy hauler helicopter to lift it out.

About a 1905-1910 car, this came from a company synonymous with quality, and held at the same level of esteem as Packard and Pierce-Arrow. http://cleveland.about.com/od/clevelandattractions/ss/crawford_6.htm

The car had been driven on a horse trail to a gold mine and then used as a source of power, but over a half a century the road had eroded and hillslides had likely taken away most of the trail, until the car rested on the remains of 3 rims, and the other was hanging in free air over a 1200 foot drop.

http://www.hcfi.org/