Who in the world would want to look like...

[Donna R]

2 years ago something very similar to this was in Nova Scotia.
It was from Germany but the inside was not as fancy as this one. The only similarities were the drawers, and beautiful appliances. They told me they had the basic model (cost of over $100,000) but there were many other higher end models. The extreme hight was to aid in security and the big wheels to travel anywhere.
Embarassed to admit that they gave me a brochure of the entire line that I cannot get my hands on at the moment (and maybe never)
It was amazing to see -and try to climb up to have that private viewing.

[Donna R]

Keep thinking about this (some things nag me) ...so I went to trusty Google
Check this out

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/25/top-10-...with-your-home/

It not only shows the vechicle we might be talking about, but other wild and wooly possibilities. Makes the VW van look amazingly old fashioned.
But give me my wonderful Trillium any time!!!!
Donna

[Brian B-P]

I'm having a hard time with these pictures.... ??? confuzzzed in Idaho.

It's a clever configuration, but not obvious. Since there is some interest in the layout, I will try to draw it up and post it, probably tomorrow.

[Brian B-P]

... http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/25/top-10-...with-your-home/

It not only shows the vechicle we might be talking about, but other wild and wooly possibilities. Makes the VW van look amazingly old fashioned.
But give me my wonderful Trillium any time!!!!
Donna

Great find Donna, thanks.
The truck-based RV (the "Wothahellizat" - sound it out!) in the link is not the one in this topic, but is of the same general type - camper bodies mounted on high-mobility cab-over-engine truck chassis. They are basically unknown here, but there are lots of European (and Australian) examples. They have the trucks there (6x6 cabovers are virtually non-existent in North America), and apparently some people have a need for extreme mobility in an RV. The Wothahellizat is kind of opposite to our trailers in some ways, but I guess it would be great as a mobile wildlife observing platform in open country, such as the African plains or even for polar bear watching near Churchill, Manitoba (even a polar bear couldn't reach that platform).

At an RV dealership in central Alberta, I saw a camper body on a Pinzgauer, which is a very small European 6X6 truck built for military use. I knew of the Pinzgauerhad, but had never seen or even heard of one here in Canada, so the camper was a surprise. It was brought here by a European couple to tour North America, and left in storage.

The Top 10 list does have trailers, but no moulded fiberglass trailers! It isn't a serious survey of the best in RVs, but it would have been nice to see a classic egg in the mix.

The C-Liner was the most interesting entry in the list to me (I had heard of most of the others). It seems to me to the motorhome equivalent of our trailers - compact, efficient, and a bit unusual. It is unusual in that it is a Class A (full purpose-built body) motorhome in a size range which is filled with Class B (van conversion) and Class C (truck cab and chassis) designs. The 60,000 euro price is not surprising (you can pay that for a camper van here), but still too much for me.

[Andrew Gibbens]

Anyone who wants to see some old (British) motorhomes might like to visit this web site that contains the first chapter of a book: Motorhomes - an illustrated history

The 'upper deck' of the current Airstream Skydeck is anticipated by some 70 years by the (much smaller) front sun deck of the 'Protos' double-decker motorhome (page 12) - though I think this one could be used on the move, which would be a rather wonderful place to sightsee from.

The idea that someone built motorhomes in the 1900s (as in 1900-1909) amazes me.

Andrew

[patharris]

The company that makes these is UNICAT, here's their
web site http://www.unicat.net/en/ They've got some good videos on their site and some used ones for sale.

I saw one of these parked in the sand dunes of baja, mexico a few years ago (about 3/4 of the way down).

these are the ultimate off-road self-contained campers and luxurious to boot.

They are awesome to behold if you ever get the pleasure.

Now if I win the lottery.....

[patharris]

also looks like they use this site:

http://www.terracross.com/en/

[Christi V.]

Now we know its not really a garbage truck!!

[Donald Stahl]

Well, that Vantare doesn't look exactly like a garbage truck. Just think, the price is a paltry 2 1/2 million dollars. Cool. I wonder if they give senior citizen discounts?

As for the garbage truck camper? Hmmm. Wonder how many miles per gallon that would get? I don't imagine it would be a quiet running camper. The garbage truck that comes down our street can be heard several blocks away. How about the ride? Don't think it would be very comfortable either. Might be theft proof though. Who in their right mind would steal a garbage truck? Hey, just trying to think positive !

[Gina D.]

well, here's a timely entry..

great deal at only

44K starting bid

[Donna D.]

well, here's a timely entry..

great deal at only

44K starting bid

Yep and I'll just pop right over to Europe and pick it up...Located in beziers, Languedoc-Rousillon, France!

Hey Taylor, can I borrow your tug???

[Brian B-P]

For anyone who is concerned about ride and noise in these truck-based motorhomes, consider that all Class C motorhomes are built on truck chassis (usually Ford E-350 and larger), and large Class A motorhomes commonly use the engines and transmissions of medium-duty trucks. Most are quite crude compared to modern passenger vehicles, although high-end stuff gets air suspension. The biggest comfort problems I see in the high-mobility designs are the agressive off-road tires, and the extremely close proximity of the engine (under the cab's seats in a typical cab-over-engine, kind of between the seats in the Pinzgauer). Although the ride is better towards the middle of the wheelbase, the forward location of the seating shouldn't be a big deal, since it apparently is not in the million-dollar Class As.

For fuel economy, consider that a single unit vehicle (a motorhome) will probably be lighter and almost certainly be better aerodynamically than a trailer with the same size of interior plus its tow vehicle. A Sprinter-based Class C motorhome certainly gets better fuel economy than most of our vans and pickups towing even 13' eggs, and has an interior larger than my 17' Boler. It seems to me that the big problem in the high-mobility rigs would the large frontal area due to their great height.

I don't consider my fiberglass trailer and van the ultimate RV; its just the best combination for me at the moment, recognizing the reality that another complete vehicle is expensive. A tug-and-trailer combination also has great flexibility:

• we can drop the trailer and still have local transportation;
• we can have multiple trailers of different sizes and types for different trip needs;
• we can tow the same trailer with different tugs, again depending on the need of the trip;
• et cetera

Our lightweight moulded fiberglass travel trailers are towable by reasonable vehicles (that we might already have or might meet our other needs well), and that combination is a winner for many. That doesn't mean that other types of RV are not very good for their purposes - some might be both more capable and more efficient than our rigs.

[Brian B-P]

well, here's a timely entry..

great deal at only

44K starting bid

Good find, Gina.

The Pinzgauer which I saw had been made into a sort of pickup truck (they're usually vans), and carried a tidier, commercially made, slide in camper. I don't think it was as tall.

I don't know if people reading this topic appreciate the small size of the Pinzgauer. Next to a typical North American Class C, it looks like an egg beside a big Airstream. There is a British Pinzgauer site (in English, which makes life easier...) which has a page describing the width (1.8m, less than 6 ft) and showing some photos which include people for scale.

[Brian B-P]

I'm having a hard time with these pictures....??? confuzzzed in Idaho.

The attached image is my shot at a floor plan for this RV. It's only very roughly to scale, and I realize that some parts are just wrong; however, I think it explains all the stuff in the photos. The arrows with numbers on them are where the camera would be to take the photo with that number; the numbering of photos is the order in which the appear in the original post, I hope...



I hope the arrangement is apparent: the top part is the floorplan (top view), below it is the view from the curb side, and to the right of that is a head-on view, ignoring the cab.
In these drawings, the top is shown in the "up" position; when retracted, it presumably rests down almost directly on the loft level.

[Roger H]

well, here's a timely entry..

great deal at only

44K starting bid

Hey, isn't that the exact same rig the bad guys in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" drove?

Roger

[Brian B-P]

Not the same MH. Draco, name after the constalation Drac the Dragon is made using a garbage truck. You can read about and see it here

Good find, Byron. As the article says, the Draco was an airport fire truck (ARFF), not a garbage truck. That makes the all-wheel-drive less strange: ever seen an AWD garbage truck?
The article (as published online) starts with:

It's the world's only expedition-class AWD motorhome

It is this sort of idiotic (for alleged professionals) declaration which makes me lose all trust in publications. I'm sure the people at RVWest are nice, and I appreciate that they showed us this motorhome, but I wouldn't really believe anything they say.

There are larger Oshkosh high-mobility trucks, so the upper end of this insanity has yet to be reached!

The various UNICAT offerings (which includes the TerraCross) are yet another company's rendition of the same general idea. UNICAT is big on fiberglass sandwich body construction.

[CliveAlive]

Good find, Byron. As the article says, the Draco was an airport fire truck (ARFF), not a garbage truck. That makes the all-wheel-drive less strange: ever seen an AWD garbage truck?
The article (as published online) starts with:

It is this sort of idiotic (for alleged professionals) declaration which makes me lose all trust in publications. I'm sure the people at RVWest are nice, and I appreciate that they showed us this motorhome, but I wouldn't really believe anything they say.

There are larger Oshkosh high-mobility trucks, so the upper end of this insanity has yet to be reached!

The various UNICAT offerings (which includes the TerraCross) are yet another company's rendition of the same general idea. UNICAT is big on fiberglass sandwich body construction.

Here's some nice MAN and Volvo based Unicat footage I came across while looking at ... er, yes, you might have guessed it ... Volvo videos!

Warning; strong Volvo content! Especially the part when the Volvo pulls the MAN out of the river.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g90kgPhvA4

Edit - Not responsible for video poster's "handle". I recommend image played full screen.

[Tom Trostel]

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/27215...054322218JVGtgw

Don't know if you've seen this "off road" version of a Casita. It belongs to Bruce of San Angelo, Texas.

[Robert Brummett]

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/27215...054322218JVGtgw

Don't know if you've seen this "off road" version of a Casita. It belongs to Bruce of San Angelo, Texas.

Sure would make it easy to empty your holding tanks!

[John Fazio]

A mean practical joke would be to fold up those stairs after it gets dark.