So today I’m out traveling to the Westest of coasts to drive something interesting: a completely restored and restomodded Volkswagen Type 2 Bus, with a full electric drivetrain conversion and upgrades for pretty much everything. It’s made by a company called Kindred, and I have to admit, it looks positively stellar. The only real downside I’ve noticed so far is that these completely re-built Buses start at about $249,000, which is about a quarter of a million dollars more than I can afford.
I’ll admit, I am a little conflicted about all this. Of course, I love the Volkswagen Type 2 bus, period. It’s a fantastically rational vehicle designed for the humble purpose of being a cheap commercial stuff-hauler that somehow ended up becoming one of the most iconic vehicles of all time, a symbol of a particular era. The intention wasn’t to make a cultural icon, it was to make a box on wheels, but it just became so much more.
I’ve gushed about the VW Bus plenty, and before I go off on a tangent about how it’s the conceptual successor to the Stout Scarab, maybe you can just watch this video we did on the Bus and I’ll get back to the subject at hand, these Kindred restomods.
So, my conflict: I adore old VW Buses, but I also feel like they’ve morphed into something nearly unobtainable for most people now, which is just never what was intended. Restored buses now – especially the 21 or 23 window ones – sell for, on average, close to $100,000. Granted, those prices are for well-restored ones, but finding even a rough early split-windshield bus is an expensive proposition no matter what.
So, with that in mind, maybe nearly $250,000 for an electric, completely re-worked one isn’t so absurd. It’s still a colossal amount of money, though.
I’m curious how much of the Bus’ character will be lost in such a translation to EV. Old buses were rattly, loud, slow things, and these EV ones promise to be silent and fast and solid. Will I miss the old mechanical clatter and busy-ness of old Buses? Or will I be happy to have about 294 hp on tap and modern, power disc brakes and a whole new suspension setup and all that?
I think Kindred builds these on their own bespoke EV chassis; that’ll be one of the things I’ll find out. I’m also curious just where the batteries are stored; is that the actual chassis above, and are they all in a big box at the rear? The Bus’ packaging would lend itself to that sort of layout, as you can see:
But wouldn’t that make for even worse weight distribution than the original? I don’t know just yet.
The interior layout, with its wraparound seating, does hint at under-seat battery storage there; it’s definitely not in the floor, which looks too thin. The battery is 74 kWh, good for a range of around 200 miles, about as good as a modern VW ID.Buzz. It’ll support DC fast charging, too.
The wheels look different, too, likely to accommodate the powered disc brakes. There’s a double wishbone front suspension instead of the old torsion arms, too, and a real rack-and-pinion steering setup. What will a bus with modern suspension and about 260 more horsepower feel like?
It’s a beautiful-looking restoration. They’re starting with non-23-window 1950-1963 buses, and they’re turning them into 23-window ones. They also seem to be using pre-1960 bullet turn indicators and the small round taillights, along with the overrider-free Euro bumpers.
There’s more modern (and heated) seats inside, a modern screen stuck in that metal dash, and overall looks beautifully appointed.
Is that just a forward-neutral-reverse lever now?
I should have one to drive for a number of hours on Wednesday, so if there’s anything you’d like to see or know specifically, let me know now and I’ll see what I can find out!
I’m very eager to try this happy thing, even if I can’t possibly grow and sell enough kidneys to ever actually own one. Even if I sold all three of the kidneys I have now!
Is this custom you are going to drive one that somebody has bought or is it a spec? Do they allow customization?
If I was going to pay 250k I would change quite a few things about the interior.
Do they sell the chassis seperately? Can you put a ratty old generator in the back and make it a REX?
I check the prices on vw vans and camper vans often.
The prices are wild.
This one makes me reevaluate my opinion of the price of the ID.Buzz from insane to just pricy.
I sort of like The ID Buzz, but the price is high enough, to me, to be in almost that same category as this resto-mod. Even if I had $75,000 burning a hole in my pocket, there’s so much I’d rather do that buy a Buzz. So I’ll just go with when I win the lottery, I’d rather have the resto-mod.
What’s the Jeff Spicoli quotient?
That is, how many bakeoids can hot box the van, man?
Is there a sticker that reads, “Ass, Grass or FastPass; Nobody Rides For Free” on the passenger wing-dow?
I want that chassis for my titled but rusty parts vanagon. Are they going to offer it as a kit
https://classicsteelbody.com/collections/bodies/products/fully-assembled-23-window-bus-body
i bought a side door from this company 2 years ago for my 63 VW crew cab pickup for 1300$.
They know what they got……
Woof. Yeah don’t know if I could pick between the 23 window or the single cab. I love both. Wish I had bought a vin number donor in the 90s. lol.
You can buy a vin on the Samba,there’s guys there that have them for sale.
The door I bought was the rear door on a crew cab which is a 3 door and the quality is actually very good.
i also bought a rear window panel from them for the same truck
that fit quite well also.
I’d assume at this price and working from donor cars there’s a good chance things like which turn signals to use are left to customer choice, just how bespoke are these?
Nothing. I’m so incredibly sick of tech-bro vanity, “Look at me, I’m rich and spent $250k on a vehicle I dove 37 miles last year” projects. Stop promoting this crap.
This is the paradox. This company seems to be doing highly skilled work that I’m interested in learning about, despite never being able to or wanting to own it. Artists have always needed patrons.
Restomods always came across to me as the opposite of a “tech bro” vehicle. Maybe I’m projecting but If I became suddenly wealthy I would love to buy an electric Restomod of my first vehicle. Not to show off bit because I liked it but love the reliability of electric.
Makes two of us. Add “stop molesting classics that should be enjoyed as they were originally intended”. If you want an EV, just buy a damned EV.
Take the obvious talent on display and just restore these to as-new with relatively unnoticeable modifications to add reliability and correct major flaws.
I don’t know, I think a good resto-mod does what you said: “restore these to as-new with relatively unnoticeable modifications to add reliability and correct major flaws.” They also happened to change the drive train to something newer and better.
And lost the thing that is about 90% of the appeal of it to start with, and totally NOT in keeping with the spirit of it.
Does the embedded AI assistant greet you with “Far Out, Man” and the aroma of incense and herbs? That would be Totally worth it.
Can it brake hard enough to fling something in the back of the bus out of the open front windshield?
At 250K, my question is how many do they expect to sell? 20?
If 20, and at that price that will be enough.
For that degree of engineering? About that, and hopefully they use the money to produce a 2nd generation chassis they can sell a lot more of. How many Roadsters did Tesla sell so they could develop the Model S?
For $250 Gs this bus should have a motor from the Cayman GT4, or a 911 GT3.
I’m fine with the motor… but I expect more than just 74kwh of battery capacity for that amount of money.
I drive a GT3 and seriously you don’t want that motor in a VW bus, maybe an air cooled non turbo 911 motor.
If these once ubiquitous vans are commanding such ridiculous prices how long will it be before places like Jiangsu Juncheng Vehicle Industry Co., Ltd are cranking out perfect clones for 1/20th the price?
https://www.hagerty.com/media/videos/made-in-china-but-not-cheap-the-future-of-replica-car-bodies/
They will be VERY imperfect clones for 1/20th the price. I have been watching the build of one of thier AE86s. It’s better than a rusty hulk, but FAR from perfect and has needed tons of work just to get things to fit and be square.
IIRC the video claimed the early AE86 shells had problems but they have since been resolved. The new panels are of much better quality than OEM including being hot dipped galvanized. The Bronco shells are good enough a restoration using them sold for $400k.
And its worth remembering these aren’t even AE86 shells but 1950s/60s VW Bus shells. These were never built to even 1980’s Toyota tolerances.
BTW the video also shows a VW bus shell with marker dots on it. So it looks like VW Bus shells are in the pipeline. As are air cooled 911s.
VWs were always built to EXTREMELY high standards. They are German from back when that really meant something. I very much doubt they will even come close to the fit an finish that a new VW had back in the day. Toyotas were good cars, but pretty average in that respect.
Hopefully they really do have the quality figured out, but they will never, ever be as good as the originals were. Simply the way they are doing it ensures that. You are never going to get the same results by scanning an old car and trying to recreate the tooling that way, compared to making one from the original tooling. I will give them credit for modern rustproofing methods – if you are going to all this effort, why wouldn’t you.
Doesn’t matter to me ultimately, I’d rather have an unmolested original and they are out there. No time or inclination for projects at this stage of my life. Too many house dilemmas, too much work.
High standards for their day perhaps which given my experience with contemporary British standards is a very low bar. Pretty sure a modern Chinese factory can beat 70 year old VW standards, even if they are reverse engineering the dyes.
But only time will tell.
“I’d rather have an unmolested original and they are out there.”
If all you want is a run of the mill early 70’s van perhaps. These 23 window models however maybe not.
There is simply no comparing the assembly quality and materials quality of a VW of that day with anything British less than a Rolls-Royce. They were really that good. Comparable to Mercedes-Benz really. Absolutely gem-like in thier construction quality, just a simple design built very, very well out of the best materials. British cars, much as I love them, were cheaply built, slapped together junk. Fun junk, but junk, and the labor strife of the early 70s made them that much worse because the assembly line workers actively sabotaged them in many cases. Pretty much any British car that has been restored is better than it left the assembly line, but that is rarely the case for all but the MOST expensively restored VWs.
People think Beetles were cheap cars – they actually were never cheap new, almost always the most expensive in thier class, and the price of a much larger but much less well put together American mid-size. I think people forget this due to the more recent experience of the shit VW spewed out of Westmoreland for a couple of decades that replaced them. Toyotas are “quality” in that they were for many years well-designed to be simple, rugged, and not break down even with abject neglect – but thier material fit and finish was really nothing special. You didn’t buy a Corolla because it has a nice interior and mirror-like paint… The peak Japanese bubble cars like the second Gen Camry were DEFINITELY very nice, but that was the exception, not the rule.
There are plenty of unmolested original vans of every variety. The question is the price. Those early ones in nice original condition just cost real estate money, not car money. I don’t get why people want them that badly, which is fine, not my jamb anyway. I don’t get why people spend silly money on all sorts of things. At least if you spend $200K on a nice 23-window bus you can go on a fun trip in it with a bunch of friends. I know women who have that much in designer handbags and shoes in thier walk in closet – and I wish I was exaggerating. Or a $5M house for a couple with a dog who never even entertain, in the case of one of my friends.
If you say so. I don’t remember the VWs of the 60s and early 70s being of particularly impressive build quality but it’s been a very long time since I have looked at one that wasn’t in a car show.
Not just me – do some reading.
Perhaps you can point me to honest, unbiased original reviews. Most online reviews I find are of modern VW products so not applicable. Old VW forums are full of owners with Stockholm syndrome. By the time I became aware of VWs time had long filtered out the worst of them.
What I do remember of 1950-1975 VW is they were low cost, underpowered cars sold primarily to cheap bastards like myself for (relativity) high fuel economy, not luxury, reliability and certainly not for their safety. They had a reputation as “quadboxes”; a car that would turn you into a quadriplegic if you were in it when it crashed. Whether it was deserved I dunno.
They did NOT however have quality “comparable to Mercedes-Benz really. Absolutely gem-like in thier construction quality, just a simple design built very, very well out of the best materials.”
There are no shortage of in-period reviews of Beetles. They absolutely shocked people with thier build quality compared to the garbage the US makers were pumping out at the time. The basis of all those humorous ads, like the famous “lemon” ad:
https://swipefile.com/volkswagen-lemon-print-ad
Sure they were slow and noisy – that has no bearing on build quality – an Chevy of the time was fast and quiet, but parts fell off them and the chrome as different on one side than the other and the paint looked like orange peels – because the workers didn’t care, and GM just wanted them pumped out. Beetles were quite reliable too, mostly because they were so incredibly simple and built from excellent stuff. But no getting away from the fact that they were a mid-30s design where safety was not even an afterthought. It wasn’t a thing in those days other than for the wierdos who wore tweed coats, smoked pipes, and drove Volvos and Saabs. And Mercedes-Benz.
I’m just about old enough to remember them new.I am more than old enough to have experienced what utter shit American cars were back then.
IF there are so many in-period reviews claiming VW build quality was on par with RR and MB I’m sure you will have no problem providing a link.
Not my job, my good man. If you want to know, Google it yourself. Or don’t, no skin off my butt either way, as I know I am correct in this, I read the reviews when they were current (yeah, I am both getting old, and I read everything about cars I could get my hands on as a kid).
Well so much for that.
$250,000? That is a lot of tie-dye t-shirts.
It’ll all depend on how popular the next iteration of the Grateful Dead is.
Came across a show announcement in my email that sounds like the most San Francisco thing ever, but is actually a Nashville band:
Bertha: Grateful Drag
You can search You Tube for their videos.
Somewhere, Jerry is laughing uproariously at that.
Having grown up in old VW vans, I don’t see any reason they merit the prices they command, even these EV-converted ones. I guess nostalgia is really powerful for the well-heeled.
The prices exploded in the late 2010s, and all I can guess is Silicon Valley types started snapping them up as camper/vanlife vans, classic transport to school, and for the hippie image.
You’d think they’d all be back on the market after folks realized #vanlife isn’t what they thought it was.
I mean, a Westy still be a Westy. Great for camping. But I do think the strongest appeal is the Hippie van/surf van thing. It’s an image. A slow, 40hp image, but still an image.
Pooping in a portable toilet usually isn’t part of the insta story
I’d add that even at this insane price, it’s sort of hilarious that it has the same range as a genuinely modern VW ID Buzz.
The existence of this thing at an even higher price sort of tells you just what an outright failure the ID Buzz is.
The Buzz has to meet other modern criteria as well as range. Like not being a complete and utter deathtrap. Just think – with all those electric ponies this thing can crash at MUCH higher speeds than the original too!
Not that I disagree about the Buzz being a failure overall. Too little for way too much cash.
I think the real failure is that despite it existing, people feel it necessary and viable to offer up 250k examples of the real thing. If VW had done the ID Buzz right, even with the modern limitations, the target market for this would have more than likely purchased a high end trim of the Buzz.
I doubt it. This is a collector piece, not a car. Completely different target market regardess of method of propulsion. Nobody is buying this to take the kids to school every day.
If only my father had kept the ’66 bus he had as the family hauler for a few years in the early ’70s. Just squirreled it away somewhere. I doubt he got any meaningful trade-in value for it. Who could have known it was a nest egg?
Storing a vehicle for 50 years without spending $50,000 is unfeasible; you need a limestone cave.
Spending 50 years with the psychic burden of a vehicle in storage with no clear justification is madness.
Yeah, I was kind of kidding, but it’s just wild to think about. That thing was such a heap at the time, even my 8-year-old self knew it.
“Why does shoehorning a wrecked Tesla drivetrain into a VW Bus make it worth $250,000 and not a fraction what it would have been worth actually restored?”
With all that power and all the weight in back there’s really only one question I need answered.
Will it do a wheelie?
Edit: C’mon Torch. You know you wanna try it.
Every question that popped into my mid when I first saw this thing dissapeared completely when I read this, the only real question worth asking
I’d like to see a comparison to the Buzz you reviewed a year or two ago. Does it feel modern, or does it preserve any of the original character? Also, does it taste better or worse than the original?
If you had to choose between this and the Buzz for a cross country road trip, which would you take?
What are they doing about front crash protection? Have they added anything to the front structure? This was the sole reason I sold my 1973 camper van—I was in an offset front crash at about 35mph and the girl riding shotgun missed losing her legs by about 6″.
Considering most trucks bumper heights would crash through the headlamps of this, it’s probably worth stating that even added structure doesn’t change that there’s no crumple distance – you’ve, quite literally, positioned your knees less than a foot from the outside sheetmetal that’ll be the impact point.
Ejection seats. Just add two more windows.
Sunroof! Bonus.
With that much more power on tap, how much more hosed are the occupants in the event of a collision?
This was my first thought. And actually it wasn’t so much about the horsepower as it was about the momentum with the weight of all of those batteries.
For sure. You don’t even need a head-on collision, even hitting something stationary with that much momentum behind you is a death sentence. Or at the very least, you’re getting your legs amputated above the knees.
0/10, would not drive this thing any faster than 35mph.
Which is the perfect reason to keep the original engine in it.
I’m curious what ppl do with 250K restored vans. I feel like, if they get drive at all, it’s gonna be short jaunts to cars & coffee and what not.
If that’s the case, as long as you steer clear of mustangs, it’s not quite so dangerous.
That’s a great argument until you get hit and die on that short jaunt.
Vehicular russian roulette is not something I enjoy playing!
For sure. It’s just reducing the number of bullets in the revolver. And there are plenty of folks who will take those odds.
I also want to point out at least half the Autopian fleet is a death trap by any modern standard. It’s interesting we give folks a pass if the car is cool/interesting enough.
Oh for sure… I gave Torch a ton of crap about his Pao at the old lighting site after it almost killed him and his kid.
Meh, I drive my Spitfire all summer long, and have for 30 years. It’s nominally safer than a motorcycle, but not any safer than a VW Bus, and a lot easier to “not see” than a bus. Like being on a bike, it makes you pay attention to what is going on around you, but I don’t particularly worry about crashing.
I have long said the seatbelts are mostly to make the Coroner’s job easier these days by keeping the body closer to the scene. Any modern vehicle is going to go right over the top of me, and my head is at the bumper height of CUVs, never mind trucks.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/CAQsN2kfJMXPACmE8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/EZShyuAq2dXT4ERN8
https://flic.kr/p/gK4igd
That said – I see no need to up the risk by making my Spitfire THAT much faster than the factory intended, though it does have what is effectively a breathed on motor in it. 80hp on a good day. Doesn’t make it fast, just faster. This Bus is bound to be scary fast, and I find electron propulsion makes it very easy to go faster than you are intending to go.
Good point – nearly any car made before 1970 is a death trap compared to modern cars.
I would up that to nearly any non-luxury car made in the previous two centuries, if you are comparing to the tanks of today.
Doesn’t keep me from driving them, I am just under no illusions about the relative safety. But life is too short to drive boring cars that actively annoy me just to be “safe”.
I used to drive a heavily modified, airbag-less, low to the ground black two-seater. The roof was literally below stock F-250 windows when parked next to each other. At night, if I were driving next to it, it would not see me at all.
I no longer own that car… as JJ said above, it was one too many bullets in the chamber for me as other vehicles grew in mass and height.
PS – your Spitfire is gorgeous.
Color DEFINITELY matters. I had a black Fiata, and even though it was bigger than the Spitfire, many more other drivers “didn’t see it”. Day or night didn’t seem to matter. Bright colors and shiny chrome flashing in the sun are a good thing when it comes to very small cars. And much as I don’t agree with “loud pipes save lives” because too often they go to extremes, a little extra noise doesn’t hurt either. I would NOT want a silent tiny car.
And thank you! It’s been a fun 30 years, but sadly I think the time has come to move the little guy on to a new home. Just not a good fit in Florida. I need a classic with A/C that is more highway compatible, so a later Alfa Spider is the plan.
I let my toy go after 15 years just this past fall as well. It was a good ride, but life changes and I couldn’t be happier with my Stinger, even though it’s more of a mace than a scalpel to drive. I hope the Spider works out, those are great little cars too!
I’ve owned one before, an ’86 Veloce. They are GREAT cars, you just need to find one that isn’t rusty. Which actually isn’t THAT hard, as Italian cars go, they aren’t all that rust-prone, and very few of them were ever used as year-’round daily drivers in salt states. Mine was a cheap and cheerful one from Long Island that I overhauled over the winter I bought it. I actually drove the thing home from Long Island in January with zero issues! It had some rust and not great paint, but was a decent car for the $4K I paid for it back in 2010.
Arrival in Maine – https://flic.kr/p/7xS88V
A friend of mine still has it, and another friend in IA (who posts here) still has the Saab Combi with about a quarter million miles on it!
This time I want a NICE one.
“…maybe nearly $250,000 for an electric, completely re-worked one isn’t so absurd.”
Well, you say that but.
I know.
We’re in a day and age when someone parks a $100,000 car in their driveway, it can be imagined that it’s a high-trim pickup truck. So, while horrendously expensive, not insurmountable, and only double the pricetag of the “average” new car.
But at $250,000, this is two and a half times that. Or five times an “average” new car.
You could have two fully restored traditional non-EV busses, and still have money left over to get a Subaru Outback for the winter.
Yeah this is one of those things that makes me say “that’s neat” and move on immediately. Though I’ll happily gobble up a write up detailing whatever unique features and whether or not you can conjure up any retro feels while driving this thing.
lol…..imagine paying that much money to drive a vw bus. Its great that someone is able to create a more modernized restoration but only a fool would spend that kind of money on it. I guess if you are that well off you can do stupid stuff without worry.
Right. It’s a neat toy to stand out from your friends with their boring teslas
The rich are different from you and me – they have waaaaaay more money. For the dude who buys this, it’s likely couch cushion money.
Reminds me of Singer and Icon, turning old vehicles into bespoke, unobtanium versions. I’m growing increasingly indifferent about the ultra-rare, expensive vehicles these days. If it was turning an old VW bus into a more usable one for a fraction of the price, then I’d be interested. Gas or electric, doesn’t matter, unobtanium is unobtanium.
So what would I like to know about it? I guess if it feels better than the Buzz van to drive as an enthusiast for old VWs.
If I’m being completely honest, nothing.
This bus is on a different plane of existence than me. It lives in a different world. Whether it’s good or bad, exists or does not, or succeeds or fails has no bearing on my reality.
see, that’s the core of the problem here. If I didn’t have this job, they wouldn’t let me anywhere near this thing. And if I got close, they’d spend an hour disinfecting it.
OMG. Torch sat in my driver seat of my AMX and I forgot to disinfect it…
Gives new meaning to Torching a car…
As long as he didn’t fart it’s all good. 🙂
If he was ever in one of my cars I’d want him to sign the sunvisor or something! I had Bob Sinclair’s and Erik Carlson’s signatures on the sunvisor of my Saab C900CVT. If you know, you know.
To be fair they’re still probably gonna disinfect it.
Yeah crazy seeing something like this. Is it cool? Sure it is but my god even if I withdrew all of my 401k’s (I am 33) I still wouldn’t have enough money for this. I would have to sell my house and even then I am not sure the equity would be enough after any money they would need to go to any fixes need to be done to the house.
I mean, pretty much any new car is on a different plane of existence than me. I sure as shit would rather read about this than a new Sentra or RAV4.
I like to read reviews of a Sentras or RAV4s.
I might chance buying a RAV4 in an unknown future and I’d like to know both the marketing fluff, as well as real-life practical “why is there so little headroom?” before I trundle off to the dealer to start shopping.
Every time I see one of you guys ask why there’s so little headroom, I remember that being short is a blessing.
I’m forever cursing the manufacturer of a car for putting sunroofs as standard in some cars, and compromising the already limited headspace by lowering it more for the sunroof’s rails.
I read them too, mostly because people come to me for car advice and I like to know about the regular cars normal people can afford to buy. The only wealthy people I know are my folks and my dad is a car guy too, no advice from me needed.