The plan: to go to the Tatton Park show, VW Northwest on 11^th August 2002, look at pristine vans, chat to people and find out what to look for and definitely not buy one. We aren’t ignorant of vehicles, but the bus is a mystery, having little in common with the Mini we know and love. We weren’t going to buy a pristine, concours vehicle, a used but loved vehicle was required.

Then, we saw the Blue Bus. It had everything we needed, at a distance we could see the shell was straight, clean and free of the inanimate enemy: rust. Moving closer we saw a serviceable interior. Not a gorgeous, seductive suite, but solid and in good condition. Another roll in the mud revealed an underside Bus Boys dream of: no rust, solid metal and thick underseal like black icing on a cake.

The vendor, Norman, turned out to be the vehicles only ever owner, the two had lived in symbiosis for 30 years to the obvious benefit of both. He showed us the body, the original Dormobile interior, with the fantastic side hinging raisable roof, complete with two bunks.

After many hours thought, we decided that it had to be worth another look and arranged a test drive. That was not part of the plan, hardly reconnaisance!

On August 20^th we went over to the Wirral, which took much longer than expected, and drove the Bus in the pitch dark. The engine hummed smoothly, the gears were there (unlike a grinding, complaining ‘box on a Bus I tested at Tatton Park). David drove first:

"Oh my, this is marvellous. Ho ho ho" he immediately exclaimed, letting the Poker Face slip. I was getting jealous and excited, wanting my turn with the controls. I released the handbrake and swung my hand at the familiar handbrake position near the left hip, realised it wasn’t there and eased up the clutch, the bus moved! It was exhilarating, this lovely bus worked, properly, and it could be ours, I opened the throttle, and tried for second, which had been a problem with the other bus I had driven just a week previously. I couldn’t find it, but that was just the big bus lever and little linkages, no trouble in the ‘box as I stirred the porridge out of the way and slotted it into second. It went faster, about 15 miles per hour, but so what? It’s a real bus, and it went round a corner too!

A few hundred metres later I was at 30mph, in fourth, the bus was cruising, the motor was contented and I was delighted with it. That night was a time of soul searching, and counting. We knew we would have to pay more for this Bus than we had hoped, but we knew it was worth it. It matched all our criteria, that the body, accommodation and motor (preferably unleaded) were in good, serviceable condition. It had no stupid paint or alloys to push up the price, and of course, it wasn’t lowered – a pointless exercise.

We found our souls, woke up the next morning and called Norman to negotiate a compromise price. Two days later, the Bus was on home ground, and we were much poorer, but happy!