Posted on 01/15/2025 6:10:17 AM PST by Red Badger
A VW van sits among burned out homes, Jan. 9, 2025, in Malibu, Calif. Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo
Preston Martin figured the retro blue Volkswagen van he slept in for a year during college was a goner, given that he parked it in a Malibu neighborhood just before the Palisades fire ripped through, reducing homes and cars to rubble and charred metal.
So the surfboard maker was stunned to find that the vehicle survived. Not only that, a photo of the vibrant bus taken by an Associated Press photographer was circulating widely on television and online, giving viewers a measure of joy.
“There is magic in that van,” Martin, 24, said Tuesday in an interview with AP. “It makes no sense why this happened. It should have been toasted, but here we are.”
The neighborhood remains closed to the public, and neither Martin nor the friend and business partner to whom he sold the van last summer, Megan Krystle Weinraub, have been able to inspect the vehicle. In other photos of the van, it appears to have soot on its windows, Martin said.
Martin purchased the 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 somewhat on a whim sometime around his junior year studying mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
His mother, Tracey Martin, of Irvine, yelled at him for blowing his money, but Martin told her he’d save on rent by fixing up the inside and living in it his senior year, which he did. She came to love the bus, and sewed curtains for the windows.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
It’s the ID Buzz, only $60K!
VW Micro Buses go For Crazy money now,
Bugs too.
Calling BS, heard the stuff about lasers and blue…. However even if true the heat would have done the van in, still waiting on reports of yeti cups still full of ice 😎🦆
2176 with Dual Del Ortos and the
Retro Bus sounds Awsome!
.
I’ve had several in different Flavors,
Love Me some Bugs!
Don’t hurt my eyes!
I’m calling BS. The van was driven in post firestorm.
… or photoshopped. It was a hellacious firestorm. Look at the surrounding devastation.
Not ‘retro’, it’s vintage or clssic and even the fire seemed to appreciate it.😄
This couldn’t have been a DEW. Direct Energy Weapons obliterate houses and everything else. Except trees.
Trees are left beautiful, green and unscorched.
Yeah I never bought into the DEW thing
They might look cool. But they are abysmal.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/are-the-new-vw-id-vans-reliabl-PJ3EJlDwSqSop4YRolMPQg
But then again so was the original VW bus. Which used your knees as the first line of defense in a crash. Good thing those vans hardly went over 40 mph.
👍🏻👍🏻
Something had to explain the phenomena of trees being left unburned.
Needs a Scooby Doo logo on both sides.
Could it be for sale, possibly?
I’m guessing this is staged..
There is also the partially melted Toyota pickup that still runs and drives!
"Look at me with a brand new Hyundai."
I rather like the looks of the new VW ID. Buzz, but hate about everything else... including the obligatory hippie-era zeitgeist surrounding it. I still cringe when I see my fellow boomers grasping onto any of that schtick, let alone people too young to have actually lived it.
I loved my 1969 model, it was so much fun to drive that I was happy to stay out of the fast lane and cruise along at 60 or 65mph.
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