ever seen a school bus as a car hauler?

A

anrkii

New member
just wondering, as i have found a 66 pass. school bus for under a grand, i need a car hauler, but i do not have the funds for a nice truck and trailer...

i have seen pictures of school buses converted into all kinds of stuff, why not a race car hauler/camper?

have you seen this before? input?
 
lots of space however the floor height is about 36" so you need lots of ramp. they don't tend to have highway gears and the typical chevy 350 crate motor they often come with is not much for a rig that big on the highway.
 
All the time--in all kinds of motorsports activities.

(They make good figure 8 race vehicles too!)
 
There is a guy over in Oklahoma-Kansas who has one. Seeing his narrow, 20' long homemade ramps to get up to the floor level freaks me out. Figure the angle your car needs for clearance and see how long you would need.
 
Originally posted by bldn10@Dec 17 2005, 12:14 PM
There is a guy over in Oklahoma-Kansas who has one. Seeing his narrow, 20' long homemade ramps to get up to the floor level freaks me out. Figure the angle your car needs for clearance and see how long you would need.
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I saw that one at the first race I ever attended. Definitely left an impression.
 
I looked into doing this. In Pennsylvania it would have to be registered as a truck beacause the car is considered cargo. Registration for a truck is something like $400 a year verses $90 for a RV.You would also need a CDL if it has more than 15 seats.
 
get out of PA. in Mass you can call it a camper. my teamate uses a boxtruck with camper plate. he was told it needed a bed and a portapotty to be a camper.
 
Better yet, Maine doesn't care if it has wings...they'll send you a plate! And you don't have to move...or even own or rent property there.
 
I've known two guys that built them. One was huge, and he used it as a camper/race car hauler. Had a stove, 'fridge, beds, etc. Took him years to build. Other one was very well done, but shorter and only carried his tools, spares, and race car. So every evening, he had to drive the beast to eat and go to the motel. Both were purchased cheap, were worn out, ate gas like a starved hog in a corn field, and took forever to build to a safe and funtional level. Each one had to have ramps that were longer than most enclosed trailers I've seen.

But they looked cool!
 
My introduction to road racing came as I crewed for a SS guy at the Longest Day of Nelson Ledges....who hauled one of the cars in an old school bus. Passenger safety was NOT one of his concerns when he built it....

Not was climbing the hills on Rt 80 in PA...Thankfully the fule mileage was awful, so we could double up the "cooling period" stops with fuel stops in a 2 for 1 stop deal. A bonus!

Longest trip ever. I drove the only drivable racecar on the team back home thru PA to CT with NO brakes (the pads were almost thru the backing plates) in less time than the bus took...empty, LOL.

Moral?? They are cheap...for a reason.

Now, if you can find one with a good diesel, that MIGHT be worth a look. Then rig up one of those cool lift mechanisms the trailers have...pick one up used at a salvage yard(?) and you're all set.
 
School buses. Ugh. Big and yellow. If you are interested in school buses you can check out a couple of web sites. One is www.4usedbuses.com. This is also called Smitty's Used Buses (I think). They are located in Manor TX east of Houston a bit. They have a "showroom" on I-10 in an empty field.

The other is www.422sales.com. They also have a listing of what they sold recently and what it brought at auction. This place is in the Pittsburg area.

We've got a guy here in the Phoenix area that has a converted ambulance for a tow vehicle. Diesel powered, lots of storage cabinets. Built on a F350 chassis with a 12 (?) foot box.
 
The biggest problem with going the school bus route for a hauler of anything heavy is that they are not durable enough. Before I got into the racecar game, I worked doing pa sound and lights for rock bands. I got a fifty plus passenger school bus (cheap!) for hauling around the pa gear. It was huge and I could get all of our gear and the boys in the band and thier girlfriends into it with no problem. If you needed more room, you just took out more seats.

But the downside is that schoolbuses are designed to carry people, a relatively light item, as opposed to heavy items like pa equipement, cars, tools, etc. The rear differential will be your first big expense, probably far from home too. Don't ask me how I know this :119: .

You would be better off in terms of money, time and effort to get yourself a truck and trailer combo that is designed for the rigors of towing.

Good luck

"dangerous" dave parker
 
Buddy Puglisse, back in the day, (1980?), carried his FF 1600 in a modified scoolbus with pneumatic rear suspension (and perhaps further clearancing of the wheel wells) tha "kneeled" almost low enough to not need ramps. He went on to found RCCA(?) and is still around as far as I know. He'd be found on Long Island I suppose. It was a pretty neat deal.
Phil Hunt
PS: this was EMRA stuff, incedently. I also remember what had to be the coolest vehicle ever for racecars: the front half of an Olds Toronado grafted to a single axle car trailer, hauling a Datsun 510.
 
Hardly! It looked like somebody cut a Toronado in half right behind the front seat and welded it to a POS open trailer! But it worked great.
 
I am a General manager for a business that First Transit operates. First Transit is a division of First Group America. www.firstgroupamerica.com Thats a shameless plug :023: We are the largest "Transit Management" companies in North America (ok another plug :bash_1_: ). First Student (one of the largest school bus companies in North America) is our sister company also part of First Group America.

Anyway... If you need a bus I can help you find one, very cheep. But I personaly wouldn't go this route because.... the vehicles are past thier "usefull life" when we or any transit system sells them. They are not ment for "long distance" travel. the only buses ment for this are commuter busses wich all have thier engines in the back... hard to run ramps. Also one other thing to think about is that the buses with the engine in the front can be a bit noisy, not to mention no passenger seat for the lovely companion.

Busses IMO seem to be generally usefull for one thing... people!!! but... hey if you can costomize "rides" and want a "Cheep Doner" then go for it!!!

Raymond

PS: I wouldn't think that a bus would have a hard time carying 4,000 worth of car and tools... 40 people at 150lbs is 6000lbs...
 
Years ago, when I ran motorcycle enduros (with ECEA), there was a gang of guys that used an old school-bus to haul all their dirt bikes around. Had maybe 20 bikes in it at a time. The bus had previously been used by a church.
The guys changed the lettering on the bus to read "Our Lady of Perpetual Mud". Pretty funny.

I've used my aluminum Chevy StepVan for the last 3+ years to haul my Spridget. I've traveled pretty far with this setup....including to Shannonville (from NJ). I used wooden ramps that are about 10' long. A Spridget or a real Mini will *just* fit in it: even a Spitfire is too wide for it.

But it's still a truck and not the most comfortable, so it's for sale. I'll be towing with a regular van and trailer next year (I just bought a new passenger van).

Here my setup:
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