by Frank Filipponio

Lot Number 1042.1: Von Dutch GMC Bus-Home/Workshop

Here’s one of those “don’t pass it just because it looks like it’s been out in a field for 20 years” gems that we love so much. This bus was once the home and workshop of the legendary pinstriper/customizer Von Dutch. The bus started out as a Long Beach, California city transit bus. Von Dutch ended up with it in the early ’60s as payment from a woman he had done some work for. According to the account by his friend and colleague, Bob Burns, Dutch “set up living quarters at the rear, the remainder of the vehicle was a machine shop, including a bluing tank and an old metal lathe covered with Dutch’s pinstriping. The floor was covered with cigarette butts, beer cans, and metal shavings.”

And that’s basically how it still looks. It sat in a field in Santa Barbara for a number of years and has seen its fair share of vandalism (and target practice), but it still has a lot of Dutch’s fingerprints all over it. All part of this year’s Rock the Block theme at B-J, there are a number of other Von Dutch items displayed with the bus, including his customized hi-fi stereo system that will also be auctioned on Friday.

[Source: Barrett-Jackson]

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Tags: Von Dutch, Von Dutch GMC Bus, GMC, Bus

Categories: GMC

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 6:06 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.