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Preston Martin thought the retro blue Volkswagen van he slept in for a year in college was ruined, considering he parked it in a Malibu neighborhood just before the Palisades fire tore through, reducing houses and cars in rubble and charred metal.

The surfboard manufacturer was therefore stunned to find that the vehicle had survived. Additionally, a photo of the bustling bus taken by an Associated Press photographer was circulating widely on television and online, bringing some joy to viewers.

“There’s magic in this van,” Martin, 24, said Tuesday in an interview with AP. “It doesn’t make sense why this happened. It should have been a toast, but here we are.”

The area remains closed to the public and neither Martin nor the friend and business partner he sold the van to last summer, Megan Krystle Weinraub, have been able to inspect the vehicle. In other photos of the van, there appears to be soot on its windows, Martin said.

Martin bought the 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 on a whim, around his junior year of studying mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His mother, Tracey Martin, of Irvine, yelled at him for wasting her money, but Martin told her he would save on rent by fixing up the interior and living there his senior year, which he did. do. She came to love the bus and sewed curtains for the windows.

Last summer, he sold the van to Weinraub, 29, who designs surf and skateboards under the Vibrant Boards brand. Martin makes carbon fiber surfboards under Starlite.

On January 5, the friends went surfing in the van, which Weinraub calls Azul – “blue” in Spanish. Then Martin parked her on a flat spot up the hill from her apartment near the Getty Villa, because she was still learning to drive the manual transmission.

Two days later, the Palisades Fire broke out and Weinraub fled with her dog, Bodi, and dog food in her main car. She felt sad for Azul, but it was minor compared to those who lost their homes or loved ones.