Kirk: Walter had his military service,
next he ended up fighting wild fires.
He’s been to Burning Man 11 times,
he’s worked events for Google and Space X.
You don’t see something
like this every day,
makes you wonder how the heck
did that thing get created.
Kirk: Walter is a two to one scale
Volkswagen bus.
But Walter certainly wasn’t built this way.
Assemble as a fire truck in 1963,
Walter saw years of air force service
before moving to the New River Fire Department, in Arizona.
Kirk: A couple of us
found Walter in an old
abandoned junkyard,
parked, never to move again.
Kirk and a few friends
set about an incredible conversion.
Kirk: In his original form,
he kind of look like a giant Volkswagen bus.
He was boxy and had a split front windshield.
And the driving position was out
in front of the front wheels.
Which was very very helpful in ultimately
doing the design
and pleating the fabrication.
The team that assembled to
turn this old fire truck
in to a Volkswagen bus,
has just really become kind of family.
Nate: I am Nate Matzenbacher.
I am the lead mechanic
behind Walter the bus.
Original chassis of the fire truck is still there,
it’s all underneath this shell of what is the bus now.
When you’re in the,
I call it the observation deck,
the big party deck’s on top,
you’re actually walking on the
roof of the original fire truck.
When you’re in the cab,
when you’re seated in the driver’s seat,
you’re seating about five feet above
where the original driver’s seat was,
and all the controls are just extended up
through the floor and
you’re able to drive like that.
From fire fighter,
to party starter,
this vehicle is packing a serious sound system.
Nate: Walter actually has 85 speakers on him.
It takes a lot to be able to compact 85 speakers,
so we had to hide a few.
I can’t say for sure how many people
we’ve ever had up here is the max.
But I can tell you
that after one event we had to take
the rear springs off and have them re-curved.
Because they were flattened out from
so much weight and so much people up here.
I have backup cameras,
and cameras all around
so I’ll be able to see what I’m doing anything in tight spaces
or with a crowd.
Essentially kind of be able to drive
a two storey house from
the second storey window.
Quite trip to be able
to drive this thing.
At 30 feet long and 13 feet tall,
this vehicle makes a big impression
out on the road.
Kirk: Take the whole lane here.
We need the whole road.
There we go.
Walter drive a lot like a Volkswagen bus.
There’s just something special about
the way you drive a vehicle,
when you’re over the front tyre.
Whenever anybody sees Walter,
it’s a smile, a wave and
you don’t just see something like this
driving down the road every day.
I think the coolest part of Walter is just like,
like that.
It’s like, whoever that was,
they certainly weren’t expecting to see
something like this today.
It brightens your day, opens your eyes.
Makes you wonder
what else might be possible.
And just wonder
how the heck did that thing
get created.