Classic Digest

Someone told us to forget your convertibles and exotic sports car, as it's all about vintage mini buses now. A bold statement that may hold some truth though. First it was old VW typ2s that caught everyone's attention, Samba versions in particular. Now the classic car world has gone bonkers over old Mercedes o319 & l319, o standing for “omnibus” and l “lastwagen”.

They made masses of these light commercials1955-68, but today there aren't that many around and even fewer original ones that haven't been modified into campers. Which brings it back to us, we are among the few that have been fortunate enough to find a decent o319!

Here it is own very own barn fresh 1961 o319 D unused since 1969. Now who could resist a face like that of a o319 -sad little Bumbo. We did some research and it turns out ClassicDigest's o319 once belonged to a groovy rock band Soulset, allegedly a top group in Scandinavia in 1968. We managed to hook up with band's leader “Baron” Paakkunainen who told us they had been touring Europe at the peak of their fame during their 1968 tour. Towards the end of he tour a road crew member responsible for servicing the bus had forgotten to top up oil after draining out old with known consequences...

For some reason the bus was never taken back to road again although someone had committed a full engine rebuilt after the oil incident. Obviously, they had been planning to turn 319 into a camper ditching the original bus seats. Other than that we have a perfect o319 project in our hands. We just have to make up our minds about what to do with it.

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Rock on!