There’s a few cars that I have a certain irrational affection for. Well, really, I suppose there are a lot of cars I have an irrational affection for, but on that irrational list definitely sits one of the rarest and strangest air-cooled Volkswagens ever built: the crude, wonderful workhorse known in Mexico as the Hormiga. There’s a few of these in America, but not many at all, so whenever one shows up for sale, it’s a big deal. What may be an even bigger deal is when one with a Nissan 240SX motor shows up for sale, because I think there’s a pretty good chance that this is the only vehicle of that description in the known universe. And it’s only $16 grand or “any serious offer!” Is anyone near Long Beach, California? If so, don’t you think you should be driving over there right now?
Look how incredibly, gleefully crude these things are! They were designed to be built without complicated metal presses or anything like that, a quick-and-dirty, cheap-to-build mechanical beast of burden for developing areas.
Originally, these had Volkswagen’s legendary air-cooled flat-four Type 1 engine, the same one that powered over 20 million Beetles, inside the cab there, driving, unusually, the front wheels.
This one, though, is said to be powered by a Nissan 240SX engine, which likely means the 2.4-liter inline-four KA24DE engine that made 155 horsepower – that’s about 300% more than the original air-cooled engine Hormigas came with, so this should enjoy a pretty significant performance boost, as all of you Hormiga owners can likely imagine.
Because there’s now a radiator involved in the setup, the Hormiga needs a grille, and I think I recognize where it was taken from: it’s from a sibling, a VW Type 2 T2c with a liquid-cooled 1.8-liter inline-four engine. These modified Microbuses were built at first in Mexico starting in 1991, and then later Brazil, where these buses-with-grilles kept going until 2012. Given the origins of the Hormiga, I’m pretty confident that’s where that grille came from.
Those triangular front turn signals, though, I’m not sure about? It’s kind of driving me crazy.
So, what would you do with this vehicle if you get it, I assume you’re asking yourself, as you count out 8,000 $2 bills from your secret stash hidden in bags of cat litter. Well, aside from being a distinctive and charming daily driver, note that this truck has a pretty good-sized flatbed at the rear, a literal blank slate upon which you can express your vehicular desires, with a little creativity.
To me, it’s screaming out for some kind of camper conversion, and I think you have a ton of options when it comes to that.
Like, if you have a bit of money to spend, you could pick up pretty much any in-bed camper setup and plop it on there, with the right extra supports, and boom, you have a modern camper! Some of these can be pretty luxurious and fancy, too:
Those get expensive, though. You could try DIY-ing it, and making a whole camper with 2x4s and plywood sheeting! It wouldn’t be that hard, and you could put in insulation and flooring and windows and an A/C unit and make something pretty great, if a bit labor intensive:
Who has that kind of time, though? And what if you’re on a tighter budget? In that case, I have lots of great ideas! With some plywood and a cheap pickup truck camper shell, you could easily knock this out in a weekend:
Jam that full of old carpets and thrift-store furniture and you’ll be camping like a broke king in no time! Still too rich for your blood? What if you just drop like $300 on some plastic garden shed from a big-box hardware store? That’s like a camper! 
Still too much? Ugh, fine, cheapskate, how about this: lay down some astroturf and pitch a tent on the bed there:
That’s almost free and it’s still sort of a camper. Beats sleeping on wet grass!
One more thing; since there’s still lots of Cybertruck hype, this Hormiga, with its similar low-poly looks, is a great starting point for a budget knock-off Cybertruck:
You can make it out of plywood and cover it in aluminum flashing. Cheap, easy, and effective! You can even make a simple “face mask” the same way, and some rattle cans of silver paint, and boom, everyone thinks you’re Elon Musk!
This thing is incredible, a real one-in-a-million chance. It’s also likely the fastest Hormiga ever to exist! Someone get this thing and tell me all about how much more fantastic your life becomes.
An Hormiga with a plywood camper could be called a Carpenter Ant.
An Hormiga with a fuel line lead could become a Fire Ant.
In Egypt it is known as the Pharoah Ant.
The special version for waitresses in the Deep South was called the Sugar Ant.
A version modified for farmworkers to use in the fields was called the Harvester Ant.
Hormiga means, in Spanish, “ant”. So it goes well with the Beetle.
This is amazing and I want it. Looks like the perfect quad hauler.
“…making a whole camper with 2x4s and plywood sheeting!”
I helped my best friend build a camper for his pickup. It’s not necessary to use 2x4s. One-by-twos with 2x2s at the corners works perfectly well. And the sheeting can be 1/16″ plywood with 3/8 for the roof.
Want
-and enough money on the side to acquire a old dune buggy and also fabricate some ramps to park said buggy on the back.
I don’t see the driver’s side wiper shown in either of the two ‘official’ pictures in the article. Anyone?
I’m thinking install post and swivel mounted twin .50 cal machine guns on the flatbed in anticipation of fighting off the horde coming for David Tracy. Then you’d have an Army Ant.
Don’t think you’d need 50cal to handle Meal Team 6. That’s a horde that could be easily distracted with a few handfuls of Twinkies strewn in their path.
Looks like the turn signals might be rears signals off of something; the one on the driver side has what looks like a keyhole at the top.
Hey just put a newer dumpster back there, they are free for the taking all over at night if Noone is looking. It looks like a garbage truck so talk about under the radar camping. If you have seen Two Broke Girls you have seen what you can do with a dumpster.
Everything I need to know about the quality of the modifications is said by the wheel choice.
Hard pass. Sometimes there are good reasons no-one else decided to do something.
Disgusting (The engine swap, not the Hormiga).
I’m still considering getting a Hormiga with a non functioning engine and or transaxle and swapping in a diesel and transaxle out of an 82 Vanagon.