You know those stories and situations that are so bizarre, they feel like they couldn’t have been made up even if one tried? What if I told you there exists a vehicle that blends the front end of a Ford Fusion with the rear end of a GMC Vandura, painted yellow, and features grafted parts of a plane so it looks like it’s been crashed through the cargo area? And what if I told you that exact thing is for sale?
Speaking to the seller, there’s actually quite a sweet story behind what he bills as “the most unique Ford Fusion ever built.”
It once belonged to Merry Bennett and Kenneth Schaapveld, two widowed people who met online and decided to spend their golden years driving all across the country together. Hotels and new motorhomes were out of reach, so Schaapveld, who knew how to do bodywork, cobbled together a makeshift Fusion and Vandura RV “for under $10,000.”
There was a sofa bed inside as well as a microwave, a 20-inch TV, and an all-wood interior. The couple and their DIY motorhome were even the subject of a 2013 feature on Edmond Outlook, a local magazine in Oklahoma.
Unsurprisingly, drawing quite a lot of attention everywhere they went, the Schaapvelds eventually traveled to all of the lower 48 states in the big yellow Ford-GMC motorhome, completing items on a collective bucket list on an adventure self-dubbed “The Last Chapter.” They would use Route 66 whenever possible, and the van has apparently driven the entirety of the highway “more than 15 times.”
That was more than a decade ago. This amazing vehicle is now on Facebook Marketplace for $6,950, and the seller says the motorhome got hit by a car while it was sitting in Bennett’s driveway a few years ago, sending it to the junkyard. That’s when another man, “Aaron Lawyer” got hold of it and “had to save it.”
“While his guy was picking it up at the junkyard, another guy was bringing the plane in for scrap,” the seller told me. “So he bought the airplane for scrap price, brought them from Oklahoma to West Virginia, and Aaron and his team incorporated them as one unit. Sat outside his building as an advertisement for a couple of years until I bought it.”
The seller also says Kenneth Schaapveld unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. The only outstanding thing on his bucket list, though, was to get his van featured on a big-time stage. Per Edmond Outlook circa 2013:
“If it weren’t for Merry trying to sell her home in Lawton, the two would still be on the road traveling. The Schaapvelds long ago decided they would complete their bucket list together, and all that is left is Kenneth’s desire to have his van featured in a national magazine and on Good Morning America. ‘My bucket list was to ride a train, which I did at the Royal Gorge in Colorado,’ said Merry. ‘I’ve done everything on my bucket list. We are in our last chapter—we don’t have any obligations.'”
The Autopian may not exactly be Good Morning America, but David assures me we do indeed have readers from all over the country, so I think this counts as a “national magazine.”
Congratulations, Kenneth. It may have taken a few years and a plane grafted onto it, but your van is finally out there for the world to admire. And it’s glorious.
Topshot: Ron Jon via Facebook
I have to admire both the original creator and the guy who tuned it more into a show piece after it was no longer suited for its original purpose. You don’t see stuff like that all that much anymore. Sometimes on a random back road or small town you will see something interesting like that but it’s becoming a rarity. There is a whole group of people that wanted to be featured on their morning shows mainly silent generation and maybe very early boomers. Most of them I met in the past were interesting people and had mastered at least one trade. F
This is an odd machine. I could never have done this instead of just fixing the van, which seems to make more sense in every way.
They should be glad the collision happened without occupants. I doubt this would do well in a traffic accident at highway speeds (or half that).
Well, what motorhome really does, in all honesty? RV manufacturers dont exactly crash test
I’d have a lot more faith in half a GMC and half a Fusion working together via whatever cut-and-shut process went on here than any variation of the Lauan box.
I’m trying to figure out the plane. The front looks like a Cessna with its wings removed, but the tail does not look like a Cessna empennage.
I don’t think the tail has anything to do with the plane fuselage. It looks more like a tailcone for a rocket.
Right?
Sweet story with a horrific ending, as far as the visuals are concerned. That thing would work as a display at a modern art gallery, but as a vehicle, it makes me feel vaguely ill.
Weird, but a really sweet story none the less. Like the movie Cocoon for car nerds. Maybe I need to meet a Merry.
Yeah, he should have fixed the van and forgotten about the plane. It’s nearly undrivable as is, probably not registerable. I like the original vehicle but now it’s a lawn ornament.
Great weekend content! Love the stories behind weird cars.
Very apt that a Fusion would be used as the basis for this thing.
Exactly. Ford FUSION indeed.
The builder’s name is also pretty appropriate, given how much schaap was velded onto it.
When I read the headline about this having a sweet story behind it I figured it would start with a lot of rum and coke and end with jello shots.
Just because the actual story doesn’t have any mention of either, I still say Alcohol was involved. Look at the picture of the damage to the GMC RV. Convince me that the driver of the car that hit a parked bright yellow RV that far into someone’s driveway wasn’t under the influence of something.
An old autocross credo: Your car always follows your eyes.
True, but it was a residential street and that giant yellow thing was parked deep into the driveway. If someone target locked without chemical assistance, I would be surprised.
All that writing reminds me uncomfortably of a local person who lives in a dirty, beat up campervan with similar writings all over it except his are bible verses, far right political statements and his phone number to call for prepper foodstuffs and a book of his own recipes. And flags; American flags, sometimes colorful, sometimes blacked out, MIA flags, Gadsden flags, some I don’t recognize, it’s always changin’.
And no, his address is not down by the river, just local parking lots so while he stays local he moves around a lot. If anyone is interested in sketchy prepper foodstuffs and I presume a free lengthy, rambling lecture about *something* I may be able to find his number.
I would ask if you live in the same city as I do, but I think there is someone like that in every city I’ve visited for a while. Especially in the South.
Also known as a vanifesto.
r/SchizophreniaRides