00:00Our client came to us with a problem. They said, we've got two school buses but only
00:05one parking space. Can you help us? We're like, yes we can.
00:13This topsy-turvy school bus is the handiwork of Art Car Fabricators, the Mutant Brothers.
00:19It's 24 feet long and it's 13 feet, one inch high and it's 14,700 pounds.
00:29I'd say right now the top speed's about 50.
00:31Oh man, that's downhill with a tailwhip.
00:36It was a commission from environmental agency Hazan. It runs on biodiesel, has a solar panel
00:42array and is used as a mobile classroom.
00:46It started as two individual school buses and the build posed a few problems.
00:53You figured, all right, well we'll take two school buses, cut the roof off of both of
00:56them, unbolt one of them from the frame, turn it upside down and put it on top of
01:01the other one. And that sounds great until you actually have to do that and then you
01:05start thinking, well how do you turn a school bus upside down?
01:09So we had to make our own rotisserie. We got a big, massive piece of pipe and we bolted
01:16some huge pieces of, bigger pieces of pipe in the school bus and then ran this pipe right
01:22the way down the centre, made some stands, we would then pull the whole thing up into
01:27the air with block and tackle with chain force in each corner, pull the whole thing up into
01:31the air, then put these big stands at each end of this piece of pipe and then lower it
01:37down onto the stands and then we could spin the entire bus.
01:41Scariest thing I've ever done at work.
01:44It's pretty nerve-wracking.
01:45It was.
01:47As unique as it might look, this is actually the second Topsy Turvy bus that's been built.
01:53The Topsy Turvy bus was originally the idea of Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
02:00and he wanted something that would protest government spending saying it was upside down
02:04and so he had this artist Tom Kennedy in California build the original Topsy Turvy bus. It ended
02:11up in the hands of this environmental organisation called Hazon and they get such a fantastic
02:16reaction from it that they decided they wanted another one.
02:20Unfortunately Tom Kennedy was killed in a surfing accident so he was unable obviously
02:24to build it so they found us, the Mutant Brothers, and got in touch and we're like, sure, we
02:30can build that.
02:34People at first just think it's a bus but then they see the hood and the tyres up in
02:38the air and they're like, what the heck is that?
02:40And you get that a lot, it's like, people say, well what is it, you know, and what's
02:44it for?
02:45And you wonder what it is that people say when they go home after seeing one of these
02:49vehicles. You just know they're going to go home and say to their wife or their husband
02:53or their family, whoever, you'll never guess what I saw today and I'd love to know what
02:57it is, how they describe it.
02:59Almost from the get go though I think we started talking about what's next and we love it when
03:04people stop by and they have ideas and they tell us, oh you know what you should build?
03:08You should build a huge watermelon car or whatever it is.
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