The trippy VW Type 2 'Light Bus' gets revived for Woodstock's anniversary
The original is lost to time, so they had to build another one from scratch.
Many of you readers might not have been around to remember the original Woodstock festival, and those who were there might not remember it all that well, either. But if there's one vehicle that helped represent the times as a whole, it's the psychedelic VW Type 2 that the band Light brought to the festival. And now, on the eve of Woodstock's 50-year anniversary, it's back from the dead.
Volkswagen announced this week that Dr. Bob Hieronimus, the man who painted the original Light Bus, will unveil the revived version at this weekend's Orange County Transporter Organization Winter Meet in California. After the meet, this hand-painted revival will travel the country to celebrate Woodstock's anniversary.
This van is the result of three years of hard work. Hieronimus and John Wesley Chisholm, a Canadian documentarian, first set out to find the original bus, but the two were unable to find it after six months of searching. The pair eventually decided to build a spot-on recreation with the help of Kickstarter. After finding the perfect donor, Hieronimus and five artists spent six weeks recreating the paint job from historical photos of the original. After learning about the project, Volkswagen stepped in to help, too.
The original van's paint job made waves after the Associated Press snapped a picture of it during the festival, landing the psychedelic design in newspapers and magazines across the US. Volkswagen noted in its press release that the van also appeared on the official Woodstock album liner.
"The bus is really about being one people on one planet," said Hieronimus in a statement. "On every side of the bus is a story -- many stories -- and the stories all point to unification, working together and a higher consciousness, which is what Light really is all about."
