This 2020 Sprinter-based, off-road van concept from German manufacturer Hymer looks capable outside and like a stylish apartment inside. It features an indoor kitchen and fridge, a folding desk/workspace, stairs to leading to an insulated, pop-up sleeping loft, a very cool convertible bathroom/shower area, and a rear tailgate deck with a slide-out grill/outdoor kitchen. It’s amazing how far RVs have come. I could go for something like this.
Read the rest of this entry »
Archives for category: – Campers
Colorado-based Timberleaf Trailers has come up with a beautiful, lightweight, modern version of the classic teardrop trailer.
Teardrop trailers first became popular in the 1930s, a time when hundreds of new federal and state parks were being built the Civil Conservation Corps. Magazines like Mechanix Illustrated, perhaps eager to offer their readers a DIY way to take advantage of this new, national infrastructure, published plans for the home builder. The classic layout offered sleeping quarters forward and an open-air kitchen to the rear, under a large rear hatch.
The Timberleaf Trailer utilizes this same classic layout but weighs in at a very modern, and eminently towable, 1,200 lbs. Ground clearance looks to be about 7 inches.
The birch plywood construction appears to be first-rate, and the trailer offers standard niceties such as a polycarbonate skylight, R-11 insulation, 110V and 12V power via a 125aH deep cycle marine battery, USB outlets, and 12 gallons of fresh water storage. A built-in cooler and cookstove are optional extras.
Trailers, unlike rooftop tents, offer a way get some of the camping load out of the truck. They also offer a way to leave the camp set-up at camp. No need to fold up the rooftop tent for a quick day trip.
Prices start at just a hair over $15,000. It looks like a very nice way to see the country. More pics after the jump.
Hat tip to Silodrome, where I first saw the Timberleaf.
Link:
All photos: Gregory McDonald
Greg on his way to Overland Expo 2015
Dear Readers!
I apologize for the radio silence the past few months. I’d like to get the WCXC ball rolling again with series of posts about last spring’s Overland Expo 2015. I had initially invited my good friend Greg from gadmachine to go with me. When a scheduling conflict came up, Greg, always up for adventure, accepted our press pass (kindly provided by Overland Expo) and headed to Arizona solo. He had a great time, met some great people, and took the fantastic photos you see here.
I’ll cover the Expo in four posts: Trucks, Products, Camp Vibes, and the Obstacle Course.
Next year’s Overland Expo will be held May 20–22, 2016 in Flagstaff, Arizona. The event offers a chance to work on your overland driving skills, attend workshops and classes, watch films and demos, and offers a tangible air of camaraderie. They’re already taking reservations. If you’re interested, click here.
On to the trucks! The Expo is a great place to see adventure vehicles. Here’s what Greg spotted. Read the rest of this entry »
5,000 miles across the USA in an old GMC conversion van? Sure—if it looks this good and has the camp vibes to match. You have go-van.com, an online magazine about van culture, to thank for bringing you along for the ride.
Link:
go-van.com
Although I haven’t been so great at keeping on the blog lately (though I will be changing that), I have been good at keeping my Pinterest account up. And through a fluke of nature (which was Pinterest recommending one of my boards to new users), I now have over 20,000 followers. Whoa.
If you like your overland, off-road, camp, and adventure information in bite sized chunks, check out my Pinterest page. I have boards on camping, truck mods, Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, Skills, and a bunch of other stuff too.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ll probably dig it.
Links:
Here are all of the WCXC boards.
And here are all of the pins.
Here’s an interesting video showing Fraser Island, a popular off-road site on Australia’s east coast, just north of Brisbane.
The Toyota is towing a Conquerer UEV-490 trailer, which looks quite interesting with it’s fold-out, open-air kitchen. One interesting point about these trailers: they can be ordered to match the track width of the towing vehicle. That way the trailer just follows right in the tow vehicle’s tracks, which makes towing in sand or soft ground a lot easier.
Link:
Conquerer Trailers
Imagine Dr. Frankenstein pulling the sheet off his creation and, instead of recoiling in horror, people stood back and said, “Huh… He looks good.”
Well, somewhere under a full moon, in a strange lab in Germany, a dead Type 2 T3 Westy was dissected and grafted on to the back of a living, 1965 Unimog 404 (with a 6-cylinder, gas engine, and a six-speed, manual transmission). It was given twin 33-gallon fuel tanks, a 24-volt, 140-amp alternator, six Hella 4000 driving lights, olive green paint, and a full exo roll cage.
You might think cutting the face off of Volkswagen bus and grafting it onto a Unimog might lead to a horrible freak of nature, but no. This thing actually looks good.
OK–sure. You can’t look too closely. The interior looks like a velour-covered, Unabomber shack. And the roof-top tent has got some tears. But the asking price is $18,500! You can’t get a normal Westfalia Syncro for that. Or a normal Unimog, for that matter. This is both!
Other things to know: 25,000-lb. PTO winch with 300 feet of cable, on-board air compressor, 34,000 kms on the clock. Find this thing in South Chula Vista, near San Diego and the Mexican border. $18,500!
More photos and original ad text after the jump.
Thanks to Mas for Spotting this one!
Link trail: Bring a Trailer: Mega Westy > Craigslist: Custom Mercedes Unimog
After 63 years, and worldwide production of 1.5 million, Volkswagen will shutter the assembly line for the Type 2 bus. Until this month they were still being manufactured in Brazil.
From former NASA designer and Cricket trailer inventor, Garrett Finney, comes the Firefly, a new space-inspired camper. It’s still in the concept phase but Garret and his team at Taxa plan on walls made of highly insulated, inch-thick, eps-foam-cored panels fused to aluminum skins, and an overall weight of only 600 lbs.
It will be very compact. Compact enough to fit in the back of a Tacoma or on a small trailer and can be deployed on its own legs. It can even be delivered by helicopter to address emergency needs.
Read the whole story and see development photos on the design site, Core77.