Eagle Rally Epilog

Eagle Rally Epilog

I wanted to mention a fun activity at the Eagle Rally. One of the Eagle bus owners has a VW bus that is re-powered by a small Ford V-6 (I think Capri). I had seen it at one of the other Eagle rallies and it really brought back fond memories.

In 1979 I bought a VW bus (camper) with no engine and rebuilt it so that we could travel as a family.

When our three girls were small, we planned three long distance trips so that they could see the country and experience traveling in this wonderful country. The first two trips were made in the VW camper bus. The first trip was to California in 1980. We saw many of the typical tourist locations in the LA area as well as other great locations in California (Hearst Castle, Big Sur, etc.). We made that trip with a somewhat stock engine in the bus. It was a slow trip when we encountered any sort of hill. Never-the-less, we had a ball.

One of the fun stories on the California trip was that our youngest daughter Judy (9 at the time) bought a huge Micky Mouse doll which was bigger than she was. On the way home our three girls had to share their space with this fourth “person” and Judy's two sisters were not happy!

Our next trip was to the East coast so that we could experience quite a bit of our country's early history. In preparation for that trip I converted the VW bus to a Ford Pinto engine. Not just any Pinto engine, but one that had been warmed over a bit. On that trip, the bus just flew! Unfortunately it was 1981 and the national speed limit was 55 MPH. Fortunately, some of the eastern states turned a blind eye to the new speed limit {grin}.

I sold the VW bus after that trip and I kind of regret it yet today. It was one fun vehicle!

Back to the VW bus at the rally. The owner knew my story and offered to let me drive the bus (with 5 passengers) when we went to tour the Boeing surplus store and other locations in Wichita. It took a bit of getting used to, since the throttle tended to stick and the shift linkage was a bit sloppy. However, it really brought back fond memories.

I drove the first leg of the trip and the owner drove the rest of the way. He could make that thing fly! The passengers (I was sitting on the porta-potty) were bouncing around as we drove through Wichita. I wanted to take a picture of the VW at the rally, but he left before I could get to it. The hosts of the rally sent a CD and it had a picture where part of the bus was visible. I have attached that photo (cropped).

Until we are back on the road, I will continue to post a few stories that might be of interest to our readers.

VW Bus with Ford Engine