The Turtle That Brought Me Home
Somewhere around 1968, my folks bought a white Volkswagen bus from Tom Carsten’s VW/Porsche dealership in Tacoma, Washington. It wasn’t fancy, but it became the backdrop of my childhood — cross-country summers, rain-slick two-lane highways, state park campgrounds, and more than a few mechanical surprises. There was even a small engine fire once, the sort of thing that becomes family legend precisely because nobody got hurt. That old bus taught us patience, persistence, and the slow joy of seeing America through a wide windshield.
Ever since, I’ve carried the idea of building another one — not a restoration, but a re-imagining. A stretched version with a taller bubble roof, Westfalia-style inside but with more breathing room thanks to the longer wheelbase. Yes, it looks enormous in photos, but in reality it’s still shorter than a modern crew-cab, short-bed Chevy pickup. In other words: roomy enough to live in, small enough to actually take everywhere. I imagine returning to the places I saw as a kid—state forests, county parks, and those national parks that flew by too quickly the first time. Only now, finally, there would be time to stop, linger, and let the landscape sink in.
And that brings me to the turtle.
The idea for the graphic didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the sum of three memories—three threads that somehow braided themselves together.
The first goes back to a vintage racing weekend years ago. I was working on a customer’s Alfa Romeo P3, and not just any P3 — the very car Tazio Nuvolari drove when he famously beat the dominant German teams at the 1935 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. It remains one of the greatest drives in racing history: an underpowered Alfa against the might of Mercedes and Auto Union, Nuvolari pushing beyond reason and somehow winning. And on that historic car, on the cowl, was a tiny turtle emblem.
It wasn’t fierce or dramatic. It was humble, almost funny — exactly the opposite of what you’d expect on a Grand Prix machine. But it meant something. Nuvolari kept it as his good-luck charm, a reminder that endurance can outlast power, that tenacity matters more than technology, and that wisdom often beats bravado. I never forgot that.
The second thread is from childhood trips to Sea World in San Diego, visits with my great-uncle when everything felt enormous and magical. The slow, ancient grace of sea turtles always stuck with me. Among all the fast, noisy attractions, the turtles were calm. Unhurried. Present.
The third thread is closer to home: the folklore art of Pacific Northwest tribes, whose stylized animals — ravens, wolves, salmon, orcas — carry stories, meanings, and warnings. Their designs aren’t just decoration; they’re identity. They’re memory.
Somewhere along the line, all three threads pulled together. And I realized that if I was going to build my own long-wheelbase Volkswagen camper, it needed a spirit animal — a storyteller on wheels. Not a swooshy modern vinyl graphic like every other RV. Not another mountain-sunset-bear-trees decal from an online shop. Something that invites conversation, sparks curiosity, maybe even makes someone smile.
And so: the giant painted turtle, blending folklore geometry with a racer’s talisman and a child’s sense of wonder.
A slow creature on a slow vehicle built to explore the world slowly.
A reminder that the greatest journeys aren’t rushed. They’re absorbed.
And this time, I plan to soak in every mile.