Disney, Drunks, and a Volkswagen Microbus
Or, how this van and trailer set is going to pull six-figure dollars.
A few years ago, auction prices for the 21-window Volkswagen Microbus went through the roof. The reason? A drunk bidder accidentally paid over $100,000 for a Kombi. (Seriously.) As one does when one’s vehicle is suddenly worth something, people started restoring and accessorizing them, transforming what was cheap and cheerful transportation into a fetishized collectible.
Now that we’ve run out of things to put on and into a Microbus, it’s time to start attaching things to its ends. Because a chrome-slathered turquoise VW van’s cuteness is measured in baby otterpowers, it’s only logical to find something even more cute. That thing is an Eriba Puck.
Eriba Puck, child star best known for her role in Disney’s 1972 classic Don’t Kill My Horsie, previously lent her name to an eponymous Microbus-specific camper trailer reportedly inspired by her haunches. Thus, the pop-up Eriba Puck is spectacularly wooky-ookums, holding a completely color-matched stove, sink, dining table and twin beds. The nine-seater bus, originally property of a girls’ school (again, seriously), is really, really big, completely turquoise inside, and equipped with matching luggage and a random turquoise Dr. Pepper cooler, for when the girls’ throats became sore from singing “My Lovely Horse,” the Don’t Kill My Horsie theme song. The trailer hitch is light mint.
Lugging around this rolling case of Crème de menthe is one of VW’s 1.5-liter aircooled fours, 50 horsepower being more than adequate to reach at least some miles per hour. It won’t fit inside any garage, but some honkey is going to buy it for six figures (it has a $125,000-$175,000 estimate) when RM Sotheby’s sells it in March. When you see it parked downtown later this year, they’ll offer you a Dr. Pepper out of the cooler. Don’t go inside. Don't ever go inside the van.
