Introducing Lani the Bus
If you've been at local markets on O'ahu or you hang out in town especially around Ala Moana, Ala Wai and Waikiki, you might've seen the Lani Bus a rockin'. Lani (the Bus) is a 1970 VW Type 2a Transporter/ van, "bay window bus" that we got as the official mode of land transport for Lani Shades. We got the idea at one of our first markets in Kailua, Makua Banana Bread had one and there were other people selling coffee out of another. Why not sunglasses? It came up in conversation on a sailing trip aboard Gemini, that one of our crew had one that he shipped over from the mainland and lost interest in the restoration project. So the owner of Lani Shades did something really crazy- he sold his super reliable old Toyota island beater and went all in to make this bus his daily driver.
She was a mess at first. She was barely road worthy and needed a lot of work, inside and out. But we love a good challenge so after negotiating a good deal at Maaco for the exterior paint job, we went to work fixing everything mechanical and electrical and redesigning the interior. Lani had old seats that were removed to make room for an open work space, the interior was repainted to match the exterior and to be "on brand" we made like a sorta inside out woody effect with wood paneling in the interior. We even made a matching wood crate for storage. She's still a work in progress and as of this writing we still have a list of projects to complete but we're having so much fun driving around town and using the bus at markets and to transport inventory to our local retail partners.
Before we bought this bus, we were in love with the aesthetics of a classic vehicle like this. But after we got her our love only deepened when we realized why these vehicles were so popular over the years. She's so much fun to drive! And everything was designed to be super easy and relatively cheap to fix. All the parts for these things are still available, with two shops on Oahu that stock parts and anything else can be ordered from the mainland. Working on these things is pretty straightforward and made to be all DIY- everything can be done yourself, I mean everything! We even had to remove the engine ourselves, in the parking stall at our apartment to replace the clutch!
Next thing we really want to do is get some good content created with people wearing Lani Shades having fun with the Lani Bus. Be sure to follow Lani's own Instagram @lanithebus and send us a DM if you ever want to go for a ride!
