I realize that the image from Lex is for our amusement, but seriously, this is quite a nice job of mounting a "caravan" (travel trailer) body on a truck chassis. The truck is a Ford, almost certainly European and presumably a Transit or similar. I have seen the same thing done on a much larger scale with a forward-control medium-duty truck, and much worse with an American full-size van cutway and a 13'
Boler.
In Lex's model, the fenderwells of the trailer match up with the truck wheels; the integration is quite good. The problem with these things is that they lose the advantage of integrating the cab with the coach interior, as a Class C motorhome does.
The Earthroamer design deliberately does not
integrate the cab and coach, so it really is more like Lex's trailer-on-Transit than the typical Class C. Earthroamer expects off-road use, and wants the coach body to be able to move on the flexing frame without getting damaged by twisting. In that way, it is very much like a trailer body, and thus relevant to us. The cracking problems found in some fiberglass travel trailers when the frame twists might be avoided if the body was a complete structure in itself, and the frame just connected suspensions to hitch and carried the body on three (not more) mounting points; that's how a stock Earthroamer body could be used to make a trailer, although it would be really high unless the fenderwells were raised.
The Earthroamer chassis is a
Ford F-450 or F-550 - buyer's choice. To put this in perspective, an F-350 is a one-ton, like the biggest Ford pickups. Class C motorhomes use the short-nose cab style like a van, and only the larger ones need to move up from an E-350 to the higher-capacity E-450. Were talking commerical trucks here. According to my reading of their website, Earthroamer uses the truck as purchased new, without mechanical modification; specifically, the major differences between the F-450 and F-550 are identified as rear springs and
axle ratio, so those features are not changed by the RV manufacturer.
Diesel - now there's a whole discussion in itself, and not one I'm going to re-start in this thread!
In previous discussions in this forum, many members report approximately 13 MPG
fuel consumption while towing their eggs - similar consumption for a motorhome with similar accomodations plus off-road capability doesn't seem so bad in comparison, although I have no idea if the claimed Earthroamer mileage is realistic.