This Super-Sized VW Party Bus Replica Is Actually An Old Fire Truck

Friends, we need to confess something. We suspect this glorious old Volkswagen bus might be a fake. Call us crazy, but the proportions just don't seem quite right. Yes, these old boats are tall but we don't remember any classic bus reaching 13 feet in the air. For that matter, its nose-to-tail distance of 30 feet seems out-of-place as well. And did VW ever produce a bus that had two floors?

Of course VW didn't, but if such a thing had ever been considered, here's what it would've looked like. This obviously isn't a real bus, but it's a surprisingly accurate recreation that's literally twice the size of an original model. We weren't joking about the length and height – those are the stats mentioned in the Barcroft Cars video that tells the story of this ultimate party bus affectionately called Walter.

As such, you won't find an ounce of VW DNA in this behemoth. Once upon a time, this was a military vehicle that served as a fire truck, built by the Walter Truck Company (hence its name) in 1963. Owner Kirk Strawn came upon the rig in a junkyard, and for reasons we don't fully understand, decided it would make a great 2:1 scale VW bus. It shares some basic bus attributes such as a tall stature with the driver sitting on the front wheels, and its windshield is a split-window design as well.

To create an accurate bus design, however, it needed to be a lot taller. The truck's interior was cleared out and the custom body was assembled, using the old roof of the truck as the floor for the upper level. The driving position was also moved to the roof by basically extending the controls up, and the sides were then built up to close in the upper and lower sections. And since it's a party bus, it's loaded with no less than 85 speakers.

Strawn has taken Walter to Burning Man and various special events, but mostly it seems he just gets a kick out of driving it around. With a very commanding view of the road and a sound system worthy of a dance club, we can definitely see this being the ultimate party bus.