It's easy to understand why a muscle car or a Ferrari is cool - the big engine and cool body. But car culture is also influenced by television, rarity, or simply a generation growing up with a particular vehicle. The Volkswagen Bus is a perfect example of this because it's slow, not sporty-looking, yet it can cost a lot of money.
The Bus is perhaps one of the least understood collectibles, right up there with bubble cars. You see them grabbing huge money at auctions, making it difficult to visualize why somebody wouldn't rather have a Ferrari or some 1960s Mustang.
Comedian Gabriel Iglesias is known as the VW Bus King, as his collection of Vdubs is reportedly worth in excess of $3 million. The Hoonigan crew recently did a feature video, but we still had trouble picturing the value of these vehicles. Fortunately, there's a set of renderings that takes the visuals of the Microbus to the level where everybody is going to be drooling... or at least people into body kits are.
South American artist Rob3rt Design has created an impeccable 3D model of a racing Kombi he calls the Volkswide. Brazil is like the second home of Volkswagen, and at one point, produced more of their cars than Germany. Even though this looks like a really old machine, The Type 2 model was produced there right up until 2013, and we hear people pay big money to have those newer models imported.
The one in the rendering looks more like a Porsche race car. Massive fender flares are added, almost doubling the width of the vehicle and giving it more character. The front also sports a chin spoiler for extra downforce, while all of the trademark chrome trim has been blacked out.
New headlights in a kind of Singer 911 style prove the artist paid attention to all the finer details. But the real party is at the back, where we have a big engine transplant with some quad exhaust tips.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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