As a longtime surfer and artist who creates art on surfboards, Megan Weinraub felt that there was one thing she needed: Vintage Volkswagen Bass.
“All of my being was like getting this bus right now,” Weinraub said. “You surf California, and you think you’re like a Volkswagen bus. That’s what you see in the film and what you imagine.”
Last summer, she texted a friend, a fellow surfer, hoping to buy a bus.
“I texted him randomly from Blue. “Hey, do you know someone who sells like an old school VW bus?”
“And he was like, ‘I’m coming now.’ And I said, “Oh my god, I’m in the area. It’s fine.”
A few minutes later, they made a deal.
“I was so excited when I saw it. I’m perfect. It’s closely related to my art and my business,” she recalls. “This is it. This is my bus. And when I saw it, I’m just right, I seem to be done.”
Megan calls the 1977 vintage VW “Azur.”
Unfortunately, a few months after she bought it, the Palisade fire destroyed many of her Malibu neighborhoods.
Surprisingly, her apartment survived, and so did Azur.
“I thought that was how I survived,” she said. “This is crazy.”
However, when she saw the bus in person, she noticed it was severely damaged by the fire, especially on the passenger side.
That’s why she felt so relieved when Volkswagen called and offered to fix it.
Volkswagen moved the bus to Oxnard campus.
“We can see some already melted light, busted windshields,” Gunnar Wynarsk says. “And now you see all the burn marks from the paint that’s peeling off.”
“There’s a lot of smoke and ash in the car,” he added. “It still smells like fire and smoke in the car.”
Volkswagen said it would replace the parts, repaint the Azur and work with the engine.
Faran, another team member working on the bus, said he was focusing on all the details.
“Whether there are screws or rivets, they shouldn’t be there, whether there are cracks in the rubber boots, whether there are melted shift knobs, whether there are any fresh air controls in the heater control,” Farlan said. “We basically try to bring it back to what it is.
“Unless I’m 100%, I’m not happy,” he added.
After the fire, Megan moves to Orange County, and once work is complete, Azur is there too.
VW hopes to get work done by the end of the year.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I feel like I’m everywhere. There are a lot of Volkswagen buses here. They seem perfect.”
Six months after the fire, the Volkswagen bass continues to bring smiles when California needs it most.
“I got a DM and say your bus has given us a lot of hope. Even if our home is gone, it will be given us like a light and something good will come out of it,” Megan said.
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