Meet Corazón (Spanish for heart), a traveling café, gallery and Tiny house on wheels.

Coraźon started life in 1949 as a bare chassis being imported from England and delivered to Commonwealth Engineering to be fitted out with its iconic OPD2 double decker body.

Once completed it was placed into service by the NSW government on the Abbotsford line until 1974 when it was retired from service and sold to a private vendor.

In 2004 Coraźon was found by Lawrence Norton in a quarry outside Griffith NSW last registered in SA but laying as an abandoned project panels missing half flat tyres and not started in 15 years.

With love at first site Lawrence purchased the bus for $950 and begun the restoration as a self funded project. Upon completion Corazón touched the Australian roads once again on March 22, 2019.

Inspired by finding a new way of living, Lawrence has now spent over four years driving an excess of 26,000 km around Australia and raised over $70,000 through fundraising drives for charities.

Lawrence found a unique way of funding these drives through painting with a spilt long black coffee and a gum leaf as a brush. Painting with the café’s waste coffee now continues supporting his fuel, living costs and repairs for his journeys. 

At a snail’s pace of 45km/h housing its original 0.600 Leyland engine and running gear, it defiantly turns heads along the way.

This however in not the end of his journey’s.

On a mission to make this ripple extend to a wider community, Corazón and Lawrence are currently looking for sponsors and a space to land and set up a more permanent cafe, so more bus’s can be completed and more charities can be supported across Australia.