Greek entrepreneur Jannis Makris has fulfilled a long-held dream with his restoration of a 60-year-old Setra S 6.

When Jannis Makris takes his Setra on a trip through the expansive countryside round his home city of Athens, he meets the curious gaze of many passers-by. Because his 60-year-old Setra S 6 is not just an old-timer. The sight of this perfectly restored, 6.70-metre 22-seater with its vintage rounded curves, makes the heart swell.

Makris’ love of buses and coaches goes a long way back. In the early 1960s, Setra buses were part of his father’s fleet. With tourism on the way up, bus travel in Greece was particularly popular. “I still remember well how fun it was travelling in a Setra S 10,” the 63-year-old Greek explains. Even though his father’s bus company is no more, his love of Setra buses and coaches is alive to this day.

It would take five years for Makris to find a suitable vehicle. A car transporter brought the immobile wreck from Bitburg (Germany) to Athens, where, together with friends and employees, its new owner first took it apart, piece by piece, in his company’s own workshops. “It was in a truly pitiful condition back then,” reports Makris. “After 1.5 million kilometres and 25 years in a barn, not only were the seats and central console missing, it had rusted through in few places, and also had numerous mechanical defects. My family was very sceptical as to whether a functioning bus could be made out of it.”

Four long, laborious years of restoration lay ahead. Jannis Makris is not just proud of the successful result, but also that he and his team managed to get the vehicle back into something accurately reflecting its original condition. “During the dismantling, we worked ‘archaeologically’. In other words: We refurbished every part we dismantled, photographed it, put it in a bag and labelled it. ” This meticulous, rather painstaking method later allowed them to put everything exactly back in place and join it all together again, reusing as many parts as possible.

“100 per cent of the parts are original, even the bolts. I was surprised what good quality the materials and processing were back then,” says Makris. Parts missing from the original were gradually gathered by the Setra lover. “We needed a lot of patience before we got it all together. But we did it in the end.” Missing parts were manufactured independently with great care, making sure they were true to the original. Even the nets on the seats are hand-knotted – just like when it was delivered in 1962.”

Since 2019, the Setra S 6 has shone again in its classic red/beige paintwork, bringing its owner great joy. “The first test-drive after restoration – that was an indescribably moving moment”, remembers Jannis Makris. “It was the joy of just setting off and seeing that all those four years of work were not in vain.” Independent confirmation was soon to follow. When Makris first took his Setra to an old-timer meeting in 2019, the panel selected it from among 250 participants as “Best in Show”. “Some old-timer friends even suspected that, given the perfection and attention to detail, the bus wasn’t restored, but must have just been hidden away somewhere for years,” the 63-year-old proudly asserts.

Jannis Makris is so certain of the vaunted Setra quality that he has no doubt that the 60-year-old Setra will be able to survive for the same number of years again – assuming careful maintenance and a modest annual mileage of five to six thousand kilometres. Makris is still the only person allowed to drive the old-timer. “But gradually I am teaching my two sons how to drive a Setra S 6 properly,” the patriarch says, grinning. In any case, the pair have long inherited his love of buses.