True condition of 1977 Volkswagen Microbus that survived the California wildfires revealed after looking 'perfect' amid devastation

About a year ago, the image of a 1977 Volkswagen T2 Bus ‘Azul’ photographed against a backdrop of devastation after the California wildfires went viral.

The main reason why it went viral was that the Bus appeared to be relatively unharmed while everything else around it burned to a crisp.

But, as we recently learned, the photograph didn’t reflect the true condition of the Bus back then.

And when VW unveiled the now fully restored Bus, they revealed just how bad the situation was at the time.

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This Volkswagen T2 Bus was not as unscathed as it looked in the iconic photograph

In January 2025, California wildfires turned parts of Los Angeles and San Diego into an apocalyptic landscape.

Pacific Palisades was badly affected and amid the chaos, a photographer named Mark J. Terrill was able to snap an amazing photograph of this blue van that stood out against a background of dust, ashes and smoke.

Volkswagen decided to restore the bus, which the owner affectionately calls ‘Azul’, but it wasn’t easy.

The van looked pristine but, as Volkswagen revealed, it actually wasn’t.

The condition of the van highlights the scope of the California wildfires tragedy

In November 2025, Volkswagen held a private event at Petersen Museum in Los Angeles to unveil the fully restored T2 Bus.

During the event, Volkswagen of America’s VP of Marketing Rachael Zaluzec told attendees that restoring the van was a lot harder than people imagined.

“It turned out that that photo that we all saw, that beautiful photo that Mark took, only showed Azul’s good side,” Zaluzec said.

“What we didn’t see was the other side of the vehicle that was really badly scarred from the fires. The bus required some pretty extensive work.

“Now, not just on the exterior, but also the mechanicals. We had to replace things like burnt-out wiring and hoses.”

Megan Weinraub, the owner of the vehicle, said the same thing.

“It did burn. It just survived, somehow,” she said.

So the badly damaged Volkswagen T2 Bus looked fine because everything else around it, sadly, was in even worse shape then.

The vehicle looks tremendous now, and Weinraub intends to use it exactly for the reason this was created all those years ago.

Weinraub said she wants to use this ‘as a clean slate to start over’ and she wants to take the VW on a few camping trips, including one to Big Sur, arguably the ‘surf capital’ of the Western Hemisphere.

And there’s no better place for a VW Bus to be.