Vw Buses Never Die! They Just Get New Homes

By Author: Lana Waite
Total Articles: 2
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The easiest sale we ever made. Everyone wanted this 22-year-old VW Campmobile.
Selling a car can be tedious, irksome, depressing, and demeaning. Compose an ad, wait for the phone to ring, and then - worst of all - haggle and bargain. The process is bad enough if you have a great car to sell, but ours was a 22-year-old Volkswagen Westfalia campmobile. Who was going to want it? We studied the newspaper. Ads seemed to stay for weeks. Maybe we'd have to give it away. Since I design Web pages, I made a page with a picture of the original 1978 Campmobile Champagne Edition II brochure, pictures of our car, and pertinent facts. Then I composed an ad and included the page URL - http://waiteweb.com/camper (it's still there). The ad went onto several VW Websites on Tuesday evening. At 9 a.m. Wednesday, someone called from Reno, 275 miles away. Rick, her uncle, wanted us to know that he would be calling later - he hadn't wanted to wake us at 6:30 a.m. An hour later David called. He made a date to see the bus on Thursday. In a little while Rick made his call. He wanted to drive ...
... down on Saturday with his sons and take the bus home. Fine, I said, but someone was looking at the car the next evening. It might be sold. "OH, NO! he cried. That's my bus!" I took his phone number without making any commitment. In a little while he called back. He offered to fly from Reno to San Jose that day and would be there at 5:30. Could he have the car? I began to think that maybe this WAS his car. What better home could there be for a 22-year-old bus? I said we'd hold it if he'd wire a down payment. He agreed. This was all done without one mention of the price we were asking! Now I felt bad about David, due to come on Thursday. I had not taken his phone number. Who knew people were really going to want this old car? But here's what I figured - if he really wanted it, he was going to be checking the Web page again, just to see if it still looked good to him. I created a box and typed, Urgent message for David. Please call before you come." Then I uploaded it to the Web page. It got the job done. He called about 5 p.m. All this happened on Wednesday - one day after we listed the car. By that time I'd wised up and started a list. Two more people called Wednesday. I told them the car was sold but that I would call if the deal fell through. And on Thursday morning there was an email asking if we still had the car. I wrote "no" but said I would keep his name, in case something happened. He said bring cash. There were a few other emails, one offering to come from L.A. to San Jose if we'd include that original brochure. Thursday afternoon, David called back, wondering if the Reno sale had gone through. When he'd told his wife the car was sold, she told him to call back and offer more money - also cash. I said we couldn't do that and he understood. I talked with him for a while. I said we had no idea that people would feel so strongly about this car - that anyone would really want it. Ads hang around in the newspaper for weeks. I asked why our car sold so quickly. He said 1) it seemed to be in very good shape and 2) it was very well priced. I wondered what we could have gotten. There were no real clues as to what people will pay. I'd been all over the Web and the (seemingly) same car could be listed for $2,000 or $8,000. But we were very satisfied. Listing on VW Websites (there are dozens) and having a good personal Webpage did the trick. EPILOGUE: One Saturday morning - TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER - the phone rang at 8 a.m. It was Rick, the first time we'd heard from him since he'd driven away with the bus. He was calling simply to say how much he loves that car. He bought special tires for it. Does all the upkeep on it himself. Goes camping in it at least once a month. Keeps it stocked with food and when his friends express interest in that he tells them it 's in case there's a terrorist attack. They say, Really? His real reason is that, wherever he is, if he's in that car, he's home. He's having the two front seats reupholstered. Someone recently asked if he'd just had the car repainted. He said, No, man. That's German paint. He keeps it in a garage, as we did. We thought it was pretty amazing that a car buyer would make such a call. He was still, on the phone two years later, simply so grateful to have that car that he couldn't help telling us. It was a pretty wonderful to listen to. About the Author Lana Waite is a mystery writer who grew up in Seattle but now lives in Northern California. Her current book is "Buried In Burrywood." The story is set in the Pacific Northwest, in a quaint coastal town with a group of eclectic, close-knit characters. The townspeople appear in several short stories that can be found on her website.