US nutter builds 350mph jet-powered school bus

An American nutter has built a jet-powered school bus that's faster than a Bugatti Veyron.

Paul Stender and a team of engineers from the Indianapolis-based IndyBoys Inc fitted the yellow school bus with a jet engine from a Phantom fighter plane, allowing it to reach a frankly dangerous 367mph. That's 100mph more than the fastest car on the planet, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sports.

Unsurprisingly, the IndyBoys School Time Jet-Powered School Bus doesn't have an awful lot in common with the vehicle US kids ride in, the Telegraph reports. Stender claims the entire thing is custom built, the only original parts being "a little bit on the front... and the door handles". All its seats, bar three, have been stripped out to decrease weight and improve the amount of usable power from its 42,000hp General Electric J-79 jet engine mounted at the rear.

Stender claims he created the bus for two reasons -- both of which are highly amusing. "The first is to entertain people," he says, "because, come on, it's a jet bus." The second reason is because he wants "to keep kids off drugs. Jets are hot, drugs are not." We couldn't agree more -- except when you need a pain killer, a 71.8 kilonewton afterburner's not going to do you much good.

Ironically, Stender may not be setting such a great example for the kids. He claims he hated school and this creation was a form of revenge for all the days spent on the excruciatingly slow journey to get there.

There's no word on whether anyone's been stupid brave enough to take the vehicle to its top speed, but IndyBoys Inc is happy to demonstrate the School Time Jet-Powered School bus at pretty much any event with a long enough strip of runway. Just make sure you don't get too close -- this thing shoots 25-metre-long flames out its jacksy.

Check out the embedded YouTube video below to see it in action, and let us know what you reckon in the comments below.