A VW T1 Bus and Airbus Helicopter Walk Into a Workshop, the Frankencopter 4 Ensues

Chuck Jurgen Teschke, an aircraft maintenance engineer with 38-years of experience from Canada, has a habit of turning trash into treasure. His latest creation, the Frankencopter 4, is a Volkswagen T1 bus merged with an Airbus H125 helicopter. This isn’t a flying or driving vehicle – it’s art, built from discarded parts and welded together to get your attention.

Teschke’s day job as Director of Maintenance at Auroro Jet Partners keeps him knee deep in the mechanics of flight. His expertise shows in the Frankencopter 4 where a VW T1 bus – those round vans from the 60’s – meets the utilitarian frame of an H125 helicopter. Both parts were scrap, too broken for their original purpose but perfect for Teschke’s vision. He sources these relics from places like High Alpine Helicopters who donated the H125 chassis and a VW collector named Ryan Simpson who let Teschke dig through a field of retired vans near Edmonton. The result is a hybrid that looks like it rolled off a surrealist’s sketchpad, with the bus’s front end welded to the helicopter’s tail, rotor and cowling.

Building this beast required more than just a welder’s torch and a good eye. Teschke started with a blueprint, sketching out how to marry two machines that were never meant to share space. The VW’s front end was gutted – headlights removed, shell sliced to create viewing panels and the iconic bumper left intact for character. Rivets, hundreds of them, stitch the van to the helicopter, along the sides and underbelly to create a cohesive, if bizarre, shape. The helicopter’s rotor hub tops the piece, with a spray painted VW wheel hub – a cheeky nod to the bus’s heritage. Teschke even added windows to the fuselage, a feature helicopters rarely have, giving the Frankencopter a playful, almost futuristic look.

Matching the paint across both halves was no easy task. Teschke considered a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine inspired scheme but went with a beige and white with red pinstriping, all painted by his own hand. This choice grounds the piece in a retro aesthetic, evoking the VW’s 60’s roots while adding a touch of seriousness to an otherwise whimsical creation.This doesn’t move and that’s on purpose. Teschke calls it “Static Industrial Art” – a term that sums up its purpose as a visual statement not a functional machine.

Cost was a big factor – using new parts would have been too expensive so he uses decommissioned, sometimes contaminated parts. This only adds to the charm, turning trash into treasure. The Frankencopter 4 isn’t a one off either, it’s the latest in a series. His previous works include a Ford cab welded to a chopper tail and a combine harvester cab welded to a helicopter frame, so there’s no limits to what he’ll try.
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