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Digging thru some shit at my house the other day and came across one of the only remaining pictures of the 65 Double Cab that I bought and drove around SoCal when I was going to Long Beach Poly High School in the early ’90s. This bus has an interesting story…
Around the summer of 91 I was on an annual family vacation on Catalina Island off the coast of SoCal. At the time, all the taxis were Vanagons, and there were multiple Dokas, Bays and Splits tooling around the limited streets of the 1 mile square of the City of Avalon on the island. My dad and I walked by this DC everyday and said, “damn, I wish that was for sale”. One day, the owner was standing within earshot and said, “I’ll sell it to you”. That day the purchase was made for $3K. Buying a car on Catalina is a big deal, the owner needs to ship the car back and purchase another quickly or end up on a decade-long waiting list to be permitted a car. The picture below is me, with hair, braces, and jean shorts, picking up the vehicle at the shipper in the Port of Long Beach.
I stripped this DC of all the removables and got it painted 2 tone white and turkis (with a shit-ton of bondo from a terrible shop) and chromed everything (that was the thing to do at the time). For the next 3 years, I drove that bus all over. It spent countless days driving between Long Beach and Newport Beach will I surfed the famous monster waves of the Wedge.
One infamous night, after a long day of Lifeguarding, I neglected to install “The Club” on the steering wheel. Only days earlier, I had removed the kill switch that was on the coil wire during an electical troubleshooting session. That night, some low-life snuck into my crew cab, hot wired it, and drove it away. The next morning, I thought my friends had pulled a fast-one on me and pushed it around the corner. No luck! My VW was gone, never to be found.
At that time, buses where getting jacked, stuck in a containers and shipped to Japan for rich collectors, but it could be out there driving around with a different or no Vin plate. Who knows?!?
Fast forward 25 years and I was bringing home my freshly restored, relatively new-to-me 1960 DC from KCW (from this thread). I dare to say one of the best looking in the country. I love my truck!
PostScript: Going to be moving my KCW Double Cab back to Long Beach (from Dallas) this summer. I’m gonna need to invest in some theft prevention to ward off the thieves in Cali. I already have a shift locker, but any other anti-theft ideas without having to pull a distributor wire everytime?
The Crew Cab got a little work duty today. It’s not carrying cords of wood or boulders, but it’s now the only car I have that will carry sheetrock or plywood. I threw down some blankets and cardboard because I don’t want to dork up the awesome job the KCW crew did on the resto.
Also, those are palm trees in the parking lot of Lowes…the double is officially back home in SoCal (Long Beach) for good. Texas was great, but the LBC is home and you can’t beat the weather and beaches.
The Crew Cab got a little work duty today. It’s not carrying cords of wood or boulders, but it’s now the only car I have that will carry sheetrock or plywood. I threw down some blankets and cardboard because I don’t want to dork up the awesome job the KCW crew did on the resto. Also, those are palm trees in the parking lot of Lowes…the double is officially back home in SoCal (Long Beach) for good. Texas was great, but the LBC is home and you can’t beat the weather and beaches.
Looking good Mike. Keep it locked up!😉
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