What It’s Like Driving An Old VW Bus That Costs As Much As A House

I have to admit, this is one of the more difficult review/first drive things I’ve had to write, but not for the usual reasons. The usual reasons are that I’ve been flown out somewhere to drive some perfectly cromulent, mainstream, mass-market car, and it has proven to be so competent and rational and reasonable that I find myself slipping into a coma of adequacy and trying to figure out what to write about it that’s interesting is like pulling teeth from my appendix. That’s not the problem this time. This time I’ve driven a very interesting vehicle, a beautifully made vehicle, one with a rich history, a rich, vibrant history, a metric crapload of character and cachet, but it’s so wildly out of attainability for myself or most people I know that it actively feels … wrong. Maybe not wrong, because I do understand why it’s the way it is, but it still feels somehow … twisted.

That said, objectively, I really was impressed by this machine, the Kindred EV Bus. It’s really not just an EV-converted Microbus with some electric motor bolted onto the old VW transaxle. It’s a completely re-engineered vehicle, something that looks like an old Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus on the outside, but under the skin is a completely different beast. It’s like opening a package of Twinkies and cutting one in half to find that it’s full of perfectly-marbled Wagyu, like some kind of perverse Beef Wellington. Only in a good, not gross way. That analogy kind of got away from me.

Here’s the main point: Kindred has made something truly remarkable with their EV-converted Microbuses. They managed to take a design for a commercial vehicle from 1950 and make it behave and drive and perform like a modern car. It’s a hell of an achievement. It also costs a quarter of a million dollars, and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around that.

What Is It?

It’s a VW Microbus! Like you all know and love! It’s just, you know, also completely different. It’s not just completely restored, which it is, but the entire drivetrain is different. Different as in instead of an air-cooled flat-four engine puttering away under the rear floor and making 36 to 50 laid-back horsepower, there’s now an electric motor sourced from Cascadia that makes 300 horsepower and 300 pound-feet of torque.

The old torsion bar suspension is completely removed from the front, replaced with the entire front suspension from a Corvette. The Corvette also donates its power steering rack setup. The rear suspension still uses the rear torsion beam partially, but is otherwise completely re-engineered, with an entirely new rear cradle for the drivetrain, which you can see here:

There are power-assisted disc brakes all around, with discs big enough that the original VW-type wheels would no longer fit, so new ones that at least resembled the old ones had to be sourced.

It also now runs on electrons instead of dead dinosaur juice, which means there need to be batteries stored in the van, which means there’s more weight, which means the overall structure needs to be beefed up substantially. Which they do.

Every bus body is taken down to bare metal, panels are replaced with new ones, and the whole structure is reinforced. Every C-channel in the frame is made into a box section, which is substantially stronger. In order to keep the VW Bus community from forming an angry mob and surrounding the Kindred factory with torches and pitchforks, donor vans are in pretty rough shape; they also avoid original 21/23-window Kombi buses, preferring to use more common body styles and adding in all those new roof windows with modern reproduction panels. An average donor bus looks like this:

Not a pristine example. But, solid enough to start with and, as I said, anything that isn’t up to Kindred’s stringent standards gets replaced. Even these old hulks aren’t cheap, because that’s what the VW bus world is like now. I was told donor vehicles average about $30,000.

The conversion work is extensive, even before they get to battery installation and drivetrain, suspension, anything. These have to be the most rigid and solid Type 2s ever made, and likely the safest, though to be fair that’s not exactly a high bar.

The battery packs are fairly large, but they’re packaged in a clever way so they don’t really seem to eat up that much space. Dedicated luggage space isn’t compromised at all, surprisingly. The batteries are stored in an L-shaped formation that forms the base of the rear lounge-style seating, as you can see here:

See the yellow boxes under the seats, with their stylish vents? Those are full of batteries and other EV hardware. This does mean that unlike an old bus, you can’t yank out the rear benches and have a big, empty box to haul stuff around in. But people aren’t buying these to haul cargo; these are people-carriers. And mobile rooms. The layout is comfortable to ride in or just sit in.

While I was out testing the bus, some Important Autopian Situation came up that required my attention, so I pulled over somewhere, got into the back, and found that this bus made for a fantastic mobile office.

That table is removable, but in place it really does turn that interior into a nice space to exist in. Plus, unlike old buses of this vintage, the Kindred EV Bus has an effective air-conditioning system that keeps the whole interior nice and cool.

You can spin the front passenger seat around like a captain’s chair, too! All the materials feel fantastic, and when you look around you can see this is a pretty significant upgrade from its humble VW Bus origins, filled with vinyl and that strange straw/horsehair/rubberized seating filler they used to use.

I wasn’t able to get a shot of the battery layout for one of the production buses, but I did get a shot of one of the prototypes, which is similar, but the 12V battery is now in the engine bay of the production ones. Still, you can get an idea of how the batteries are packaged:

This arrangement of batteries also means that now most of the weight of the car – which is up substantially from an original bus, unsurprisingly, roughly double – is in the middle of the van, and set nice and low. The Kindred EV Bus has a real 50/50 weight distribution, which is pretty dramatically different from the old ass-heavy buses.

The cargo layout is well done; Kindred has a nice bamboo box that’s about a foot tall back there. At first I thought that was housing batteries or other EV hardware, but it’s not; it’s a big cargo box to give an area of hidden, lockable storage, which is a nice addition to the Bus:

I can’t fault the design or construction or materials on these buses at all. A lot of thought was put into how they should be reworked, packaged, and put together, and it absolutely shows.

Here’s a little walkaround tour of the bus:

 

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Oh, and it does have a modern head unit, backup camera, USB plugs, heated seats, and some clever instrumentation, but I want to talk about that a bit later.

One Note About The Taillights

Kindred made a stylistic choice to use the tiny, round, pre-’62 taillights, and I respect that choice as they are very charming and really sell the vintage aspect. They have LED lighting inside and are bright, but they are also tiny and low, and I think they could be a bit of a safety issue, especially when so many people drive high-hooded SUVs and trucks. I think in traffic, people simply won’t see them. Happily, I have an easy solution that won’t hurt the vintage look:

See? Just hide a strip of red LEDs behind the upper rain gutter and let it act as the third brake lamp! You wouldn’t see the LEDs themselves, just the light they throw! Nice and high so you can’t miss it! They could even put amber sections at each end for turn signals! And yes, I did tell the Kindred folks my taillight idea.

How Is It To Drive?

Honestly, it’s one of the most amusing things I’ve driven in a long time, but a lot of that is because I’ve driven original VW buses a decent amount before. The amusement comes from the familiarity with the old Bus setup – the huge, almost horizontal, city-bus-like wheel, the almost greenhouse amount of windows, the tall, narrow shape – and it all suggests a certain expectation of what it’s like to drive. Here, you can see me drive an actual old bus:

This Kindred bus triggers all of those old sensations, but then turns everything on its head: yes, you’re still sitting as you would in an old bus, everything looks the same, but nothing quite feels the same. You hit the gas – sorry, electrons – pedal and you go. Not like 40 horsepower and a lot of noise sort-of-go, I mean like you move, like you can pass modern cars while going uphill, a sensation that to pull off in an old bus would have taken a handful of pills. Which I’m sure happened plenty. But this time, it’s real.

 

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Kindred’s Bus can move fast, far faster than almost any original VW Bus could. And it’s quiet, because it’s an EV. And it stops! It stops very well, in fact confidently and straight, even when you really stomp the pedal. It feels much more planted on the highway, because of all that extra weight down low, and while it’s still tall and narrow and you can feel when an 18-wheeler passes you, it’s not nearly as nervy as in the featherweight original bus.

Since it’s also now weighted evenly front and rear, instead of the 40/60 rear weight bias of the old bus, it’s much more neutral when cornering, and there’s no oversteer waiting to jump-scare you.

There’s no shifting, of course, either. It’s … easy. Which sort of brings me to my next point.

Who Is This For, Really?

A $250,000 completely re-worked Microbus is, let’s be honest, a strange thing. Who is buying these, and what are they looking for? I did get to speak a good bit with Kindred’s founder and CEO, Rob Howard, who made his vision for these Buses – and the EV-converted Broncos they make, and even their gas-engined Broncos – clear to me. Really it’s pretty simple: make vintage vehicles that normal people can actually use, about as easily as they can use a modern car.

This is a pretty tall order, when you think about it. Howard wants to sell these restomodded Buses to people who want the charm and experience of an old bus, but don’t have the time or inclination to deal with all of the associated issues that come with an old car. They’re wealthy, as you likely guessed, these hypothetical EV Bus buyers, and they’re not interested in VW’s ID.Buzz, because they want something that looks and feels more authentic. But without the hassle.

So the EV Bus is supposed to be that: you get in it, and drive, and that’s it. There’s no carb to fiddle with, no long starts, no gas smells, no oil leaks. You can drive it pretty much like any modern EV – it has a range of about 200 miles, it charges from 20% to 80% in 30 minutes at a Level 3 charger, for the most part it behaves like a Kia or Tesla or Chevy EV or whatever. It just looks and feels a billion times more fun.

And that all comes at a cost, of course. It’s a cheat; you’re getting most of the charm and joy of a vintage car with almost none of the hassle or effort. There’s a lot of value to that! I guess, about $250,000 worth of value.

I don’t have anywhere near enough kidneys to ever afford this, and, besides, my peculiar brand of idiocy means I actually like the smells and noise and hassles of an old, archaic car. Maybe some sick part of me even likes getting stuck on the side of the road on a depressingly regular basis. But rational, well-adjusted humans, they’re not like this. And some of them still like the charms of an old car. And some of them have succeeded at capitalism and have a crapload of money to throw around. So why not throw it at one of these? It brings a hell of a lot more smiles to people than a Lambo or some other supercar, and you can carry a hell of a lot more friends around in it, after all.

What Could Be Better

Okay, if I had $250,000 to spend on one of these, I think I’d be pretty demanding about what I got for my money. Maybe it was that sort of attitude that got me rich in the first place! That, and my amazing idea for a chain of space-themed fast food joints that serve all the food in squeeze tubes. I call it Orbites! It’s fantastic!

Anyway, if that was the case, I’d have some high standards, and while most of what I saw on the Kindred EV Bus was impeccable, not everything was. Like the instrument cluster. See that picture above? How it’s almost black and basically illegible? That’s how the instrument cluster looked in most sunlight.

That’s especially a shame because they did a beautiful job with the instruments. They’re all in a round LCD display, made to look like the old Bus speedo. You can see your speed, what gear you’re in, odometer, any warning lights, and how much charge you have left, cleverly shown via the green hash marks. So, the above shows 85% capacity, for example. And note that unlike the original, each turn indicator gets its own green arrow, like royalty or something!

It’s all very nicely designed, but if you can’t read the damn thing, who cares? This display needs to be upgraded to one that works in sunlight. Oh, and there should be a “miles to empty” readout, too.

Also, the lower dash storage shelf should be carpeted or at least have a rubber mat. There are only two USB-C ports, and modern life demands more. And why not a magnetic wireless charger? Hell, I put one in my Citroën 2CV for like $10! Surely that’s possible.

I do appreciate the high beam switch remaining on the floor, though; I appreciate that vintage touch. And while I appreciate this other vintage touch:

How the charging port needs this old-school sardine-can key to open:

…I think many owners might find it a pain in the ass after a while. (Oh, also you can see the CCS1-type charging connector, a very common type, and can be adapted to Tesla charging standards.) Same goes for the rear hatch support stays:

I appreciate the originality, but people are going to forget to move these from their little notches and bend them. After all the other upgrades, some gas shocks to hold up the hatch seem like a worthwhile upgrade.

So What’s The Takeaway Here?

I’ll never own one of these, barring some wildly unlikely circumstances that require heavy genie/monkey’s paw involvement. I can’t ignore the deep-set absurdity of this vehicle, given the goals and ambitions of the original Volkswagen Type 2, which was to be affordable commercial and family transportation, with a focus on practicality over traditional design ideas. It has evolved into something quite different.

But cars are not rational, and I pray they never will be. I love that these exist, and I think Kindred is doing a stellar job at turning this charmingly goofy old platform into something usable and drivable in modern traffic. It’s quite an achievement, and to have a hassle-free, usable old bus like this – well, maybe that really is worth a lot of money.

I’d rather see a Skittles-colored rainbow of restomodded EV Microbuses or Broncos or whatever tooling around fancy parts of town than innumerable and ignorable black G-Wagens and Escalades and Rolls-Royce Cullinans or whatever other soulless wealthy-people transport crates that currently roll down Rodeo Drive. If you can afford it, live a little – get yourself something fun, like a Bus or Bronco or whatever. Life is for the living, right? So why drive around in a hearse?

Top graphic image: author