How Small A Self Contained Class C Can Be Made

We love our "small" RV, however it is not small compared to these. My favorite tiny RV is the Airstream Westfalia, the older James Cook edition. This one with the yellow was manufactured in 2006, only a few of these were imported. This streamlined interior is my top choice so far for a small RV. It has the Sprinter Chassis which is not my preference but supposedly gets good mileage.
The newer models have the toilet room on the side--I prefer the rear in this older model. I like the way the sleeping and kitchen areas are separated too. And I think the storage solutions are small but clever. The fridge is probably thermoelectric and tinier than a cooler but it fits so well in this configuration that I like it.
Hope you like the photos. I took these from Flickr.











My second favorite small RV is the Toyota--especially the one with the rear bath, couch dinette (single) and overhead bed. Also hard to find and older.

It can probably be as small as the shortest chassis you can find to fit a house. We have self-contained 13-foot towables in a six and a half by ten foot box, which is a lot smaller than what's behind the cab of our smallest chassis-cab trucks here.

Not a Mirage, although those look rather cool. Mine was a custom job, designed by the person I bought it from.

I imagine it can be as small as you can get the chassis for it. There is a point of diminishing returns as far as mpg and space utility. Born Free makes a small one. Phoenix Cruiser, as you know, has an excellent small C.

Tiger4x4RV wrote:
Class C's built in US on a Toyota base in the 1980's were small. Mine was 17 feet bumper to bumper, fully self-contained, one large bed in cabover, 74" headroom inside. Very comfy for one.

I wonder if you and I owned the same brand rig. We owned This Toyota Mirage for 24 years. It measured 17.5 feet which included the large rear step bumper. We bought it brand new in 1983 for $12,250. Ours was not self contained but the higher-end ones were.

If you look at the Certificate Of Origin, the motor home weighed only 3600 pounds.

My biggest issue would be the sleeping areas. It has a lot of other compromises, but mostly you'd need to be outdoors a lot, and have a shower handy. I bet it'd be easy to drive on North American roads (other than the right hand drive), and fuel efficient.

I guess it might partly depend on precisely how you define a class C. If it has to be built on a factory cutaway/chassis cab, then it probably depends on how small a chassis you can obtain. If on the other hand you count units built by butchering other sorts of vehicles, it gets more interesting.

There's always the MiniHome design, built with a VW Beetle chassis.

Japan has some tiny RVs built on on Kei car platforms:

It would be nice if we had some of these in the offering. They would sell.

Brian

ron.dittmer wrote:
I've always wondered how small a conventional class C can be made. HERE is a right-hand driven little tike. I wonder what the over-all dimensions are.

Probably see more of these in Japan. I noticed someone here with a Disability Licence, ,using a 23ft IVECO based Class C, as his daily driver