Kanye West loves cars, trucks, and vans. He’s had fleets of them and seems to have a never-ending cache of different flat black vehicles. Now he’s suggesting he will start a car company, called Donda. The eccentric entertainer revealed a foam model of what that new Donda might look like. It’s the Donda Foam Vehicle. We assume that means the model is foam, not the car itself.

The Donda van is a cross between many vehicles and some that aren’t

It looks like a cross between an armored bank truck, a dune buggy, a van, and a Boonie Bug. More on that in a bit. The staggered wheels look like they would be 30-inches tall. And the only thing that is discernible are the airless tires. The only thing we know for sure is that the Donda was conceptualized and designed in the U.S. And if it ever gets built, that too will be in the U.S.

The large, flat, wrapping windshield suggest it could be bullet-proof glass. And we would assume that ultimately it will have windows in the rear. It also looks like the fenders, tires, and wheels are separate from the body. Otherwise, there’s no room in the wheelhouse to allow jounce. 

The Donda looks like a swoopy Boonie Bug

The flat body panels also remind us of the Popular Mechanics Boonie Bug. It was a DIY van on a VW chassis. You could make the body from foam core or wooden panels, fiberglassed over to protect them from the elements. Popular Mechanics provided the drawings and plans. Surprisingly, the challenge and simplicity resulted in many floating around the U.S.

The Donda looks like a stretched Boonie Bug. That’s not a bad thing, just an observation. And remember the Brubaker Box? It was a much more sophisticated VW bug chassis van. The van found quite a few buyers, with some purchasing it in kit form.

A shoe designer might be involved in the design

Details of the Donda are non-existent at this point. GQ says that Donda has an industrial design division. Shoe designer Steven Smith oversees the venture. Knowing that, does the Donda look more like a van, or a shoe? 

Though a big car fan, it seems a bit far-fetched that West will actually make the Donda, it has a precedent. Remember will.i.am’s Mercedes-Benz design? Its debut was only a couple of months ago. A collaboration with Mercedes-Benz, his will.i.AMG was an interesting take on a GT 63 S E. 

But this build would be much more elaborate. That’s because it would have to be built entirely from scratch. Not that it is impossible. There are plenty of shops from one end of the country to the other that are qualified to do the work. All it takes is money, and Kanye has lots of it. So we may very well see this in and around Los Angeles in the future.