West Michigan Family Turns Airplane Into RV

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... an RV?

Yep! One West Michigan family has transformed a World War II-era plane into a working motor home.

The Luccis live in Nashville, Mich. Gino Lucci, who is a pilot, mechanic, and federal inspector of aviation, tells Fox 17 he first had the idea when he was a kid:

"I always wanted to do one, since I was 12-years-old, and I just wanted to make an airplane out of a motor home.The truck won't fly, but the airplane drives."

To help his dad with his dream, Lucci's son tracked down a plane in Missouri that was inoperable after damage from a tornado. The plane was built in 1943 in used in WW II by the Navy in South America.

Negotiation took about six weeks, but then the plane was on its way to Michigan.

The Luccis disassembled it, wanting to keep as much of the original plane as possible.

Bontrager's Surplus, a store from which the Luccis got some of their parts, shared more about the proccess on Facebook:

When they stripped the paint off of it, they could see U.S. NAVY written on the side. They put the airplane on an old delivery truck frame, bolted it down and built substructure under it to attach to the truck frame. The seats from the old airplane were used for the driver & front passenger seats in the RV. They added a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom - complete with a stove, sink, fridge, microwave, cabinets, sofa, dinette booth, toilet and even a tub!

The family say the RV is now classified as a Class A motor home and it's up to all safety standards. The Luccis have name it "The Fabulous Flamingo".

Have you seen the former airplane, now RV tooling around West Michigan?