Determined man builds HUMMER H1 from tired Ford F-150

Life is stranger than fiction. If anyone tries to tell you differently, simply point to the Canadian man who built the truck you see above, from scratch. Francois Couture, known in his posts as "H150", showed up in the Full Size Bronco forum on September 17, 2004 with a simple query: "Since I'm a Ford nut but always wanted a HUMMER but don't have lots of money, I decided to fabricate my own [based] on Ford truck frame..."

As forum users do, there were soon people offering a multitude of answers to his questions. But what the other users discovered rather quickly was that this guy was, literally true to his word, was fabricating a HUMMER H1 from nothing but plans. Using steel from his job, he built his own sheet steel bending machine, and over the last four years has been welding together a HUMMER H1 practically out of thin air. And get this: before he started his project, Francois didn't know how to weld. He learned to weld in order to build the truck. And he's good. Like, awesome. His fabrication work is as professional as anything you'd see from folks with a lot more money than a dedicated husband and father in Quebec.

The H1 is being built on a donor frame from a 1987 Ford F150, with an engine from a donated E-350 Super Duty shuttle van, and a whole bunch of other ingenious swaps, all from Fords. If you have the time to read 45 pages, it is worth it. Our favorite name for the truck so far: H4d. After four years and a bit, he's still working on it, and he's taking donations at the behest of other forum members in order to get the truck finished this summer. The effort and the passion speaks for themselves in the gallery of photos below. Hat tip to reader Kiran!

[Source: Full Size Bronco]