Bay Wanted!!!

[stefhow]

Hi
We are looking to buy a bay camper:

RHD
Tax exempt
Good solid chassis and bodywork
Pop Top
Can come without camping interior (can do this ourselves)
Would like to use for what is left of the summer, so some MOT would be ideal.

Budget: 3-5k if needing work but could stretch to 6k if fairly mint and not needing anything major doing for a while.

Thanks if anyone can help

 

[pete nice]

6K for a mint van? You have very little chance of that. Busses are commanding high prices these days.

For 6K you might get an import needing work. Solid busses are thin on the ground & in demand.

Scott Wilson is the main man for this...

 

[stefhow]

I can live in hope, missed a really nice one last weekend and that went for 6.5k!

Thanks for the advice tho.

 

[Loxy]

I can live in hope, missed a really nice one last weekend and that went for 6.5k!

Thanks for the advice tho.

What is your definition of mint?
If that means unwelded original paint etc then as Pete said you will have to be very very lucky to get that, if it means it looked nice on the outside, then there are potentially lots of those however at that price I would be vary wary of any restoration work it has had done to it. There are many examples in the Gallery on here that come into the latter category & have taken an awful lot of money to put right.
Good luck with your search.

 

[Graham L]

With out being funny I would struggle at the moment to get a good LHD Pop Top imported from the states for £5K, the US boys have put their pricing up, transport companies who collect buses have followed suit and by the time you pay for shipping etc there is very little change if any out of £5K, then it needs preping for an MOT etc so you are looking at a minimum of £7-8K on the road and thats all dependent on what the bus cost in the first place.

I wish you well with the elusive search for a good quality RHD bus that needs no work.

(sorry if this sounds negative but if you look at recent postings in the for sale section, lots of people are looking for the same thing with little or no joy, there is only a finite amount of RHD buses and the South Africans have now cottoned on to how valuable they are as well so no cheap buses from SA anymore)

 

[bananacustard]

I paid over 6k for my 68 rhd 5 years ago :shock: and it's needed shitloads doing since then.

good luck!

 

[pk1was]

i paid £6750 for mine its RHD english bus, April 08 it looked like this

July 09 it looks like this :shock: :shock:

we started doing a quick tart up. then i thought balls to it its solid as a rock lets go the whole hog and replace everything

took me ages to find it :roll:

 

[stefhow]

Thanks for all the replies. Was supposed to go and view one on Sunday, had the cash ready and everything and he went and sold it the day before!! GUTTED!!

We are now debating going down the route of finding a really rough old one needing quite a bit of work. Probably paying no more than 1k for it and spending the money on a restortion.

Question 1:
Would 5.5k be enough to do a bay up to a fairly good standard :?:

Question 2:
Does anyone know of anyone in North Wales who does restortion work at all :?:

I read an article in Camper and Bus last week and a fella found a Westy for £500 and spent £5k doing it up and it looks gorgeous...................so I live in hope :lol:

Thanks everyone

 

[pete nice]

If you are paying someone else to do the resto, it will cost a fortune. You will end up with a welded bus that will start to rust through in a few years. It is a false economy unless you are prepared to put in the hundreds of hours that are needed to complete such a project.

Check out my website, my projects, bay window to see the work that has gone into a van that was virtually rust free to start with.

A mate of mine restores busses, the nasty's that he finds under the paint is sometimes hard to believe. It will all come out of YOUR pocket, once you start you are committed to continue, just pouring more money in.

My advice is buy a T25, they are cheap & very good vans. I had mine for 2 years & abandoned my bay in the garage mid project as it was so good. (I have a Syncro now too).

Early bay's are the hot ticket right now. They are commanding a price, there is no way round it. It's pay or don't play. They are being bought as investments at the moment as other markets are failing. I really want a Porsche, but am not prepared to buy a rough one. It will bite me in the arse, empty my pocket with lots of heart ache.

Save hard & search for the right van, eventually you will find something. You are right in the no mans land price range.

 

[Graham L]

The best advice anyone on this site will give you is buy the best bus you can afford and always go for a structurally sound bus as the mechanics are easier than doing the bodywork.

Unless you can weld its false economy to buy a £1k van and try and do it up or get someone else to do it, you are far better looking for a good shell and using that as a starting point.

There are loads of restos on here that stall as other things get in the way, money is needed elsewhere etc etc, interest is lost and you spend all your time in the garage rather than driving it which is what its all about.

I would think long and hard before taking on a £1K restoration project as the chances are you will end up spending more in the long run buying repair panels and all the bits that are likely to be missing from a project like that and will spend far more than your original budget.

If you are determined to go this route and can weld Mattyd72 has a project for sale like you are seeking here http://forum.earlybay.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16703" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and most buses at this price will require the same level of work, if you plan to give it to someone else to do you will end up with a big bill.

Sorry if this sounds very negative but you did ask and you need to know what you are letting yourself in for, a lot of hours in the garage welding!!.

Alternatively save hard over the winter and get yourself a bus early on in 2010 that you can use in earnest,

 

[stefhow]

Thanks Graham

Its just hard knowing which route to go down really, all the advice helps though.
Everyone keeps saying wait until October time as the prices go down out of season, so perhaps I should just wait and see and be patient and like you say..............save some more money

We are constantly scouring all the pages I know of:
pistonheads
vwcampercrazy
vwcamperandbus
ebay etc

So will just keep looking.

I suppose becase I saw that article in camper and bus last week, it got my hopes up that I could afford to do it that way instead :roll:

 

[bermuda blue]

My advice is to listen to these boy's on here , I have a higher budget and have'nt found anything yet without a reasonable spend on putting it right.
Don't lose sight of the fact that we are looking at 35>40 year old vehicles
with a track record of rust in the same old places.
Bide your time, and don't buy in the silly Summer season £>>>>

Best of luck -JIM.

 

[stefhow]

I am doing.
Thanks Jim
Good luck with your search!

 

[blogdroed]

stefhow, whereabouts in north Wales are you?

 

[stefhow]

Hi
We are in Rhuddlan, just outside Rhyl

 

[blogdroed]

I'm on Anglesey.
Missed out on an early bay in Bethesda a fortnight ago.
There's another one in Rhos-on-Sea on ebay at the moment.
When I set off to see it on Sunday, the seller was willing to sell her to me for £7k - by the time I got there he'd been offered up to £9.5k by people over the phone who hadn't seen anything more than the pics! :shock:

 

[uber cool]

There is a VW show at Tatton Park cheshire this sunday 9th August, might be worth a look round and chat to other owners

 

[Rich Oakley]

With regards to restoring a bus and doing it properly, I learned the hard way that it doesn't come cheap! I bought a rock solid, but very tatty RHD '73 Westfalia in 2000 with the intention of spending a few thousand and getting it on the road for the summer. Despite the fact that this bus was very solid, it turned into a concours quality type restoration with every single nut and bolt being taken apart and everything refurbished, replaced or reconditioned. The cost? £900 for the van (this was the year 2000 remember), £5,500 in labour (body and paint), £4,000 in parts, including engine rebuild, re-upholstry etc etc and 500+ hours of my spare time over a three year period. Price it up; proper restorations don't come cheap!

 

[stefhow]

I'm on Anglesey.
Missed out on an early bay in Bethesda a fortnight ago.
There's another one in Rhos-on-Sea on ebay at the moment.
When I set off to see it on Sunday, the seller was willing to sell her to me for £7k - by the time I got there he'd been offered up to £9.5k by people over the phone who hadn't seen anything more than the pics! :shock:

I missed out on the one in Bethesda too mate, we went up to see it at 1.30pm on the Saturday and he sold it at 11.30 the same morning, I was gutted!
I have looked at the one in Rhos, but it is out of my price range.
I am viewing another one tomorrow night!!! :mrgreen:

Good luck with your search.

MIGHT GO TO TATTON PARK ON SUNDAY TO SEE WHAT IS LURKING THERE!!

 

[blogdroed]

I am viewing another one tomorrow night!!! :mrgreen:

Good luck with your search.

in Colwyn Bay?

Cheers, you too!

MIGHT GO TO TATTON PARK ON SUNDAY TO SEE WHAT IS LURKING THERE!!

We'll be there!