Born in Hoofddorp, Ronald Westerhuis (33) has a dream: to tour the region with seniors in his classic DAF MBG200 bus and take them back in time. Before that, the bus still needs a lot of maintenance. A fundraising campaign has been running for a while to pay for this, but it is not yielding enough for the time being.
If anyone has made his childhood dream come true, it’s Ronald. At a young age he helped wash the yellow buses that also drove through his then hometown of Hoofddorp. He now lives in Amsterdam-Noord and is a bus driver. Until recently, he worked at the GVB in Amsterdam, now at Connexxion in Haarlem.
And that’s not all, because since the end of 2020 he is also the proud owner of ‘the last MBG200 that rolled off the line’. According to him, this happened on August 1, 1988, after the harmonica bus had been put into production six years earlier. “So the bus is one year older than I am,” he tells NH Nieuws. “Actually, we wanted to take a ride on August 1 to celebrate his birthday, but that didn’t happen.”
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Ronald’s classic bus must become a time machine – NH Nieuws
When purchasing Ronald was ‘as happy as a child’, but after a while it turned out that he had bought a small cat in a bag. “Actually, I was screwed,” he says, “because according to the owner there was nothing wrong.” Since he was unable to put the bus on a bridge on site, he relied on the positive inspection report and closed the deal.
It soon became apparent that everything was wrong. “The chassis is completely rotten, the coolant is leaking, the brake fluid is leaking,” he lists some of the defects. After he had received zero from several garage owners, he ended up in Susteren, Limburg, where the much-needed repairs could be carried out. “After fourteen months it was only on a bridge.”
“How nice is it when a deceased bus driver is taken to his final resting place in this bus?”
When it became clear last year that replacing the chassis would cost much more than he had budgeted, Ronald started a fundraiser. Of his target amount of 18,000 euros, 1,000 euros has now been received. That is not much, but the initiator still hopes to get his project off the ground by appealing to the generosity of people who support his plans.
Founding
He now has the foundation Blue Classic Lines founded, with which he hopes – as soon as the bus is ready to drive – to organize excursions for seniors for the Elderly Fund. Still, he is convinced that the nostalgic air around the bus will be felt by many more generations.
At his modest age, Ronald himself also has strong memories of rides with the characteristic bus. “With the class to the petting zoo, and that you asked the bus driver if you could open the doors,” he recalls. As for the doors of his MBG200, that mechanism also has yet to be repaired.
Last resting place
If it is safe to go on the road, he also wants to make the bus available for events such as weddings and funerals. “If a bus driver dies, how nice is it if he can be taken to his final resting place with this bus?”
Bus rides are raffled among the donors.