Voltwagon

Voltwagon was built in the early 1990s by Max Bradley in Berrigan. Max had been attending tractor pulls with Gordon Yeiland, helping work on his tractor Agro. After watching a few events, Max decided he wanted to build a tractor of his own.

At the time, Max’s brother Don owned an old Kombi van, which had a boxer style VW engine. Max wanted that engine for his build, and Don agreed to give it to him, swapping in a smaller VW engine for his van instead. Max then acquired three more of the same boxer engines, along with a VW transaxle rear differential.

In its early configuration, Voltwagon used a separate carburettor for each engine, but the performance wasn’t great. Being an engineer by trade, Max fabricated a custom intake manifold that joined all four engines together and allowed them to use a single large carburettor. This modification made a massive difference in performance.

While Voltwagon was never a class leader, Max was proud that his creation always caught people’s attention wherever it went. He took great satisfaction in that, and eventually built a second tractor called Thomas the Tractor, inspired by Thomas the Tank Engine, which was also known for its eye catching design.

The unique engineering behind Voltwagon gained international attention when Kelvin Jobling sent a photo of it to a contact in Germany. The image ended up on the front cover of a European tractor pulling magazine thanks to its distinctive German powertrain.

Voltwagon continued to compete until the 1997–1998 season before being retired.