My TC has a rather short nose (east west bed arrangement). My old and sold Lance had a huge overhang (north south bed attangement. In fact I kind of miss looking up out of the side window and not seeing the underside of the camper.
In actuality, the front of the nose of the TC only extends to the mid point of the cab but I have a large space between the cab roof and the underside of the camper, at least 14". It actually looks kind of odd to me and I have the camper sitting flat in the bed, no rubber or plywood underneath, right down on the Rhino Lined bed.
Of course the issue of camper movement has been hashed and rehashed on here countless times but mine has never moved (neither did my Lance for that matter) and I run off road and camp the majority of my safari's. Being a not so stellar student on school (but having wandering eyes), I attribute the non movement to the angle at which my tie down's secure the camper and my cautious off road driving too.
My old girl has more than it's share of frame flex (early Fords were noted for that, especially the long ones (and mine is as long a wheelbase as was available on 1997) so bed to cab movement can be quite a bit.
That leads me to want to build one with adequate clearance, I don't need to be scuffing the paint on the roof when I'm articulating along a seasonal road and I do want something to fill the 'gap', possibly reducing turbulence, allowing me to keep the pass through window cracked without waterlogging the camper in a rainstorm and reduce the bug issue.
I don't drive all that fast anyway. My maximum freeway speed is 65, but usually 62. It is after all a vacation, not a race to get there and we rubberneck anyway, rubberneck to the point where we prefer the 2 lane over the slab. 2 lanes are more fun, have more things to look at and while it may take longer to get somewhere, it's a much more enjoyable trip.. getting there.
No timeline for me or my wife, we are after all retired and life is too short to rush anything.
Headed to Maine this spring for a month and I plan on taking nothing but 2 lane roads unless I have to drive the slab out of necessity. If it takes a week or two to get there, fine. Not on a timetable anyway. We have a particular destination in mind (friends that live there) so the trip can be our usual rubberneck adventure.
