“..New owner gets just two hours in house bus..”
“..A Dunedin man bought a $16,500 house bus in Wanaka yesterday afternoon and two hours later was left staring at a burnt-out shell.
Don Saxton, 51, was driving his 1963 Leyland Leopard to Dunedin on the Chatto Creek-Springvale Rd when he noticed smoke coming from the rear interior of the fully converted house bus about 4pm.
He stopped 12km from Alexandra near Chatto Creek and flagged down a passer-by to ask for water.
But within minutes the bus was engulfed in smoke and flames, the brake linings burned out and it rolled backwards at an angle across the road to a verge.
Mr Saxton, a cargo handler at Port Otago, said he had sent the seller a text saying “Bus on fire. Written off. Call you later” and he was in need of a beer.
He bought the vehicle at 2pm in Wanaka “as is” but had not insured it.
His job had been under threat until compulsory redundancies at the port were narrowly avoided last week, he said. He was planning to live in the bus while he developed a coastal section.
He and friend Alby Patton had spent a weekend in Queenstown before Mr Saxton was dropped off in Wanaka.
Mr Patton said he did “a rather large U-ee” near Roxburgh to head back to Alexandra as soon as his friend called with the bad news.
“It’s only metal, at least he’s all right,” he said..”
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