(By Greg Rourke) – Okay Lohnes, I’ll see your Jeeptor and raise you a freakin’ school bus tractor that I am hereby dubbing the Bustor.
I’d like some details on this beast. On what looks like a million acre ranch in South Dakota a farmer repurposed a school bus into a round bale mover. Having such a large piece of real estate mean you don’t have all day to move the bales, so this unit scoots right along. I like the fact that he made no attempt to hide this machines provenance, it’s still yellow and lettered. I betcha a nickel the flashing red lights and stop arm still work, although the cows likely ignore them.
The basics of what we do know are pretty straight forward. The bus was a 1988 International Chassis and it was likely hauling kids around South Dakota for decades before being retired. Then engine is a 7.3L International V8, there’s a four speed Allison automatic handling the gear changes and the working end of the rig is an Artsway loader attachment that was designed for a Versatile tractor. We’re thinking that this is now a Versatile tractor but don’t tell the folks at the company that, they may not agree.
We’re going to have to find a really big building to house the BangShift hall of fame.
