00:00 Our client came to us with a problem. They said we've got two school buses but only one
00:04 parking space. Can you help us? We're like yes we can.
00:08 This topsy-turvy school bus is the handiwork of Artcar fabricators, the Mutant Brothers.
00:18 Oh it's 24 feet long and it's 13 feet, one inch high.
00:23 Right.
00:24 And it's 14,700 pounds.
00:27 I'd say right now the top speed is about 50.
00:31 Oh man, that's downhill with a tailwagon.
00:34 It was a commission from environmental agency Hazan. It runs on biodiesel, has a solar panel
00:41 array and is used as a mobile classroom.
00:44 It started as two individual school buses and the build posed a few problems.
00:51 You figured, alright well we'll take two school buses, cut the roof off of both of them,
00:56 unbolt one of them from the frame, turn it upside down and put it on top of the other one.
01:01 And that sounds great until you actually have to do that and then you start thinking well
01:05 how do you turn a school bus upside down? So we had to make our own rotisserie.
01:11 We got a big massive piece of pipe and we bolted some huge pieces of, bigger pieces
01:17 of pipe in the school bus and then ran this pipe right the way down the centre, made some
01:23 stands, we would then pull the whole thing up into the air with block and tackle with
01:28 chain force in each corner, pull the whole thing up into the air, then put these big
01:33 stands at each end of this piece of pipe and then lower it down onto the stands and then
01:38 we could spin the entire bus.
01:41 Scariest thing I've ever done at work.
01:43 It's pretty nerve wracking.
01:45 It was.
01:46 As unique as it might look, this is actually the second Topsy Turvy bus that's been built.
01:52 The Topsy Turvy bus was originally the idea of Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
01:59 and he wanted something that would protest government spending saying it was upside down
02:03 and so he had this artist Tom Kennedy in California build the original Topsy Turvy bus.
02:09 It ended up in the hands of this environmental organisation called Hazon and they get such
02:14 a fantastic reaction from it that they decided they wanted another one.
02:19 Unfortunately Tom Kennedy was killed in a surfing accident so he was unable obviously
02:23 to build it so they found us, the Mutant Brothers, and got in touch and we're like, sure, we
02:29 can build that.
02:33 People at first just think it's a bus but then they see the hood and the tyres up in
02:37 the air and they're like, what the heck is that?
02:39 And you get that a lot.
02:41 It's like people say, well what is it?
02:43 What's it for?
02:44 I often wonder what it is that people say when they go home after seeing one of these
02:49 vehicles.
02:50 You just know they're going to go home and say to their wife or their husband or their
02:53 family, whoever, you'll never guess what I saw today and I'd love to know what it is
02:57 they, how they describe it.
02:59 Almost from the get go though I think we started talking about what's next and we love it when
03:03 people stop by and they have ideas and they tell us, oh you know what you should build?
03:07 You should build a huge watermelon car or whatever it is.
03:10 [Music]
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