This could be one hell of a lunch wagon.
Make it into a chiva parrandera (party bus) like we have here in Panama. The bus carries a band or a DJ in the back. All of the seats have holders for bottles of rum and mixers. You cruise around the city with flashing lights and booming music, and periodically the bus stops and everyone gets out and dances (or more likely staggers) around. Heaven or Hell? You decide.
I did it once, and while it was kind of fun, I don’t think I would do it again unless someone got a group together.
I think you get more than $1000 scrapping it. Hard to believe it goes for that little and can actually be driven to the scrapyard.
I know what will be on the schedule for the first Panama international dopefest.
Sigh. Reminds me of the time I took a trip with the “Hog Farm.”
And I’m ready to hit the road again, but in something smaller and ready to go.
ANother thread coming.
I got a perfectly fine USPS step van once for 175 bucks. No car I’ve ever had had a motor that purred perfectly as that did. I flipped it for resale.
Maintenance and replacement items (tires, batteries, filters etc) on a bus is likely to be a lot more expensive than a car. Unless you have a definitive plan for it it could be a cost sink even if you got it for free.
Per beowulff’s warning there’s a reason it’s so low priced, and it’s not because you are just one lucky fella.
When I was young, our church bought an old used bus that they got cheap. The plan was to use it for occasional trips for the youth group and other church groups. It broke down on the first trip they took it on, and they had so many problems with it that they gave up on it a few years later and got rid of it.
That’s my only old used bus experience.
If you get to be good at parallel parking that sucker, no other vehicle will ever seem like a challenge.
I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it.
You can’t have it!
Think how much I’ll save.
I was under the impression that 15-passenger vans (frequently seen as “church buses”, and sometimes used by tour groups) like the Ford E350 were generally the largest vehicle that could be driven with a regular, garden variety non-commercial driver’s license.
When was that? Scrap prices are pretty high now, one of the reason used vehicle prices are high now. But it could be one of those deals.
City buses have fairly crude suspension systems and struggle to reach 60mph, plus as we all know, they are rigged to explode if they get up to that speed then go under 50 miles per hour again :D; so, it’s not really very practical as a camper conversion or to take on road trips. What you are looking for there is an intercity bus or a coach/tourbus conversion.
I’ve met someone who has one of those things (supposedly Julio Iglesias used it at one point) and it’s a beast. The owner has shown up in it at a couple of suburban parties I’ve attended, and I imagine he had to do a bit of planning to make sure he could navigate the streets to his destination. Likewise, I haven’t asked whether it requires a CDL (Commercial Driver’s Licence), but he tools around in it as though it was just a really big car, so either he does have one, or doesn’t and is a bit insane; I’m slightly inclined to the latter.
Re: the OP’s object of desire, if it’s something like a classic GM ‘Fishbowl’ (the ‘Speed’ bus) various transit museums might be interested in it as a donation.
If it’s used as a private vehicle it can be registered as such, no commercial enforcement, no CDL required. But that also means you can never have a paying passenger or as ad on the bus either. Can’t charge even $1 for gas to get your buddies to the game.
That & parallel parking is a b$%^&.
Looks like we’ve hit the high notes:
- operating expenses will be high
- maintenance/repair will be costly
- it almost certainly weighs enough to require a special license. (It varies from state to state, but in Connecticut it was anything over 18,000 pounds, and a School Bus weighs 26,000 pounds empty.)
- it takes up a lot of space when parked, making it hard to keep unless you’ve got some land
- it weighs enough to do some serious damage, meaning insurance will be costly.
On the other hand, I’ve always wanted one, and owning one could be cool. If you don’t want it, tell us where it is. 
Folks are confusing a Commercial Driver’s License with a license for a different class of vehicle.
My data is out of date, but something very similar will still apply:
Before there was a CDL, Connecticut had what they called a Public Service License. Anyone who carried passengers as part of their job needed one: cab drivers, limo drivers, bus drivers. But having a Public Service License only allowed you to carry passengers for a living. You also needed a license for whatever type of vehicle you were driving.
A Class Three License covered passenger cars and the like. Specifically, it covered vehicles under 18,000 pounds.
A Class Two License covered non-articulated vehicles over 18,000 pounds, so big trucks and buses.
A Class One License covered semi-trailer trucks over 18,000 pounds.
Class One included Class Two, and Class Two included Class Three. Each was also available in a version that basicly added “and motorcycles” onto the end, which IIRC were Class Six, Five, and Four.
So, if you were looking to drive a semi-truck cab, with no trailer, and the cab itself was under 9 tons, your passenger car license would do. And if you were using a semi-trailer setup by putting a 5th-wheel hitch in the bed of your pickup, you could do that with a passenger car license so long as the combined weight of truck and trailer was under 9 tons.
And if you wanted to drive a taxi, you’d need a Public Service license and you standard Class Three license. But if you wanted to drive a school bus, you’d need a Class Two license in addition to that Public Service license.
Getting a Class Two License was apparently very easy, though, as you just had to show that you had some clue how to not run stuff over, and then show that you could back up using just your mirrors.
When I was a kid, my Boy Scout troop had a bus (and then another). It was great for bringing a wild pack of kids off to the woods or wherever without needing lots of parents to drive three hours there and then three hours back.
So, if you’re involved with some kind of youth group, it might be worthwhile. Get the other parents to chip in, and go for it.
If you can park it on your property for $1,000 heck yes you should buy it, provided it works. Trick it out into a camper or rock star mobile and go places, e.g. camping or gigs. Paint it up all cool, too.