DA'SHORT BUS!

A CREATIVE SOLUTION THAT'S MORE THAN JUST A RIDE!

- JOE GREEVES

This eye-catching ride is owned by Chris Pulley from Richmond, Texas, a financial analyst working in the banking industry. As a kid, Chris always loved the active lifestyle but at age 12, he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive neuromuscular disease. Not wanting the disease to dictate how he enjoyed life, Chris began finding ways to maintain an active lifestyle, even choosing a manual wheelchair in college that allowed greater mobility. As a result, he currently enjoys adaptive hunting, water and snow skiing, fishing and his latest favorite, diving. Certified through Dive Pirates, an organization that specializes in teaching people with disabilities to scuba dive, he's logged more than 180 dives. High performance automobiles are also on the list, like his Dodge Challenger SRT. The muscle car is great fun but before he can enjoy it, he needs a second set of hands to stow his wheelchair in the trunk.

That's essentially how the Da Short Bus came about. It allows him to enjoy the automotive scene without relying on others. It didn't take long however, for the initial goal to expand into having the perfect vehicle for friends who were also confined to wheelchairs. It showed others in the disabled community that life could still be fun. Smiling he says, "Besides, what's cooler than a guy in a wheelchair owning a short bus?" The project began with a donor vehicle that was an actual short bus, a 1957 Ford B500 that Chris found in Montana. Though a bit rusty in spots, it had the necessary style elements that, with a little work, would help the dream unfold.

The transformation has been an ongoing process for several years and multiple upgrades have occurred.