Hello and Hurrah! We're happy to be here and soon to be Prevost Owners :)

[CLRH2O]

Hello everyone, I'm introducing for the two of us, the DW and I.

My name is Clearwater, her's is Cheney. We are about 2 weeks out from handing over the check for our very first Prevost... and it's an interesting one!

At a hair over 19 months of bus research, hunting and amazing test drives of other coaches, we find found ourselves within striking distance of a very unique Prevost. This particular coach was contract built by Texaco (operated and serviced by private business who is actually the seller now) for use by Wlliams F1 Racing during the 1991 -1992 F1 season, and specifically for driver Nigel Mansell (apparently the coach's unique construction and features were the result of being part of a 'demand' list required for him to return as the Williams F1 Team lead driver... more on this in a little bit).

At least, that's what I've been able to figure out so far lol.

Oh and Nigel won the 1992 F1 World Championship at the time! Not that this/his bus likely had much to do with *that* of course.

And so, the short story of why we're buying this bus is as follows: The owner operator of the bus (and it's sister 1994 Prevost that we very nearly bought 3 weeks ago, but backed out of to look at this 1991) has recently retired, sold his company and lives in Germany most of the year. And after operating the two coaches as the AUDI Racing Team Paddock buses (the buses are vinyl wrapped from roof to ground in the Flat grey and Red Stripe Audi Livery) for the better part of the past 20 years until Seabring 2017 which was their last contract race date... has decided that he's out and moving on with the 'bucket list'

This means the coaches are selling for a touch less than half their fair market value! And while that's most certainly a steal for a Prevost XL 40... you guessed it, there's always a gotcha! lol

Although it has a book of service records and receipts about 4" thick, it's pretty obvious these *servicing* visits were done when something broke down and not when the part's schedule would have normally called for it to be serviced. So while the overall mileage is average for the vintage (176k miles) there is evidence to suggest it's been used with abandon. Also, it's a custom coach in every sense of the word. It has, and we do know who did *this* work luckily, a rear side entry door custom engineered and installed by Marathon. This second side door was used to let the team driver (Nigel originally) enter the coach directly into a fully finished yet completely empty rear room. This room had the team doctor and massage therapist / massage tables for use after each race. This of course means no *bedroom* to speak of. But, since I run a stable of record labels and had planned to renovate any rear bedroom *removing the bed* in order to build an audio engineering & post production studio into the space - it's DANG NEAR PERFECT for that plan! But, that side door does mean a huge area of wasted space and less storage overall. Adding to the storage woes; the entire front 3/5's of the coach is a MONSTROUS over-sized salon. The Salon it's self takes up a clean 20' of front to rear space from the back of the drivers seat to the short (entertainer style) galley counter on the driver's side. Other sort of gotcha's are old tires ($8k'ish right off the bat), an 8V92 that will require some careful mechanic sourcing over time no doubt... and what *might* be some front passenger roof to floor leak damage (I have to return to inspect that a little more closely this Friday).

There's no doubt a laundry list of things that we'll have to pay to get replaced, serviced or fixed over the first year or two. How old *are* those air bags going to end up being after we search through the service records? The Batteries? Who knows, it's a guessing game. Overall though, we assume in the end it wont cost us more than $40k or so to get it up to snuff as we're damn handy with a toolbox for anything that can be lifted or jacked up ourselves. As well as me being extremely educated on 12v systems and air pneumatics (long story, but that all involves working for a zoo for years with their haunted houses and Animatronics).


Right about now, many of you are probably asking yourselves: "Why aren't you bringing the bus to a Prevost Service center and getting it PDI'd, or having a mechanic come out to look at it before buying it?" And that answer is: The seller has offers coming at him from all directions to buy the things. As a point of fact, the people who paid for the 1994 he's selling that we *almost* bought a few weeks ago jumped on it the SAME AFTERNOON we told him we were stepping down in order to look at his 1991 instead. And so, sad as it truly is, we either jump on it or the next party waiting for our final decision this weekend does in our place.

Oh yeah - I just realized there's one last very unique thing about the bus. It comes with a custom built, 40' x 18' side wall/roof-line mounted TENT!. The tent it's self can seat about 25 people at tables with chairs and has a full roof, inside lighting, covered (half height) side walls, entry walkways and upper portion screened breezeway cutouts all around :O There's two pics of that in the attachments.

I know I've typed a novel at this point, so I'll that be that for the moment.

So on that note - hello again, nice to meet you all, and we're genuinely looking forward to being a part of the community. Wish us luck