An RV might be the second-largest purchase you’ll ever make, right behind a house, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you walk away from the RV dealers and are willing to do some of your own work from time to time, there are some incredible bargains to be had in the custom RV world. One of them might be this 2003 Thomas Saf-T-Liner HDX, an old school bus that has been turned into a motorhome. Sure, this thing won’t be dripping with luxury. and some parts of its finish are rough, but at only $12,000, this is a gigantic and likely durable motorhome that you can buy for well less than the price of any new car.
Several readers have asked me to cover more skoolies — school bus RV conversions — and your wish is my command! I used to write about skoolies a lot more often, and honestly, I’m not sure why I’ve moved away from them. Skoolies are a great way to dip your toes into RVing. School buses are extraordinarily robust vehicles built to haul children for decades. By buying a school bus that’s been turned into an RV, you don’t have to worry about lauan plywood, rubberized roofs, or most of the structural downsides of the typical factory-built camper. That’s because school buses have all-metal bodies from top to bottom. School buses are also often built on relatively simple platforms, which means that, often, you don’t need a degree to figure out how to fix it.
Of course, school buses are not perfect. You probably aren’t going to get your skoolie fixed at the local Camping World, and there’s always the non-zero chance that whoever built the bus had no actual idea what they were doing. But if you’re willing to live with that, buying an old school bus that’s been turned into an RV could be a way to bypass the headaches of other campers.
This 2003 Thomas Saf-T-Liner HDX is an interesting skoolie. It doesn’t have underglow, a rooftop firepit, or really any of the silly features that sometimes get baked into skoolies. Instead, this build focuses on function, and it comes with a no-nonsense price to match.
The Saf-T-Liner
Thomas Built Buses is a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America and is one of America’s largest producers of school buses. Here’s a cool bit of history from the company:
The history of Thomas Built Buses reads much like the history of modern mass transportation. It begins in 1916 in High Point, North Carolina. Economic hard times created by World War I forced the closing of Southern Car Works, a major streetcar manufacturer based in the city. Like many, Canadian-born car designer Perley A. Thomas, chief engineer for the company, lost his job. However, opportunity found Thomas a few months later when Southern Public Utilities Company asked him to consider putting together a crew to renovate several streetcars he had designed for his former employer.
Within weeks, Perley Thomas had assembled many of his former coworkers, purchased a building in downtown High Point and opened Perley A. Thomas Car Works. Thomas’ reputation in the industry opened doors nationwide, and within a few years, Thomas-built streetcars were carrying passengers in many of North America’s largest cities.
By the late 1930s, cars and buses were beginning to make streetcar transportation obsolete. Perley A. Thomas Car Works adapted, and in 1936 ceased production of streetcars and launched a new product: school buses. In the early ‘40s, Thomas continued to contribute his design skills to the company as he gradually turned over day-to-day operations to his children. He actively served as a design consultant to the business until his death in 1958 at the age of 84.
The Thomas Built Buses Saf-T-Liner HD launched in 2001 as a replacement for the Saf-T-Liner ER, which served as the company’s rear-engine, transit-style Type D school bus since the late 1970s. The new HD bus carried over much of the body of the ER; however, the front of the bus underwent a complete redesign. The windshield now dropped lower and was made out of two large curved glass panels for greater visibility. This bus was marketed as having the largest windshield in its class. Thomas also gave the bus European-style roof-mounted mirrors for even better visibility for the driver. Under the skin, the bus got electrical and suspension upgrades for the modern day.
Other goodies with the HD, which later became the HDX, included options like tinted windows, full HVAC, a Pioneer sound system, adjustable pedals, a telescoping steering wheel, and accessibility options like a wheelchair lift. The HDX was discontinued in 2024 when it was succeeded by the HDX2. A lot of the older HDs and HDXs have been retired from service, and now, many of them get to live second lives as motorhomes.
This 2003 Skoolie
That brings us to the skoolie on your screen today. The seller of this bus says it’s an HDX model and claims it was converted by a contractor for the seller’s family.
Right off the bat, something that I love about this bus is that it was actually used for camping. Sometimes, when a bus comes up for sale that has never been camped in, you can tell because the interior will have features that just won’t work in a moving vehicle, like unsecured chairs or shelving that has no way of retaining its contents.
The seller says that this bus has a Caterpillar 3126 diesel, which is a 7.2-liter straight-six. In this application, the 3126 makes up to 300 HP, and it’s backed by an Allison MD 3060 six-speed automatic transmission. This should be a pretty reliable powertrain and should have decent power for the platform. Other notes about the bus itself include the fact that it has air brakes, new batteries, and recent tires. So, it should be pretty ready to hit the road.
I like the exterior of this bus. The builder didn’t go crazy, chopping the body up and deleting windows left and right. Sure, that means the ceiling is lower than in many other builds, but in my eyes, it also keeps the bus from looking goofy like some skoolie builds do.
Moving inside, here’s what the seller says:
Interior Features
– Sleeps 4: King bed + futon
-Two Flat Screen TVs. 1- exterior Flat Screen TV
– Tile kitchen: Unique Walnut sink, fridge/freezer, LED lighting throughout
– toilet + shower
– Portable A/C included -and 2 large A/C
– Tankless Water heater
– large custom closet
– Curtains on all windows
– Tanks for grey and black water. Potable water tank and hook ups.
-120 V electric. Exterior Awnings
Now, there are some interesting design choices going on in here, from the turf steps to the fake license plate ceiling decal in the shower. However, none of these are things that you couldn’t fix yourself. What’s important, to me, anyway, is that all of the core components of a normal motorhome are here and present. It has a functional kitchen, a real bathroom, and full plumbing.
The plumbing part alone is amazing for the price. There are buses that cost tens of thousands more that force an entire family to use a cassette toilet. This bus apparently has a real waste tank.
It would also be easy to complain that none of the pieces of furniture match each other and that one of the use of a window air-conditioner is low-budget. However, this bus does have a rock-bottom price to match. Besides, if you want a more traditional RV air-conditioner, there’s nothing stopping you from doing it yourself. That’s the beauty of a skoolie.
There’s still a lot to like, too. I love how all of the windows bring in tons of natural light, which, again, you often don’t get in much more expensive buses. I also like what’s going on with the kitchen sink and stove. Sure, they don’t really match, but they look pretty neat and, at least per the photos, they do seem like they were professionally installed.
Other positives include a real primary bedroom with a privacy door and a real shower. The listing also says that the bus has a 360-degree camera system to make maneuvering easier.
The seller says the bus has 150,000 miles, and it’s registered as an RV. Apparently, insurance for the thing costs only $85 a month, too.
Pretty Affordable!
You can get the whole rig for $12,000, and it’s located in Auburndale, Florida. Sure, this bus isn’t going to be the headlining build of a skoolie magazine, and it’s not going to blow up Instagram. Instead, I see a functional RV for people who want to explore, and I dig that. The price is also low enough that it’s attainable for lots of people. Plus, unlike a used camper that you might buy for the same price, this one probably has a better chance at winning the battle against water leaks.
Of course, there are always catches, and the big one with this skoolie is that you have no idea how well everything was done, and you’ll likely have to fix some things yourself. But if you go into it knowing this, I think you might come out of the other side being happy. Well, at least so long as you aren’t taller than the ceiling, anyway.
Either way, I dig builds like this. As much as I love looking at the crazy and creative ways that people build RVs, most people will be just fine with a simple, affordable build that gets their family camping. This bus seems to hit the mark. So, assuming the quality of the work is okay enough, props to the builder of this one for building something functional.
(Topshot graphic: Facebook Listing)
Wow, this thing is awesome! For what you get for the price, it’s phenomenal. You get a ton of space & windows, it’s basically waterproof, the bathroom/shower is wonderful (love the license plates), the sink/stove is so nice and does look very well done, and also love the bedroom in the back. The only negatives are that it’s so big (prefer much smaller RV’s) and the fuel costs (even though diesels will last way longer but w/ all the other maintenance that go along w/ diesels; I much prefer gas) I still want to buy it right now! (If I could)
What are the odds on timing??? This just went up on BAT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2007-thomas-hdx-saf-t-liner/
the biggest deal with these busses are rot, especially if you get one from the rust belt.
Or, for the same price, you could buy this all metal Barth. And it fits in a parking space.
https://raleigh.craigslist.org/rvs/d/louisburg-1989-barth-regal-22-rv/7884704017.html
This is identical (same year even) to the HDX school activity bus I drove for several years. These were long (40ft) heavy (18 tons) vehicles. The driver sits about six feet ahead of the front wheels and the bus swings a long tail, so tight city turns can be an adventure. Out in the ‘burbs or on the highway the HDX comes into its own. It’s smooth riding and solidly planted. The Cat/Allison drivetrain delivers plenty of torque and power so it doesn’t feel sluggish in stop and go work and cruises well on the interstate. Decent mileage for a heavy weight and a 75-gallon fuel tank. It isn’t really happy trying to push long distance at speeds over 65 mph and tends to run hot when you do, but it will go faster. The view from the drivers seat is panoramic and those elephant ear mirrors are awesome for visibility. I had to drive on dirt and sand roads as well as grass fields on occasion and never once came close to getting stuck. Wouldn’t want to try mud, though. My HDX had enormous below cabin storage, which I’d bet is where the RV plumbing and storage tanks are located in this conversion.
I like this HDX conversion and now I’m nostalgic for my old ride. Good read.
I rode on one of these from elementary into high school, it was brand new when we got it. It’s cool to know how it actually drives. Ours had transmission problems, it actually started smoking inside the bus once and we had to evacuate! I always thought it looked neat though and I liked the engine note. Now I’m nostalgic.
That Allison tranny was pretty robust and could log lots of miles with little care and, sadly, that’s exactly what a lot of fleet operators did. A common warning sign was a sudden loss of mobility when the Allison overheated. Once it cooled a bit you could get underway again, but keep ignoring the problem and eventually it’d burn out. Regular maintenance wasn’t complicated but was often overlooked. Found this out the hard way. The bus garage we used was pencil whipping the transmission maintenance during scheduled service and my bus began to act up. I took it to an Allison specialist and they told me it didn’t look like it had ever been serviced. Luckily the damage done wasn’t critical and with conscientious service thereafter, I didn’t have any more transmission problems.
I think it’s the best schoolie ever, but I might be biased.
I love the look of the HDX. Those were what my college was using as shuttles 7 years ago. The mirrors are so distinctive, and really functional.
Looks like the headlights and taillights would be easy to replace, too.
That’s a drivetrain that will run a million miles (if you can afford the fuel) built back before diesel emission regs went hyper in 2006. Might well get double digit mpg at 55mph on a level cruise.
That seems like a fair price. All too offen you would see someone trying to sell one for for $50k sometimes even with a Mercedes or Maxforce.
It doesn’t look like this has had extra insulation added but it’s probably fine in the south. The problem with these is you can’t get into some camp grounds. The skoolie people don’t seem to frequent camp grounds anyway so I guess you are buying into a sub-lifestyle in a way.
Throw some solar on the roof a battery bank and a mini split and some kind of ebike or dirt bike storage and I could see this being very capable for someone
As many have pointed out below, this bus may look a bit jank, but it also looks like it’s been extensively field tested, so I imagine many of the kinks have been worked out – Which you don’t really get with a new RV.
My biggest issue with skoolies are all the rattling windows, but then every RV I’ve been in had tons of rattles. That why I prefer a trailer to a motorhome in general.
Those options are why vans are so popular. Plenty of places you can’t, or don’t want, to go with either
Is that a wooden sink?
I would rather pay 3X as much to get a van build than putter around at 6 MPG in this thing. Fuel costs are going to be massive
What I want to know is, has the original stop sign been removed? Did they take out the whole mechanism? I’m thinking about all the things you could display/deploy in its place: “stop driving like a jerk”, “weirdos onboard”, etc etc.
In all fairness, so is an old refrigerator box under a bridge…
All joking aside, I’d be inclined to trust the durability of a moderately janky DIY build over OEM RV builds.
It may not be built any better, but for 1/20 of the cost I’m much more likely to risk it.
100% with you on that!
My thinking on the janky DIY thing is that there’s a pretty good chance the person doing it at least gave a damn if it worked…
I don’t mind this at all.
“…you have no idea how well everything was done, and you’ll likely have to fix some things yourself.” So it’s exactly the same as a brand new RV?
I would say a lot better. The problem with new RVs is that you know how well everything was done.
Lol, yup. Here there is the chance they actually did a good job. No way you will get quality on a new RV.
When I see these listed for sale I often wonder which weighs more: the furniture, tanks and appliances or a full bus of kids and backpacks. I’m sure someone here knows the weight of an RV build out and can answer this important question so I can sleep tonight!
It’s a good question. On the #vanlife forums a lot of people take their rigs to scales to see how much they tagged on. My Promaster was a 2500, so rated for 4,000lb payload. I guesstimated that I had about 1,000lbs in there, but I didn’t have water and put a lot of time into optimizing things. People who were full-timing it were adding 3-4k pounds into their rigs (heat, AC, furniture, generator, batteries, propane, etc) and many recommend going to a 3500 if you’re going for a full build-out.
These busses are heavy duty truck chassis and can haul a lot of weight, but also most skoolie builds are pretty lax on weight savings because there’s a lot of room to frame everything quickly and cheaply with 2x4s.
I asked often-wrong ChatGPT how much a full load of school children weighs:
78 school children with backpacks weigh about 3,200 kg (≈ 7,050 lb)
More than I thought! The build might be equivalent?
I’m guessing ChatGPT isn’t doesn’t consider the Land of Little Debbies.
Remember that 78 “School children” may also be high schoolers. So you could be carrying the local football team with a load of 200+lb teenage boys.
Most buses have a “kid” and “adult” rating printed right on the side. I’m not sure how that translates to actual numbers they use in service, though. It’s been a while since I was on a bus and I was lucky enough to have a 5 minute walk to the highschool.
In practice, they cram ’em full regardless of passenger size.
I worked on school buses for years when I was at International. Honestly, they’re a fantastic platform for RVs.
I’d love to build one into a trackday hauler, as most have decent towing capacity.
Also, according to Wiki, these buses had a capacity of up to 90 passengers. So I feel like unless your furniture is made of tungsten, you’re probably well under capacity.
Got me interested.
A new bus like this is 25,000 lbs empty, rated to carry 84 kids and has a maximum weight of 36,000 lbs. Modern high backed school bus seats hold 2 kids and weigh 80 lbs. So, removing the school bus seats drops the weight to around 21,600. That leaves a weight budget of around 14,400 lbs to play with during your conversion.
I think that unless you are carrying a lot of water, an RV conversion on a school bus shouldn’t overload it.
I forgot about the weight of the seats themselves! I think you’re right, any reasonable build is going to come in at less than a full load of humans + gear + seats.
14,400lbs is about the total GVWR of a 40′ 5th wheel, including the frame, walls, etc. Assuming the interior, tanks, appliances, etc are about half the weight of the 5th wheel and the bus is using heavier-weight materials in general, that still probably leaves a couple tons of payload to spare on the bus.
I don’t see myself ever going for a full-sized skoolie because I’m mostly interested in a weekend camping rig and a mini-bus is about as big as I’d want to maneuver.
But looking at full sized buses, there’s a lot of options out there and some use HD pickup powertrains, which I think would be some nice peace of mind knowing you might be stuck somewhere with a drivetrain issue.
I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of a diesel anyway (more reason to stick with a mini-bus) but having a Powerstroke, for example, would give me a little more confidence that I can find online resources and get parts quickly.
In any case, this seems like a decent build at a decent price. Buy it, use it, make it your own as you see fit.
If you want to go a completely different way, some school systems are switching to EV buses, these should be available used eventually and came from the factory with around 200 miles of range. I would consider looking into installing a second battery. Not to try to get to 400 miles but to provide more power for whatever electric toys I might want to use.
5 window shortie busses are perfection, imho.
Agree totally. A 4 window is probably enough length for me, but I want the wider body of the 5-6 window busses. Around me the schools have started selling off 2013-2015 busses. I’ve bid on a few at auction with the 6.0 and 6spd drivetrain.
As Porch-ah mentioned, tires and batteries alone are worth a lot. If the plumbing and electrical are done properly, then the only fixes you need to do are all cosmetic to make it your own. I might swap out the cheap looking window A/C unit with rooftop units first. Still, very cool.
I’d probably skip the roof unit for some of the parking systems designed for sleeper cabs of trucks. Keeps from adding holes to the roof and adding height to the bus.
Plus, the only place I’d REALLY need A/C is the bedroom.
That’s a great idea. It’s been a while since I was on a school bus, but I was thinking that there are emergency exit hatches on the roof. So if someone made an A/C that could fit into one of those pre-existing openings, you’re all set.
I’m not into campers, but this one really calls to me! I love the idea, the decor, all the windows, and the antennae mirrors off the front!
Well done to the builder.
I don’t know the market for skoolies but fresh tires, and new batteries along with the host of interior amenities, make me think this is cheaper than trying to do it myself. Cool post on what looks like a functional conversion, but I am not interested in anything that can’t fit in my garage.
There’s probably some fixes to take on, but I agree that it seems like a decent starting point versus going from a clean slate.
My van build was far less extensive and I had dozens of hours of research into it on top of the dozens of hours of labor. Most people vastly underestimate the time investment.
All the time. Yeah, you can save money, but you have to put in a lot of time to do so, and that’s worth something, too. I’ve seen too many people burn themselves out on projects because they decided to do a thing they don’t enjoy to save a few bucks. You really have to enjoy putting in that work or the time investment will really get you.
Totally agree, I have done home renovations that would match the scope of building out a skoolie, but you have to really want it. Especially compared to home renovation where code will lock you into a certain way to do things. That can be good and bad, but since I am not an electrician I am glad that I had an inspector to double-check some of my work and act as a qualified sounding board instead of an internet forum. Home wiring isn’t rocket science, but you don’t know what you don’t know.
I really appreciate you showing this off. I’m so glad to see a practical build at a reasonable price. That’s something we don’t see enough of these days.
Good luck finding street parking.
As opposed to street parking for a similar sized RV?
I think you can just park in any school zone.