We have a special day to mark this month. It is not a birthday, exactly, but it is a birthday of sorts. Specifically, it is an anniversary of a manufacturing day. Our bus, the BoggsMobile was built as a shell in February 1995 in the village of Sainte Claire, Quebec, Canada.
Four pictures from the last two months.
I have a copy of the original build sheet as ordered by a business in southern California. It was ordered with two doors, two escape hatches and fourteen swing out escape windows.
The mid door on a Prevost is extremely rare mostly because it is undesirable. However, the original owner ordered the mid door in order to rig up a ramp and winch to load a wheelchair. It was sketchy at best.
It was ordered with bus heat and air that is designed to comfortably heat or cool over fifty passengers. Most motorhome conversion companies do not add the bus heat and air, as it is an expensive option. It is also an awesome feature to have on the bus.
The bus was and is powered by a Detroit 60 series engine with a six speed Allison World automatic transmission. It was built near the beginning of the run of the Detroit 60 series in Prevost buses and that engine would be the standard for Prevost for over fifteen years.
At that time, Prevost produced the XL model and the H. The XL had stainless side riveted to the frame and that is what this bus is. The XL was manufactured another five or six years and was replaced by the XLII. That has now been replaced by the beautiful X3-45.
Back in 1995 and still today, the normal process of ordering a Prevost Motorhome was to order from one of several established converters. The converter buys the shell from Prevost and builds the interior and paint scheme to your custom order.
Our bus was built differently. A businessman in California ordered a shell custom built from Prevost with the features he wanted. While it was being built, he shopped for a custom conversion package from a few major converters.
We have much of his correspondence between him and these companies. He settled on Featherlite Vantare in Sanford, Florida and the bus was driven there in early 1995. It arrived there as an empty shell, but was completely painted on the outside. There is an interesting story about the paint job that I may tell you later.
I suspect he had to pay more for the total package because of the way he went about it, but he had a bus built exactly the way he wanted it. It was delivered as a motorhome in late 1995 and titled as a 1996 Prevost XL Vantare.
Technically it is a 1996, but for parts and repair purposes, it is a 1995. That is not uncommon in the bus motorhome world. Some conversions are titled two years newer than the shell depending on lots of factors.
The second owner was a farmer in the panhandle of Texas. I do not know when he purchased it from the first owner. He later traded it for a newer used one at Florida Luxury Coach in Sanford, Florida. It sat on that lot for many months less than one mile from where it was converted years earlier.
In 2007, Kelly Jo found the bus online about the same time that a friend of mine found it in an RV Trader magazine. I made an offer for about 55% of the asking price. They literally laughed at our offer.
Why that certain number? Because I had been approved for that much and I thought I could make those payments. I was determined that we would buy a bus for that price or less if we bought one at all.
Several months later they were down to my price and I made a lower offer. They countered with my original offer price and agreed to fix a few things and the rest is history. HERE is a post from last year with more details of the process.
On March 21, 2008 we purchased the bus that became the BoggsMobile and here are a few pictures from that day.
In less than 60 days we will pass the 14 year mark of ownership and the BoggsMobile will also roll over 400,000 miles soon. Both of those milestones will probably receive their own Mile Marker.
We are very thankful for our 27 year old bus! Happy Birthday BoggsMobile!
Thank you for reading today.
Davy
