having watched this thread with mounting excitement (and the hope is was not just another tease) I can see now why its so uber rare.....!

I assume this bus isn't related to Rikki's post a few months back about super early bus find?

lowdown dirty rat wrote:Cool huh!!!
Now you can appreciate its rarity.

Seriously dude?

If you pm me the chassis number I will have a look in the handwritten factory ledger copy I have that goes up to '52 and see if I can find it....

David Eccles wrote:If you pm me the chassis number I will have a look in the handwritten factory ledger copy I have that goes up to '52 and see if I can find it....

It's been on Tonnys site for years Dave, so if this is the bus Rob has (he hasn't confirmed yet!) then it's the one below:

dombutler wrote:

Dai wrote:20-017894. Do I win it?

Wasn't that bus in Greece? and that is 2000 miles away, that tree looks like an olive tree and I definitely can't see any sink holes or rain

Rob, is it the same bus?

Confirmed

Mine looked like that inside after Spa!

Where to start.
We'll as Dai has dug up that old thread when I was asking questions. Let's start at the beginning.
Once I had my 52, the 14th oldest Samba listed on Barndoor.dk, I naturally became inquisitive about the older 13. Especially the little known 51s.
It all started 5 years ago in 2009 with this thread http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4128072&highlight=#4128072
When I read that it might still be there my immediate thought was not 'I gotta have that' but 'someone has got to save that poor thing'.
I tried the Pm thing but no response. History showed he's rarely on. I found his website with the other pics and a bit of history when the bus was found in the late 90s. Which also has an article on a nice holiday in an usually part of Greece.

Here are the original pictures from the 90s.







I emailed the photographer about the location. No reply, but also no fail notification. So I sent the email again 6 months later, and again after another 6 months, and again, and again...
Then in early 2012 (3 years latter) I got the reply!!!!!!
Unfortunately he didn't actually remember where he took the pics
Just where he was staying and that he had headed out looking for a swim and found it in an old campsite.
Everyone told me (non vw friends and family) I was mad. Going to look for a bus 13+ years after it was photographed abandoned and not even knowing where to find it.
And I must admit after a while I started to doubt. But sod it. I had to know. Even if it was bad news at least I could sleep knowing. How often do we get to do a genuine treasure hunt these days
So when planning our Easter 2013 holiday there was a slightly biased search going on. Oh look! Ryanair are doing April flights to Kefalonia for the first time. So some cheap flights and hotels were booked for a week. While there I was allowed a day to visit the mainland and have a search for the bus.
Unfortunately I found the ferry I planned from Kefalonia pretty much to the van wasn't running at that time of year. But I found another very early morning ferry that left from the other end of the island and landed me 60 miles south of the van. I got up at the crack of dawn and drove across the island, left the hire car and took the ferry to the mainland, only to find that the town was off season and there was no chance of getting a hire car. Arghhh! Ferry back to kefalonia. Fortunately being so early I hadn't lost the day and spent it with my family. I tried again the next day, but this time I took the hire car and made the 60 mile drive to start the search. When I reached the town, I was just about to begin when I got caught on a bloody toll road and couldn't get off. So had to start the search in reverse from what I planned. There were several campsites that fit the bill, but all were closed. I climbed some fences and had a nosy . I found some swings with the same blue paint, but no van. I carried a picture with me and showed it to the few campsite people I ran into, but no one had any clue. Eventually I found myself in the town where he had stayed.
There had been just one place I hadn't tried down a small side road. I hadn't wanted to enter as they had a sign on the gate of a very scary looking dog.

Knowing this was my last hope and coming all this way, I had to brave it. So with skids in my pants, I went in . Past the buildings I rounded a corner and this is what I saw...






The bus had obviously deteriorated somewhat. It was being used as a skip for all the old cans and one of the cargo doors and the engine lid were gone. But it still looked awesome to me.
I took a few phone pictures then returned to the car at the gate and sat and waited. Eventually an old man appeared and I called him over. He spoke no English but I showed him the picture and he immediately led me to see the van. We talked in gestures and by drawing in the sand. I got the impression he was a gardener and he gave me a phone number of who I thought was the owner. This guy spoke great English and said the van belonged to his father and he wasn't sure if he wanted to sell. I asked to meet but it didn't happen before I had to return to kefalonia. The guy said he was very busy setting up for the season and to phone in a few days.
We had an awesome holiday in kefalonia. I also found and photographed a Mediterranean Monk Seal in the harbour in Kefalonia (I'm a zoologist by trade) the first seen for decades. Which, if you know your mammals, is about as rare and exciting as finding a 51 Samba! Double score!!
I kept in touch with the owner but texts were sporadic as he was busy all summer with work, then had a baby. We eventually agreed on a price of £1250. Then spent another few months sorting out official documentation for transfer of ownership. I wanted to do everything right as I had heard that Greece can be funny about exports, often trying to ignore the EU open export laws . Anyway after nearly another year! With papers ready. I new I had to just bite the bullet and go get it it. It was way to stressful no having it when I was so close.

Stay tuned. Story of the crazy collection tomorrow night

Wow, fantastic story so far.

Glad you found it looks like somebody already had a party in it.
Looks like it was being filled with cans then of to be weighed in

Great find buddy, been giving the missus a rollicking as when we are on holiday I keep stopping and taking pictures of old trucks and abandoned vehicles and she moans when I do! I was on kefalonia in 2012 and spotted a partially stripped bay window, obviously you start having a nosey round cause you never know what's about!
Looking forward to the next instalment!

What a fantastic story. Didn't expect you would've found it either.

That's insane!! What a score! This is defiantly the bus we spoke about on Facebook I saw on the back if your trailer on the m25...

Simply awesome!!

Don't read many bus finding stories as good as this!

well curse it..I can only find the first part up to June 1950 for first 500 buses...somewhere is another file for 1951 but cant find it...grrrr...so I cant be of any help about who had it etc at the moment sorry.....hopefully VW will though...