Volkswagen debuts restored vintage blue bus that survived a California wildfire and melted hearts

LOS ANGELES AP A vintage blue VW bus that became an unlikely symbol of resilience after it survived a California wildfire made its residents debut this week shiny and like-new after Volkswagen spent months restoring the damaged bus The bus went viral in January when an Associated Press photographer captured it looking surprisingly unharmed by the deadly Palisades Fire a spot of blue and white dwarfed by the charred remains of a Malibu neighborhood Volkswagen saw the accompanying AP story and reached out to the owner Megan Weinraub Upon closer inspection VW technicians discovered that while the bus had survived it had smoke damage and blistered paint rust and a window busted by the heat In its restoration the Type Microbus named Azul Spanish for the color blue again brought people together as technicians consulted the broader group of VW enthusiasts in a shared mission to revive what was a quirky middle-aged bus It melted and Volkswagen saved it Weinraub revealed Thursday at the LA Auto Show standing with the bus s previous owner Preston Martin It was a giant relief because it wasn t my first priority with everything going on They still can t believe the bus they wrote off as a goner is now ready to take them on another surfing adventure The last time they saw a pre-burned Azul was two days before the Palisades Fire broke out when they parked the bus near Weinraub s apartment after surfing Mark J Terrill the AP photographer who captured the original image was on hand when Weinraub and Martin saw the bus for the first time after its restoration in late October Volkswagen hauled the microbus to its Oxnard facility west of Los Angeles where it houses historic VW vehicles Wagon technicians Farlan Robertson and Gunnar Wynarski sourced hard-to-find parts got creative and reached out to a lot of people At the bottom of it it was to try to take the wagon that everyone else saw and do what we could to improve upon it but not change it announced Robertson to certainly have it come out and be the revived resurrected truck returned to its former glory