There’s several of these genuine old hippie buses to be seen in driveways in my part of town. Eventually they got tired of living in them and bought a house. But the buses are still parked in the driveway. This is a sweet ol Advanced Design Chevy.
I bet it’s got some stories to tell.
would love to buy one of these old bus conversions – and update the mechanicals a bit, so it could be used once again.
Imagine, nomading in one of these!
Manson family or Merry Pranksters, take your pick.
When I see pictures of these old hippie vehicles, I am reminded of how motor vehicle registration laws have changed over time. The idea that one could get plates for a rolling lumber yard like that boggles the mind. Many of these seem to be more parade float than motor vehicle.
I have a whole book about these things that even includes rudimentary plans for building one. I had to go check to make sure that the Chevy featured here wasn’t in that book. If anyone wants to check out the book it seems that info can be dug up about it online: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/769099.Rolling_Homes
Folks are still building them like this now. Skoolie buses are a big thing, actually. There’s nothing in the vehicle registration to keep one from doing so. You buy an old bus, register it, then make the modifications. Who would care?
Here’s a very recently finished one:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/curbside-classic-1946-chevrolet-hippie-bus-or-is-it-now-a-tiny-house/
I can pretty much guarantee that if one materialized on the streets of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in something that looked like the bus in the original post, or even the ’46 Chevy above, they’d have some ‘splainin to do to the dude in the Explorer with the flashing blue lights.
Then again, we are the state that was home to Officer Obie (Arlo’s nemesis).
I hear though that it’s relatively easy to get these registered in VT.
In Minnesota, where people trim off rust like dead branches from a tree, you can title a bus as an RV without any inspection.
When they say “Does it have heating and AC powered separately from the engine?”, you say “Yes”. When they say “Does it have cooking facilities?”, you say “Yes”, and so on.
That is a really nice, professional looking job!
Still lots of these on and off the road as permanent dwellings many get parked and additions built around them, even the most elaborate house bus isnt much of a load for the truck chassis supporting it all, long nose buses are rare now here and Ive seen a few imported yellow US school buses on the road lately that style ended here with the TJ6 Bedfords.
Looks like a cozy dwelling.
Good to see that you maybe still have some hippies in Eugene. All the hippies have been exiled from Boulder, and all that’s left are ultra atheletes, tech gurus, nutrition supremacists, and trustafarians. Of course I’m generalizing and being judgemental, but it’s certainly no longer the hippie town that everyone thinks it is.
Nah, you’re not being judgmental at all. I grew up there and hardly recognize it anymore, which is too bad as it really is in a beautiful setting. It no longer has the pleasant vibe it used to, too many NewAge Karens and Chads, not the old friendly crunchy granolas of my youth.
I guess part of my bitterness is that a house that an average middle-class worker could afford in the seventies now costs 2-3 million and is lived in by the actual owner only a few months a year. This means nearly every firefighter, policeman, sanitation worker, nurse, mechanic, etc. has to commute from a more affordable community 20-30 miles to work and back, making the traffic worse than ever.
Unfortunately the whole state of Colorado is quickly becoming this way. If you aren’t rich and you actually have to work for a living, then you can’t afford to live in a resort town, nor many college towns as well.
“I guess part of my bitterness is that a house that an average middle-class worker could afford in the seventies now costs 2-3 million and is lived in by the actual owner only a few months a year. This means nearly every firefighter, policeman, sanitation worker, nurse, mechanic, etc. has to commute from a more affordable community 20-30 miles to work and back…”
It also creates a Haves vs. Have-Nots stratification of society, the kind that has flourished in places like Marin County, California for decades, where those in the high caste look down with disdain on those below them. “Do you know who I am????”
Bend Oregon is in similar straights, houses were expensive in 2019 and insane in 2021, I thank my lucky stars we bought earlier so we can cash out when we move out. As much as i like the town and the surrounding area the influx of wealthy Californians and Portlanders is both pushing up prices and shifting politics.
Grumble. I was priced out of my ancestral family home in Seattle. A developer bulldozed it, divided the lot, and built two vulgar McMansions for vulgar McPeople. I’m sure he made several million dollars at it, too. This is just one of the many kinds of ugliness blithely hidden by the Realtor™, the developer, and the city council when they babble and rhapsodise about highest and best use. »turn, spit, wipe«
Same here… except substitute Whitefish, MT for Seattle. I can’t bear to hear what actually happened to the family home after it sold, and won’t even drive in the area lest I see the carnage.
I believe it’s gone now… A midcentury home that Grandpa, a Civil Engineer built on three lots with a great view of Whitefish Lake mowed down to make way for a bunch of McCondos. And yes, the developer likely made McMillions on the deal.
@ Daniel & T.A. :
There’s an ugly wrinkle now used to circumvent the historic preservation laws : buy a nice craftsman house or better yet, two adjacent ones in a neglected neighborhood and refuse to rent or maintain them ~ in due time bums or kids will break in and trash then burn the place ~ _then_ you go to the historic preservation office hat in hand and lie : ‘well, I _WAS_ going to do a full historic restoration but now they’re beyond repair so why not give me a permit to raise up some FUGLY three story condos instead ?’ .
They’ve been doing this in otherwise nice neighborhoods in Southern California for decades .
-Nate
My old 1st grade school bus ! ….. A nice, simple curbside pickup.
I’d slip in between the flip-out doors which the driver controlled by grasping a vertical knob, and swinging it out & back.
That friendly little bus was replaced in 2nd grade by a peaked, quad-headlight luxo-barge with head-rests & arm-rests along the aisle. I wondered what the big “GMC” letters on the hood, stood for…
What the heck doesn’t Eugene have? These are all awesome. It just goes to show that even though they might not run they have a lot of sentimental value.
Love these types of schoolies, is there a particular name/sub-genre for schoolies modified in this manner? As I get older, I realize I’d like this type of build to be a more stationary set up on a plot of land rather than a coast to coast traveling rig. Looking a some of these style builds, I like the layouts and “home-y” touches, but some of those buses with wood burning stoves…yeah, think about that coming unattached and bouncing around the cabin after an accident…
If I ever build another bus, it will be a conventional 40′ and kept simple (as simple as a schoolie with heat, hot water, and electricity can be). No roof raise, no trick interior layout, in other words not Instagram worthy at all. But simple to hop in and cut out for a weekend? Easy as a 40′ bus can be to drive/maneuver? Can be stored for a bit and not be needy? Yes to all.
And yes to Mr. Sun’s comment above, Vermont plates all the way. Even in Virginia, where I’ve had little trouble registering 4 prior buses for personal use, I still go VT every other time.
I’m partial to those with the top half of an old VW, Bus or Beetle roof extension/skylights. Something like this just seems like it would be taxing to drive with the significant increase in the height of the center of gravity.
Now if one were to do as Bertolini suggests above and have it semi-permanently parked then I can see a build like this.
Reminds me a littel of San Francisco’s Carville. Around 1895 folks began dragging old horse drawn street cars out to the dunes near the ocean and turned them into dwellings, social clubs and cafes. It was a Bohemian community. The city continued to grow and soon swallowed Carville and eventually replaced it with conventional houses. There is still at least one known to have survived to this day.
https://www.outsidelands.org/sw18.php
https://www.outsidelands.org/sw19.php
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-carville-san-francisco-sunset-pictures-2019-11
No one is clustering buses together as far as I know but I like that folks are individually incorporating single buses into their homes. Long may their Freak Flag fly!
There are also houses still existing in San Francisco that are built around a 1906 earthquake cottage.
I know of that last one having ridden past it hundreds of times. When I lived in the City between 1988-98 in the outer Richmond I would weekly ride my bike down JFK Drive in the park to Ocean Beach. From there along the Great Highway bike path, which passes by that house, and then onto Fort Funston and the hang gliders.
As for earthquake cottages, there were several left in the Richmond District when I lived there with one around the block from me. They have all been torn down,as they were a little postage stamp on a deep lot, and filled in with a two story 4-5 unit apartment building. The one near me was between 21st and 22nd on Clement St north side. In all my years there never saw anyone outside that tiny house.
San Francisco was a great place in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Ok in the 90s but it is all downhill now since 2000. Either you have money or you live four to a two bedroom apartment. All the cool comedy clubs (think Robin Williams), cool music venues, and cool nightclubs have vanished. I moved out in 1998 when I saw the writing on the wall.
Those Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers have a fine old bus in one episode.
I’m not familiar with The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, but the cover of their comic book reminds me of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils “The Car Over The Lake Album”.
I always thought The Car Over the Lake Album should have had no title, just the cover photo, and let the album acquire that title informally by itself, kind of like the Beatles “White Album”.
When I was in high school, we all loved the Freak Brother’s comics. We thought we were being subversive but later I realised my hippie friends were way more subversive than a comic book!
My 1948 Packard limo had one of those windshield visors [or as a former girlfriend said – it looked like a poker player’s visor]. At the base of the windshield, attached to a screw holding the inside trim in place, was a little clear plastic double concave lens device called a “Fulton Traffic Light Finder”, and it really did show the traffic light hanging above the intersection.
But I don’t think the Fulton Company ever planned on making a traffic light finder for one of these massive RV overhangs. I can imagine a father driving this bus, and on pulling up to an intersection with an overhead traffic light, telling one of his kids, on opening up the school bus entry doors, to go stand outside next to the bus, tell him when the light turned green, and then quickly hop back onto the bus!
I’ve read about those before. Clever little device.
Clever idea. I need one for my 2CV. It has lots of headroom, but the top of the windshield is quite low. I have to slouch to see traffic lights, especially since I rebuilt the seats a couple of years ago (new rubber bands raised the seating position by about an inch).
Ditto an auto carrier with one loaded way forward on the headrack.
This is what you want. Old skoolie body placed atop a DRMO (Defense Reuse and Marketing Office) ex-Army 5T 6×6 chassis. Should get you anywhere it will fit.
Starting point for the bottom half.
I’ve thought of getting one of those and putting a tiny house on the back. It can’t get any worse mileage than a Class A.
This reminds of the Whole Earth Catalog and while the idea is cool the practicalities of driving, or servicing the engine with that massive structure in front concern me.
Nice to see some of these are still out there .
Also nice to hear the various stories and history of Carville .
In California it’s a reasonably simple thing to register a home made camper or converted bus as a “Housecar” .
I’ve done it and $aved $eriou$ $ on the annua tags .
Plus, you can have open containers of alcohol as long as they’re not within reach of the driver .
I too remember the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, silly stuff for kids .
Some yeas back I gave all my old ‘underground’ comics to a work mate, he was flabber gasted and said they were worth $, who cares ? he liked them so I gave them to him .
-Nate
When one of my aunts died in 1955 or so, my parents inherited her 1951 Pontiac. She ordered it with a sun visor that blocked the view of overhead traffic signals, so a viewer was mounted on the dash.