As of last thursday its been fifteen weeks since the bus landed at Nostalgia Motors in Hamilton.
And it's still not certified.
So on Friday She and I fired up the '47 and drove the four hour trip north to talk to the man.
I've been patience personified over this bureaucratic debacle, and now I'm going to be demanding answers.

I didn't get them.

The short answer is: we've 'over' engineered it by putting it on a chassis that's heavier than the bus requires...the chassis is rated by GM for 6.5 tons, and the bus will weigh in at a gvm/gvw of well under 4 tons.
But the bureaucrat-with-the-clipboard from LTSA (Land Transport Safety Authority,) maintains that the factory chassis rating is the only figure he can judge the vehicle by...and that the 6.5 rating puts it into a heavy goods vehicle class.
If it had had 'caravan-type' stuff in it he could potentially have rated it as a motor home...a different class entirely. But it didn't have anything in the back; so he insists it's a heavy goods vehicle.
(If I'd have outfitted it as a motor home prior to certification they'd have insisted on ripping it apart to check the internal structural integrity...a Catch 22 situation.)
I took all my documentation and my scrap-book with me and was able to show everything we'd planned, and what we proposed to Noel McMillin, the proprietor of Nostalgia Motors.
He got his office girl to photocopy the lot...about 100 foolscap sized pages, detailing our trip back to Billings Oklahoma, and quotes and estimates from the people I intend to get to fit the interior, and all things in-between.
"This might just persuade the b*****d," he said.
I surely hope so!
A meeting of minds and a punching of heads can sometimes be almost the same thing.

And so back home to another tub of icecream.

So here's hoping!

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