Preston Martin was certain that his retro blue Volkswagen van, which he’d slept in during college, was lost. He’d parked the van in a Malibu neighborhood just before the Palisades fire ripped through, turning homes and vehicles into ash and charred metal. But to Martin’s surprise, the van survived.
Even more remarkably, a photo of the vibrant van, taken by an Associated Press photographer, spread widely on television and online, providing a moment of joy for viewers.
“There is magic in that van,” Martin, 24, said in a Tuesday interview with the AP. “It makes no sense why this happened. It should have been toasted, but here we are.”
The neighborhood remains closed to the public, preventing both Martin and Megan Krystle Weinraub, the friend and business partner to whom he sold the van last summer, from inspecting it. Martin noted that other photos of the van showed soot on the windows.
Martin acquired the 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 somewhat impulsively during his junior year studying mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His mother, Tracey Martin, of Irvine, initially scolded him for the expense. However, Martin argued that he would save on rent by fixing up the interior and living in it during his senior year–which he did. His mother eventually grew fond of the bus, and sewed curtains for the windows.
Last summer, he sold the van to Weinraub, 29, a designer of surf and skate boards under the Vibrant Boards brand. Martin, meanwhile, makes carbon fiber surfboards under Starlite.
On January 5, the friends drove to go surfing in the van, which Weinraub calls Azul, Spanish for “blue.” Afterwards, Martin parked it on a flat spot up the hill from her apartment near the Getty Villa, as she was still learning how to drive the manual transmission.
Two days afterward, the Palisades fire ignited, and Weinraub evacuated with her dog, Bodi, and some dog food in her primary car. While she felt sad about Azul, her concern was minimal compared to those who had lost homes or loved ones.
On Thursday, a neighbor sent her a photo showing the bus, still blue and white, remarkably undamaged. “I freaked out,” she said. “I was in the bathroom, and I screamed.” She immediately called Martin, who was similarly shocked.
He then called his mom, who was ecstatic. “I’ve never cried for a car before,” Tracey Martin texted her son.
Their surprise intensified when the AP photo appeared on television and online. “We made the news,” Martin stated in an Instagram reel, leading Weinraub to contact the photographer.
Weinraub, whose home survived, doesn’t know when she’ll be able to return to her apartment or Azul. The two are happy the van’s survival has impacted so many people.
“It’s so cool that it’s become this, like, beacon of hope,” Martin said. “Everything around it was toasted, just destroyed. And then here’s this bright blue shiny van, sitting right there.”
