Skyhorse Is a Dream Motorhome Built With a Ford F-700, an Ambulance Box and Plane Fuselage

Before vanlife became a popular hashtag, one Florida couple did it their own way, in a rig they built themselves and which, as it so happens, remains one of the most surprising and memorable RVs ever to see the light of day. Its name is Skyhorse and it’s a strange but awesome combination of a Ford truck, half an ambulance vehicle and an aircraft fuselage. How’s that for getting creative?

The Skyhorse isn’t a new vehicle, having been around as an idea since 2009 and as an actual vehicle since 2013. However, since November is Tuning Month on autoevolution and we’re looking at all kinds of vehicle modifications – and since we’re always suckers for a beautifully-executed or competent rig – it fits right in. Who knows, it might even inspire others who have been on the fence about ditching sedentary life in favor of traveling the world in a motorhome.

Skyhorse is an RV, but one unlike most out there. We’ve seen combos between trucks and aircraft parts before, but this is probably the only RV that packs a third vehicle as an integral component: an ambulance box, lifted off an old service vehicle that, at one point, served as a bomb squad vehicle. If Skyhorse could tell the stories of the vehicles that came to be integrated into it, we’d be here a very long time.

Hani and Sarah were two lawyers from Florida with a shared love for traveling and an aversion to taking down roots. When they met, it was their common interest that got them to consider the possibility of ditching their boring 9-to-5 existence in favor of a life on the road, but since Sarah suffered from motion-sickness, they had to think outside of the box in terms of how they’d go about transportation.

Hani, who declares himself a passionate hater of waste in general, thought of getting a skoolie to convert, but then came across an ad for a 1991 ambulance that had been used as a bomb squad vehicle and was being auctioned off by a sheriffs’ office. He bought it for $300 at silent auction, and picked it up in December 2009.

Whatever plans he had of converting it into a motorhome were shattered when he learned that damage to the engine was too extensive. Instead of getting a new one, he cut off the box and bought a 1994 Ford F-700 4x4 instead, a former Florida Power and Electric vehicle that had been decommissioned. The 5.9 Cummins Diesel engine on it was still working, and after a while at the mechanic’s, it was in good shape again.

Stripping the box of the ambulance down to the aluminum structure, he placed it on the chassis of the truck. He also cut a hole in the box to add a hard top for more headroom. The fuselage over the cab is a Cessna 310 that he bought from a junkyard, cut down in length and height. The blue paintjob with clouds and waves is a custom job, by Florida artist Rick Worth.

The fuselage is the bedroom, and it’s accessible from inside the box through stairs. The box itself communicates with the cab of the truck, and houses a full kitchen with fridge, double sink, oven, and working space, and a dinette with a swinging table and an L-shaped couch. There’s also a bathroom with a composting toilet and a shower, and plenty of storage space for clothes and foodstuffs.

Electricity demands are met thanks to four 145-watt solar panels and a battery bank. There is no AC so “you can’t sleep in late during the summer because of the heat,” Hani revealed in 2015. Skyhorse comes with a 95-gallon (360-liter) tank of water and two 50-gallon (190-liter) fuel tanks. At the time, it had 80,000 miles (128,747 km) on the engine and chassis, since Hani and Sarah took it on the road in 2013 and didn’t stop until 2015, when they decided to sell it.

Indeed, Skyhorse found a new owner that year, and consequently slipped off the radar. Neither Hani nor Sarah ever said how much it went for, though we do know that the asking was $30,000, despite the fact that they had spent $60,000 on building it. The last time they said anything about Skyhorse, it was that it had found a new home in Indiana, with an owner who wanted to live off-grid for as long as possible.

That last part probably explains why we’d never heard of Skyhorse in recent years. A shame, so here’s to hoping it is still living the best life.

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