I recently was contacted by the owner of a 58 Binz, who had owned it for
the last 20 years. He had the same last name as me so I knew right away that it was meant
to happen! It has been sitting in a field shrouded by trees on his property. I
nicknamed it the 'Bullet Binz', because some hunters found it on his property and decided
it would be cool to shoot at it and knock out some of the windows. The
owner had then moved it to his new property to protect it and had lost interest as he had
about 20 or 30 other non-VW projects lined up. He also said he had some other late 50's
ghia's on his other property and the vandal bastard hunters had jumped on the roofs and
caved them in. Supposedly nobody knew about this Binz and it was secret, but if you went
to church you could've spotted a glimpse of where it was hiding due to the location of the
church on the hill............
The owner was over overseas somewhere so it was hard to get a hold of
him, but I finally did and we struck a deal. I drove from Phx AZ to Hermiston OR
to get the Binz. 44 hours round trip, non stop. The Binz turned
out to be #181, a very early June of 58. There was a problem with one of the hinges on the
suicide door (the lower pin sheared), so he had removed the door and stuck it on the back
Binz seat. So fortunately that rare glass piece didn't not get damaged by bullets and I
recently found someone who had sold their binz but kept the same rare glass piece for the
other side, so I bought it and now I have both binz rear side logo'd glass. There was also a problem
with the decklid hinges and the decklid had been stuck in the bed upside down, which
damaged the paint a bit from moisture, but preserved the Dealership sticker where it came
from; WINTER MOTOR CO. Pendleton Or. For the most the paint is nice original
dove blau, but it is Binz paint which so alot of it is cracked, peeling or has just
plain worn down to the metal from sitting in the sun for so many years.
It is all still 6 volt. I have the Oregon title from 1973 which shows it titled off of the original motor which is 4 months earlier number. The rear Binz cardboard headliner was hanging straight down (disconnected from the back, but still attached to the center strip) and you could see where the bullets had gone thru the windshield, thru the headliner, then out the back window. The only place where the hunters missed their targets, was where they hit the body a couple of times on the pillar right behind the front drivers door. I count 3 bullet holes in the body, 5 bullet holes in the passenger windshield glass ( the rest of the windows are shot out so I don't know how many bullets went thru that) 3 bullet dents in the body and one bullet I assume, used to shoot out the headlight assembly. The truck had plastic air scoops at one time but were long gone leaving nothing but plastic remnants still screwed to the body. the gates are in VERY nice condition, even the back gate. The bed was filled with 30 years of piles of "stuff" and it revealed a nice straight bed. I didn't get a chance to check it out because when I got there I saw that the dash was INFESTED with hornets! They had climbed into the speaker grille, and made nests hanging down from the underside of the grill. Needless to say I didn't get to inspect much of the interior at the time. All seats were there including the binz rear seat, all interior panels still there, rubber mat still there for the front, quick check under the mat on both sides, no holes - ok good - run away fast from the hornets that were upset and wait 3 minutes to go back etc. Speaking of the dash, it is nice and uncut. Has a saphire 1 with a dual post antennae. All wheel wells looked good not counting all the hornets nests that were built in all 4 of em. Doglegs were perfect. The passenger rocker was rusty with a hole and that appears to be the worst of the rust, anything else I have seen has just been surface rust. I was looking under the binz rear seat when I noticed what looked like some kind of tube coming out of the bulkhead behind the front seat. I flipped up the front seat and wahlaa- a Gas heater installed down in the spot where you would put the spare! Cool a bonus. Has both front and rear ribbed bumpers although the rear bumper was cut for peashooters and had some towing hitch welded to it.
The Binz has been in Oregon since at least 1968 and I know of only 2
owners. Last registered in 78 and still has the Oregon plates on it. Piles of 1978
Pendleton OR newspapers in the bed. Judging from the info I have, it looks like it was
sold in 73 to a guy, then he sold it in 79 to the second owner which I bought it from.
Never left Oregon. I will probably be able to trace ownership back to the original owner
and find out more about how it came to be. Anyway everything seemed to be in order so I
loaded it up as the hornets tried to attack me. I had an electric winch so I stood back
and pulled it up on the trailer and drove away. Seemed like a huge swarm of hornets
followed me because I stopped at the first gas station down the road and there they were
again flying all around the cab while I attempted to secure the binz and remove the
headliner from the center headliner strip. Needless to say that took a while. I opened up
the passenger door and the upper hinge squeaked. This seemed to piss off the hornets and
they attacked the hinge. It was covered. I got in and drove away. Each gas station I
stopped at, I performed the standard drill. Get out and run away. Then sneak back over
with a small object of some sort, and toss it at the dashboard, then jump back in my tow
truck and drive away. After 4 or 5 stops I managed to clean out the hornets......Or so I
think. I may wake up tomorrow with a garage full of the nasty little bastards after they
hatch from all the nests they have stashed in every corner of the truck. I stopped
counting.
In Idaho at about 1 am we came upon some stopped traffic on the on the I84 right before
the I15.We sat for about 20 minutes and decided to walk up to the accident. There we found
a Semi that had rolled and was laying across the highway blocking every lane. Cab was all
the way out to the barbwire in the ditch. Emergency vehicles blocking the median ditch. No
way past, no turning around. Busted out the digi cam and hung out there taking pics for
about 3 hours waiting for them to pull the semi off the road. I got to talking with one of
the guys involved. He was towing his new 2002 CBR motorcycle in a Uhaul small box trailer
and wondered why a couple of people had put on there emergency lights and pulled
over a little ways up ahead. He figured it was a just a breakdown or something until he
realized there was a huge black 20 feet tall, 60 feet long object that seemed to span
across the entire road. He rubs his eyes..was he dreaming? oh sh*t hes not dreaming, lock
up the brakes and come to a screeching halt at the rear axle of the semi and sort of
bounces back from hitting the tires. Ah good he made it... or did he? What about anyone behind hi-
too late! 3 guys driving another pickup
truck full blast BAM right into the back of him. Never even saw it coming. Were they
sleeping? No fatalities except for the cargo in the semi which was spread all over the
highway, don't even know what it was. And of course the new motorcycle paid the price, Its
now scrap metal. The 2 women driving the semi had fallen asleep. 5 minutes earlier and we
may have slammed into it with the binz. Makes you think back to all the "delays"
earlier in the day that you went through, and wonder which one made the difference.
Get the Binz home in one piece and the next morning begin cleaning. Take out front seats to
check out the gas heater. It's an Eberspacher and I want to make it work like new.
It's factory installed and original to the bus, it has screw terminal connectors on
the switch and etc and has a special tube to direct the air to the front and the back.
It is even dated 6/58 Also has some sort of weird cover plate thing in the front where the air comes out, to
make it look nice I guess. Start pulling garbage out from the storage hole under the seat
first thing I see is a pile of 5 original fan belts, remove those and there is the original crankstart handle! I was very happy upon finding
that. I figure I wont find many better treasures then that, but sure enough...back in the
darkness is a complete bus toolkit! Untie/unroll it and see all the tools in it covered by
a bunch of webs and black window eggs. I'm not sure if this tool roll has even ever even been used. I did the happy dance
and went back to cleaning. Found the prop arm from the decklid which was bent. Found a
couple of bullet casings but no slugs yet. Nothing else so far except for piles and piles
and piles and piles of glass shards. I do see a coffee can stashed way back in the corner
under the rear seat, but I haven't gotten in that far, it's filled with junk. The
speedometer says about 8000 miles. 180k or 8k? hmm well it still has the pedal pan and the
horn attached.....That gives a good indication that it might be 8k since I have never seen
an untouched bus that still had the pan attached haha.
Looked at the rims, all are dated 5/58. These are crows foot rims.
Update: Woke up the next morning to my garage filled with pissed off hornets!! opened the door and chucked a bug bomb in, commando style. Came back the next day to find dead ones laying all over. I think that was the last of it....