California Dreamin'

When you’ve spent the best part of a decade living in LA, what else are you going to do, but by a Candy Apple Red Deluxe?

- Gordie Woollacott

Having spent eight years living in Los Angeles, upon returning home, Darren Bliss felt the need to bring a bit of West Coast USA to the south coast of England.

The vibe might be pure West Coast, but for the Bus, well you need to head a little further south of LA; much further in fact, because the origins of this 1965, 15-window Deluxe lie deep in South America. Darren says: “I spent so much of my time in the US going to VW shows and seeing really beautiful air-cooled machinery that I became hooked. I found this Split Screen on thesamba. com when it was still in Brazil.”

This is another win for aircooled scene, because Darren was into his water-cooled VWs prior to this Bus. And, if you’re a Bug Jam aficionado, then Darren – or at least his Sea Sand Mk4 Golf – may already be familiar to you. Darren’s Golf was the first ever watercooled winner of Bug Jam’s prestigious Best of Show gong.

Round one

Having done most of the hard graft on that car himself, the fact that he didn’t really get too involved with the build of this Bus may come as a bit of a surprise. At least, he didn’t during the first round.

Darren reveals: “The Bus was in a pretty raw state when I first saw it. It was painted in grey primer and looking pretty beaten up. I’d go as far as to say she was pretty ugly. I tend to think of her as a bit of an ugly duckling.

“The original owner had sold her to a restoration company. I tried to buy it from them as it was, but they were having none of it. They wanted to do the restoration. I guess they saw pound signs!” After much to and fro, Darren had sold himself so much on the Bus that he started to come around to the idea of somebody else putting in the graft for a change. In fact, it would be a pleasure. So, he went ahead and commissioned the build.