The sad outcome of the original Partridge Famly Bus

[um]

I have recently heard that the "The Parliament-Funkadelic Mothership"
is in the Smithsonian"s permanent collection, as are the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizerd Of Oz .

"Archie Bunker's chair" is in the National Museum of American History.

I guess there must be other props, or backdrops or other items that have been used on TV, or on stage that are now in museums or historic societies or organizations because of their cultural or nostalgic value, or their iconic status.

I think that the "Bat mobile" is in some kind of car museum or has been somehow preserved for exhibition regarding vehicles in Popular TV shows of the past. I think likewise for the "Monkeemobile."

However what I have heard of the original Partridge Family bus (the one that was used in the actual TV show) is that it was just somehow handed to someone who left it essentially un-attended in the back of a restaurant or home and the bus corroded and eventually was just hauled as trash and no one knows what became of it afterward .

It is bewildering how it was never given to a museum or put along with the Bat mobile and the Monkeemobile.

Perhaps at the time, no one thought that The Partridge Family TV show would go down in trivia history as the only other TV show other than "the Monkees" from which came songs that became hits within the recording industry.
Perhaps, when the Partridge Family ended, it had such bad ratings and the plots had become so awful as well as the music ( or reportedly) that people thought that the show would go on to hardly be remembered.

It seems that the Partridge Family bus would have been a particularly
significant artifact of the early 1970s .

Anyone know the details of what happened to the original bus?

[BetaHiFi]

I just registered here so I can make this single solitary post... about the sunny day in the fall of 1980 when I happened upon The Bus lol.

It was such an unexpectedly bizarre thing to see... kind of blew my mind.

I had recently moved to Southern California from the midwest and was out looking for work when I saw what was left of the PF bus parked along the side of South Vermont Avenue, about a block north of Pacific Coast Highway.

I pulled over and parked and got out to take a closer look. What you mentioned in the OP pretty much exactly matches what I saw- the bus was in terrible condition, the paint was very faded, body basically rusted out with big holes in it and tons more rust starting to come through what was left of the paint job.

THEN I noticed that there were some long-haired, apparently unwashed people living in the bus LOL and I hastily departed!

Unfortunately I had no camera with me or I would have snapped some pics.

What a day that was. I'll never forget it!

[Chocolate Moose]

It's awfully big. That must have accounted for something.