Iconic hippy 1970s VW Camper flipped on its side and turned into crazy 100mph race car
Mechanic creates wacky car from tipped over campervan - and then races it
HURTLING along in a VW Camper at 100mph isn’t really advised at the best of times.
And when you’ve rolled the iconic 1970s van on it’s side it’s fair to say it’s absolute madness.
But not for one US mechanic who’s converted the camper van into one of the world’s wackiest race cars.
Jeff Bloch, also known as Speedycop, has made a name for himself with outlandish race car builds including an upside down Chevrolet Camaro and a plane that was converted into a street legal vehicle.
And the 44-year-old’s latest work took just five weeks to create, which he has dubbed the, Trippy Tippy Hippy Van.
He said: “The best thing about this van is that there’s nothing else like it on the planet.
“People see this thing driving and their faces just melt. It’s awesome.”
Although it may appear so, the 1976 VW camper van is not actually the driving force for the vehicle but merely mounted onto another car.
After being gutted of its interior the van was fixed on top of a 1988 VW Rabbit and turned to the side to give the illusion the camper was racing on its side.
Jeff, who’s been a cop for 21 years, said: “The van is set really close to the ground to complete the visual effect of it being a rolled over vehicle rather than an actual race car.”
Under the bonnet is a 1.8 GTI 16 valve engine the car can churn out a maximum of 120bhp.
Despite the vehicle carrying the extra weight of the camper van it is able to reach a top speed of 100mph and can do 0-60mph in a respectable eight seconds.
Jeff designed and built the car for the sole purpose of competing at the LeMons 24 a parody of the legendary Le Mans 24 hour race.
The LeMons races see teams spend less than $1,000 (£760) on their cars and many don’t make it to the finish line due to mechanical failures.
He said: “We raced it last weekend for the first time and it lasted all weekend.
“We did a total of 224 laps on a two mile road course and we were actually putting this thing on two wheels on some of the hard corners.”
