After 1000 days of blood, sweat and tears – Meraai – the transformed 19 ‘voetsek’ school bus has finally been revealed to the public.

Phillip Lennon and Mariki van der Walt of Leisure Bay became the proud owners of the Mercedes Benz 26 seater bus in September 2020.

After bumping into a couple living in their motorhome while touring the Kruger National Park, the couple had a dream to transform the old Merc bus into a styling overland vehicle. The final seed was planted when Phillip gave Mariki a toy motorhome for her birthday in May 2020.

Phillip and his son Tyrone drove the old bus from Johannesburg to the South Coast. They only made 350km before Meraai gave in.

Since then, she has been in the hands of panelbeater Braam Pretorius of Munster and his team.
Despite all the many obstacles and some 6500 manhours to create Meraai, the couple revealed the final result to invited guests in Munster recently.

“Our plan was to change Meraai into a rolling work of art, fully restored and kitted out as a motorhome, a vehicle we can use to explore Southern Africa over the next few years,” said Phillip.

And this is exactly what the couple has achieved with the custom-made crossover, overland motorhome, aka the Mercedes Meraai .It’s the only one on the planet and was built by hand from the ground up. The list of upgrades, and features on the vehicle, is remarkable.

Despite undergoing open heart surgery at the end of March, and then a hernia op in mid July, Phillip was up and running, and able to host Meraai’s reveal on July 29.
TV producer Mariki lived and worked in Cape Town for 11 months, while Phillip focused on the building of Meraai.
The multi-award winning TV producer, Phillip has so far published, a whopping 134 episodes on YouTube.
His channel called: ‘Dream Called Meraai’ has 1.13K subscribers.

The episodes show every step of the transformation, the couple’s personal trials and tribulations as the team work tirelessly to build the motorhome, from scratch.
Phillip says building Meraai was building their (the couple) dream.

“Having said that, one must remember that nightmares are also dreams, and we had our fair share of nightmares during the build. The sacrifices we had to make in order to make this dream a reality, were massive,” he said.
Mariki and Phillip have been a couple for 25 years, and Phillip chose the name ‘Meraai’ after Mariki’s nickname.

“We spent most of Meraai’s build living apart. Mariki in the Cape, and I was tasked with overseeing the project here on the South Coast. While the challenges were real, I kept my sanity by filming our progress on a weekly basis. That was great fun, and still is great fun,” said Phillip.

Phillip said they have a solid fan base on their Youtube channel, and have had over 100 000 views.

“Our Meraai is a media star. The blood sweat and tears have been worth it. Our real journey starts now!”
The show is certainly not over yet, this week they have begun the process of getting Meraai ready for her roadworthiness and homologation.

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