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Volkswagen To Restore Microbus Spared In Palisades FireBack in the middle of a January 2025 amidst the devastation of the Palisades Fire a Volkswagen Microbus was miraculous unscathed. The classic car was simply parked on a residential street in Malibu, but unlike all the other vehicles left behind, along with all the buildings around it, the VW was left relatively untouched.
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Nobody can explain how that came to be, but Volkswagen has decided to capitalize on the golden PR opportunity, announcing it will completely restore the miracle Microbus.
Calling it “The Magic Bus,” the German automaker reached out to the owner to see if restoring it was something feasible. When the idea was met with an affirmative response, a plan was hatched to use its engineering center in Oxnard, California to perform a nut-and-bolt restoration.
The goal is to make the Transporter as pristine as it was on the day it rolled off the factory line. A VW representative told KABC the team that’s doing the restoration maintains a corporate collection of classic cars, so they know what they’re doing.
What people didn’t know until now is the seemingly unscathed classic Volkswagen was in fact damaged in the intense heat of the fires. The original photos of the vehicle show the driver’s side, which was relatively untouched.
However, VW technician Gunnar Wynarski says the passenger side has been partially melted, the paint damaged, and more. The plan is to go through everything, replacing not only all components damaged in the extreme heat, but even things which potentially were harmed, like hoses and belts.
The restoration is planned to be done rather quickly, with Volkswagen saying it should be finished by the end of 2025. Considering how long some nut-and-but restorations take, that’s surprisingly soon.
Image via KMPH Fox26 News/YouTube
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