There used to be a modified school bus around here a guy hauled his drag car on. I say on, because he moved the back section of the bus up toward the front and created a RV like front while the back had a flat ramp deck to haul the car on. The sides started at window height in behind the cab and tapered down to a point at the rear. Haven’t see that rig in years, he probably updated to an enclosed toter if he’s still around.
I remember a similar bus but it was used to haul pigs with a dividing wall behind the driver. Hauling a race car smells a lot nicer.
I'd love to have the hauler. That bus has style. The Fiat looked like a class build for its era. That man knew what he was doing.
There was a Guy that I seen at our Willys Home Run. School Bus, and he made the Rear swing open to the side! I might have a Pic?
For sometime I have been fascinated with the work of Carl Grimes, a man ahead of his time. The aforementioned Chuck Rahn is also a master car builder, I had the pleasure of stopping by his shop in the mid 90's. Last time I saw him he had what I believe was the Crosley wagon, at Bakersfield in the later 90's.
@J.Ukrop thank you for the write up and the link. That's some great info and pictures I hadn't seen before. I want to say there's some footage of this car and the transporter at one of the National events, but I can't remember which one and if it was a home movie or professionally produced one. Maybe someone else on here knows.
That is a cool setup. Back when you could get an old school bus in real good condition for a real low price. There used to be a guy who I think came out of BC who had a front engine school bus opened up in the back to load his hot rod in and had a semblance of living quarters in the front half. He would roll into the big annual rod run here and park the bus in the camping area and unload the car. Locally the price of outdated school buses has jumbed because farmers are buying them up to haul workers to the fields. It would still be a lot cheaper to buy and set one up to haul a car but the cost of the bus has doubled in the past five or six years.
Back in the dark ages just after indoor plumbing and electricity was invented, I was a kid in high school dreaming of racing a sprint car and traveling the country. My perfect hauler and living space would have been an old Greyhound bus, a divider in the middle . Using the front half to live in and the back half with ramps to haul the race car and as a mobile shop. It never came to be, but I have daydreamed about it once in a while since.
@Tom davison, thanks! I was thinking it was OKC. Here it is. The shots of the car start around the 1:30 mark. It shows up again around the 6:35 and 19:55 mark.
Back when I was vintage racing, one of the guys had a Class "A" motorhome that had been hit in the back, doing substantial damage. Although it was low mileage and ran and drove perfectly, he was able to pick it up for a song, because of the looming cost of full repairs. He simply straightened out the sides and made a ramp/door for the back and he had a practical hauler. The only problem he has was the width of the front axle; he had to remove the front tires/wheels and replace them with some units with a negative offset to make it fit in. All in all a very practical, useful hauler. He even used it as a regular motor home by removing the racecar and replacing it with a bed and dresser.
School bus race car haulers were very common in oval track racing Off Topic racecars edited to meet H.A.M.B. rules
Here it is again ... in the background of one of @Bullet Nose's 1958 NHRA Nats photos: image by Bill Junge
You still see a few of them around the Midwest. there is also a cool old moving van/hauler that you see at Bonneville
This is/was a terrific idea and a well done conversion. Hello, My wife and I were on a bus during a vacation at one time. The bus was similar in axles, tires and overall length. It looked like an old school bus, again, similar, to the one for Carl Grimes. That style of bus had plenty of room inside once all of the double row of seats were taken out. We sat in the first row near the front door. It was the best place to be for viewing what is up ahead through the big bay windshield. As we were going from place to place, I could see our driver was not paying attention to the road condition as far as traffic was concerned. She would roll right up to the car in front, scaring the “bejezus” out of the occupants. The move did raise our heartrates a lot, but she stopped in time each incident. We all got to the destination safely and toured for a couple of hours. When we got back on the bus, we sat in the same seat in front, near the door. The driver started the boarding procedure, counted the folks in the bus and then waited for a couple of stragglers. I was interested in the set up of the driver’s seat, gauges, levers and the whole sit up and drive position. One could see the whole area up in front and it was a great view. Jnaki As we were waiting, I asked her several questions about the dash and driving aspect of the bus. There was a red lever within arms reach of the driver and close by to our front row seat. She told me a small red lever on the dash was used only in emergencies and stops the bus. I thought it was a lever to open the emergency rear door. How in the world can a small red lever stop a huge bus? The normal brakes are huge, proportionate to the size of the bus, so, there should not be any problems. But, we started moving back into traffic and headed back to our starting point. After several long stretches of highway, it was rather a boring drive. So, I was just talking to my wife and enjoying the great view out of the huge window. My wife noticed the driver not paying attention to the road ahead and the traffic. Several times, she was tailgating the cars in the same lane. Stopping at the last moment. Now, this was cause for a little foot bracing. So, as we move ahead, another long road led to the last incident that was too scary and dangerous. While we were all enjoying the sights, we assumed the driver was relaxing and taking it easy. But, my wife noticed her head bobbing forward a few times during the long drive. Of course, we coughed to get some attention from her anonymously. The last straw was more traffic and the bus was not slowing down. As it approached calamity stage, it was doom or die… so, I yelled and reached for the red lever. I pulled it back and the bus stopped as fast as any bus we had ever seen or been on different trips. That instantly woke up the driver and she made tons of excuses for her lapse in judgment. But, we stopped in time and no one got hurt. The red lever was a compression release and when pulled up, the compression instantly dropped, slowing down/stopping the massive bus. We did not crash and the driver apologized to all concerned. Now, everyone was keeping an eye out on her all the way back to the starting point. YRMV
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