V.I.S.I.T. – Volkswagen surf bus extracts extra excellence in Hale'iwa

Marcal Eilenstein

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This past weekend, while uploading a few hundred pictures from a trip to the LeMay auto museum (stay tuned), I found a few leftovers from my vacation to O’ahu that I forgot to share. Shame on me!

Two of the days I spent on O’ahu were in Hale’iwa on the North Shore. It’s a cool little town; only an hour or so from burgeoning metropolis that is Honolulu, but it feels like a different world. There’s one main street that runs through town, lined on both sides by shops, restaurants, and other attractions housed in old buildings from the days when Hale’iwa was a farm town. There are plenty of tourists – and I was one of them – but the locals were friendly and accomodating nonetheless.

Anyway, while strolling up the sidewalk on a sunny afternoon, I saw a ’61(?) VW Type 2 flatbed, slowly rusting and rotting away in front of a restaurant, but looking good doing it.

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Some of you may have seen this before, if you’ve been to Hale’iwa; it looks like it’s been sitting a while, and the interior was in pretty rough shape with the windshield open. There’s a guy in my area who drives a newer model, with diamond plate dropdown sides, so I had to do a little research about these unusual vehicles. Turns out this platform was pretty versatile, coming in every variety from truck to van to ambulance.

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I can just imagine tooling along in this VW, ocean breeze coming through the windshield, surfboards in the back, looking for the next big wave on the North Shore. What say you? What do you think of this truck?

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Marcal Eilenstein

Marcal Eilenstein

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7 responses to “V.I.S.I.T. – Volkswagen surf bus extracts extra excellence in Hale'iwa”

  1. dropgate Avatar
    dropgate

    Your guess of '61 is pretty good. It's a 1959, 1960 or 1961. I've owned several of these single cab trucks over the years, They're awesome. Here's the '57 I sold last summer.
    <img src="http://images.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/4435701.jpg"&gt;

    Reply
  2. craigsu Avatar
    craigsu

    I'll just leave this here:
    <img src="http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Volkswagen_Bus_Vanagon_Toronado_V8_Swap_1365499274.jpg&quot; width="600" border="0" style="border:none;" alt=" " />
    It's had a slight tune. <a href="http://(http://bringatrailer.com/2013/04/09/olds-toronado-455-powered-1963-volkswagen-double-cab-transporter/)” target=”_blank”>(http://bringatrailer.com/2013/04/09/olds-toronado-455-powered-1963-volkswagen-double-cab-transporter/)

    Reply
    1. dead_elvis Avatar
      dead_elvis

      Regardless of powerplant, that's just gorgeous. So glad to see one at the stock height (or close). I much prefer the profile of the doublecab T1 to the singles – that narrow cab makes them look like they could tip over forward without much effort.

      Reply
  3. wisc47 Avatar
    wisc47

    Probably my favorite episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffe was the one with Michael Richards and the VW Flatbed that was previously a Porsche service truck.
    <img src="http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/09/28/1226482/973460-jerry-seinfeld-michael-richards-cars.jpg"&gt;
    Oh, and if you haven't seen it, check it out. I don't see how any self-respecting comedy or car fan could not like it.

    Reply
  4. Felis_Concolor Avatar
    Felis_Concolor

    Argh, whenever I see the rainbow plate I remember what wonderful background images were sacrificed to it. They tossed out Kamehameha's profile for that? Fools.
    Now imagine it being 25 years ago, and seeing every single piece of North Shore traffic attempting to squeeze through that section of road in the 2nd photograph. The bypass highway was the best thing to happen to Haleiwa.

    Reply
    1. MVEilenstein Avatar
      MVEilenstein

      Yep. Let the tour buses and resort crowd go around.

      Reply
  5. jjd241 Avatar
    jjd241

    Here is a crew cab I spotted…
    [youtube AMcgxNgeQhY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMcgxNgeQhY youtube]

    Reply