Here’s baT Auction Success Story: Family Friendee
This Success Story comes to us from BaT member gl21133, who won this 1995 Mazda Bongo Friendee Turbodiesel Pop-Top Camper in a September 2025 BaT auction:
My family—consisting of myself, my wife, and our two young girls—spent most of the summer of 2016 visiting all of the state parks in Idaho in our ’92 Ford E-250 van. While it was a great vehicle, we quickly outgrew it. In the fall of that year, I began looking for bigger vehicles to convert. A local auction house often offered retired buses and ambulances, and I occasionally threw in a bid when the bidding was low, expecting them to sell for well over that initial price. Which they did, for a while.
That November, I watched the price tick up on a retired shuttle bus, so I placed a bid and went back to work. I completely forgot about it. Later that evening, I received an invoice for a little over $2,000 for said bus, along with a note saying I needed to pick it up within five days. It took about a week to talk my way out of the doghouse, and luckily my driveway accommodated the 30-foot-long bus. I begrudgingly agreed to stop putting in “it’ll never go this cheap” bids at the local auction. We built out the interior, and subsequently camped in the bus several times before selling it and upgrading to a full-sized skoolie after adopting our son.
Fast forward to this year. It was late summer when I sold an 80-Series Land Cruiser and began looking for JDM diesel-powered vans—Delicas, HiAces, etc. I’d seen the Bongo Friendee before. I absolutely loved the name itself and the van’s pop-top camper, but they were not very common. So when one popped up on BaT in September 2025, I placed a few early bids and kept an eye on it until the day it was slated to close. The price was within my budget on the final day, so I put in one last bid and left to help host a work BBQ, expecting a flurry of last-minute bids and a final price well above from what I had left. About 45 minutes later, I got a voicemail from the seller and realized I’d just done the exact thing as with the shuttle bus.
Luckily, my wife was very understanding, and this van is a lot smaller and more reliable than our 335k-mile shuttle bus. Shipping the Bongo to Oregon wasn’t cheap, but I still think I got a solid deal.
I replaced the tires, and while fixing a wonky clock spring, I installed some Hella Supertone horns to impress the local Subie kids and startle bad drivers. It currently needs new glow plugs (JDM part sourcing is so much fun).
A contributor from Diesel Army also wrote a piece about it back in October. Overall, I’m pretty happy with my Bongo Friendee purchase!
If you have a Success Story about a car you’ve bought or sold on BaT, please send a few lines and pictures (or a video) to community.content@bringatrailer.com, and we’ll send you a $50 credit to the BaT Gear Store when your story posts to the site.
We love to hear from satisfied BaT buyers and sellers, and a Success Story feature is a great addition to any car’s history when you’re ready to sell.
