Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

  • giantasterisk

    Good thing that bus has a picture of a bus on it. I get confused easily.

    • http://www.facebook.com/kailin.lockhart Kailin Naughton-Lockhart

      hahahah this comment made my day

  • Jon Ptolemy

    Geek failure. I was pretty sure that bus had 520 HIT POINTS.  ”Wow, that’s one tough vehicle.”

    • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

      That is hilarious. The VW Bus is a “tank.”

      • euansmith

        I always thought of Micro Buses being the Healer Monks of the automotive world.

  • http://www.facebook.com/matthew.urso Matthew Urso

    not sure how they found a motor to so perfectly fit the low center of gravity and aerodynamics of the chassis but bravo!

    • Kenmrph

      My understanding is that for a period of time, VWs and Porsches had a lot of interchangeable parts, and engines could be easily swapped in.  In fact I once got picked up hitchhiking by a dude in a VW van who claimed he had installed a Porsche engine (but we didn’t quite put it through its paces as in the video).

      • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

        Thats an aircooled bus with the last aircooled 911 motor. We used to call my old 1955 Pre-A 356 Speedster “The world most expensive Kharma-ghia” Very similar cars, very different collectibility. 

        • Boundegar

          I heard they had to call up Mark’s daughter to 3D print them some custom engine mountings.

          • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

            With their new, not a MakerBot, 3D printer?

      • http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

        Yes, this is true– many VW and Porsche parts were interchangeable back then, in fact if you went to a shop and asked for the Porsche part they would charge you more than if you asked for the VW part, even though they both came out of the same bin in back.

      • Cornan

         I knew a guy who had dropped a Porsche engine into his VW Beetle with modifications to drive-train and suspension (improvements but not just yoinked from a 911) so it didn’t just destroy itself. From the outside it looked just like an old crappy Beetle. I was in it once at a red light when a Honda pulled up and did the “race?” head-nod. We just flew away from the line and it was the most hilariously terrifying quarter mile of my life. The people in the Honda were laughing their asses off at the next light.

  • Kenmrph

    On that note, here’s a tractor with a turbo engine blowing donuts in Sweden:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZTtmr4EMeU

    • Gilbert Wham

       I love Terror Tractor.

  • http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham

    I wonder if all the cars it’s passing are yielding to it, scared that it could roll over on them.  The video counters my expectations though, I assumed it would corner like a loaf of bread.

  • http://thisisonlya.blogspot.com robcat2075

    How does that not tip over?  Those things were a problem just in a  cross wind.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

      I am sure they put in heavier struts and shocks to match the engine. They might have filled the back with sandbags to lower the center of gravity. A regular Bus or Westie would have tipped over in the first curve without a better suspension and possibly counterweights. 

      • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

        Wheels are much larger than the stock 14″ — look at how low profile the tires are. Also in rear shots notice the tire width, looks 2x a stock bus. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/fancywoo Paul Bradley

    Being familiar with that car–it is really a 911 (I forget which) with a bus body on it…

    • Lisa Miller

      Thanks for clarifying, I was thinking that’s what it had to be because the positioning of the steering wheel and the pedals is totally wrong for a bus.

  • http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

    But does the heater work?

    • Todd Bradley

      I imagine the heater works as well as the heater in a 911 plus the heater in a VW bus, which is to say “no, it doesn’t work.”

      • Ipo

        Or it does. And then you can’t turn it off all summer.  

        • grimc

          Flashback of an old SC I once had. July, top off, I’m in shorts and wondering why I felt so hot…

  • http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

    Wife: Where is this?  
    Me: The parking lot at Costco.

  • Daneel

    Jamie Oliver has one a bit like this (or used to..)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kVkSRwiZQ

  • bo1n6bo1n6

    No footage of the hippies in the back doing bong hits?

  • howaboutthisdangit

    This brings back fond memories of the original San Francisco Rush arcade game, which gave you the option of racing through SF in a VW Bus.

  • http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

    As a point of interest, there was actually a relatively high-powered  4×4 Kombi for sale in South Africa during the 1980s.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le8TlHJMzes

  • Sten Bedwell

    This might look like a VW bus; but if  you check out the build gallery on his website at http://www.race-taxi.ch/ you will see that it’s more of a tube frame race car wearing a bus skin. He’s running the complete suspension and drivetrain from a twin turbo 993 Porsche.

    • Michael D

      Yes. I had a 67 bus and a 70. That vertically-oriented steering wheel is just WRONG. It’s a bus shell on something else, entirely.

  • margaretpoa

    I’m sure that will come in handy next time he needs to pull 3 fifteen meter trailers in tandem across the Australian Outback.

  • Preston Sturges

    A far cry from when we put three canoes on a VW van and headed for the mountains, realizing too late that it would only do about 10 mph over the mountains.

    • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

      Did you have to Fitzcarraldo it?

  • knoxblox

    I can’t help but hear Yakity Sax in my head as I watch this video.

  • jackbird

    We had a Porsche engine in the aircooled VW camper van my family drove when I was a kid.  It didn’t make it go fast, though – just made it work after the stock engine died.  Or maybe that’s just the way my folks drove it.  We got rid of it soon after when they tried to change a tire and the jack went right through the rusty frame-like substance without lifting the car.

  • wrybread

    I wonder if they transferred the sensor from the donor VW van that makes it break down whenever you’re far from home, forcing a complete draining of your bank account? That was about the only reliable feature on my old 1980 Westy…