Hey! How did you get here?
How did you get to own a truck camper? What kind of experience predated your TC ownership? This could be instructive and explain why some do not need or want 4WD; or a small camper; or air conditionin...
Forum Discussion
Love that FJ40 Jefe.
When I left school I wanted a long wheelbase diesel Land Cruiser, but found the insurance was too expensive for a 17 year old, so for many years I put up with a succession of front or rear wheel drive cars.
After buying a house within walking distance of my job I traded my regular car in for an air-portable Land Rover (ex British Army). I kept that for years:
I put a piece of thick plywood across the wheel arches in the back, but sleeping curled up on that wasn't the best recipe for a good night.
I attended many heavy-vehicle trials (friends with tanks, 6x6 Ural trucks, Gamma Goats, etc.) and that often resulted in sleeping in the load bed of a semi-trailer or the back of my station wagon. I had a GMC, but that was too clean to take trialling in the mud. Certainly made a better place to sleep though with its large load bed:
Our first attempt with an RV was a 2-week tour around New Zealand. We hired a class c based on a Mitsubishi Fuso Canter. It was a bit big for New Zealand roads and I wasn't convinced it was how we wanted to travel in the future.
Eventually the GMC and the Land Rover went, replaced with a Daihatsu Sally could tow her horse trailer with, but that was later replaced by a much better towing vehicle - the 101" Land Rover artillery tractor:
Again I put some plywood across the wheel arches to make a sleeping platform and we'd insert an air-bed that would go down slowly over night causing you to wake with aching hips from lying on hard plywood.
Sally wanted to take it down to North Africa, but given its fuel consumption, poor reliability and complete lack of security (canvas, no door locks), I didn't really fancy our chances.
Namibia was a real wake-up call. We needed a 4x4, I didn't want a roof tent, and being in Africa I didn't want to sleep on the ground (predators, snakes, insects). After much research I found a small Nissan 4x4 pickup truck with a box body with pop-up roof and pop-out sleeping compartment - our experiences of that proved that we could camp in a small vehicle, and I loved having the capability of a compact 4x4 vehicle again:
After that trip Sally said "when we are older we should get something like that". Living in the wet north I was sceptical. I also didn't want to commit to a single-use vehicle. I started recalling truck campers I had seen in the US and it occurred to me a small one of those on a 4x4 pickup platform would be perfect. When Sally decided to sell the horses, giving us a lot more time, the "when we are older" moment occurred (even though we weren't much older). I decided to sell the Land Rover 101" and started hunting for a pickup truck.
Finding the truck was more difficult than I expected. Double-cab pickups over here have a uselessly short load bed, but Namibia had taught me the value of a supercab with at least some storage space behind the driver and passenger seats. Earlier, cheaper pickups were designed more for commercial use and had very underpowered engines, so that narrowed it down to two models that had supercabs and powerful engines. One make turned out to suffer from regular major engine failures. So that left us looking for a very specific truck. But after a few months we found a 3-year old one owned by a farmer. It was mechanically good, but dented and scratched (which I don't care about, but which reduced its price).
Finding the camper was even more difficult. The only ones readily available were small glass-fibre campers made in the '80s by a British company, but they were tiny. We got close to buying one, but while demonstrating it to another potential buyer a jack failed and it fell over. Then the Shadow Cruiser appeared on eBay. It was perfect (and I haven't seen anything since on eBay I would rather have bought). I got it with some last-second eBay bidding.
And here we are now.
Recently we've been contemplating what we do in future - do we need a bigger vehicle? When semi-retired will we travel for longer periods, thus justifying a class B or C? But I still want 4x4, and I don't want something that will constrain my ability to squeeze down tight lanes and tracks and explore the places others won't (for fear of getting stuck or vehicle damage). Our trip to Overland Expo last year in a rented class B demonstrated that we really like having a fixed bed over the cab - that business of re-arranging the vehicle interior every night and morning would get tiring quickly.
Our current truck and camper come under 3500kg in gross weight, and our trip to Italy this summer has been an eye-opener. Assuming we would need to move to a vehicle with 7500kg gross weight we kept an eye out for where that might cause problems - the answer was EVERYWHERE! So many roads in Europe have been reclassified with a 3500kg weight limit (except for vehicles with permits - i.e. local logging or utility vehicles). Moving to a vehicle > 3500kg could really restrict our travel plans. So we look at our existing camper and except for a few modifications we would like to make, realise that it is probably still the best compromise we are going to get.
Steve.
When I left school I wanted a long wheelbase diesel Land Cruiser, but found the insurance was too expensive for a 17 year old, so for many years I put up with a succession of front or rear wheel drive cars.
After buying a house within walking distance of my job I traded my regular car in for an air-portable Land Rover (ex British Army). I kept that for years:
I put a piece of thick plywood across the wheel arches in the back, but sleeping curled up on that wasn't the best recipe for a good night.
I attended many heavy-vehicle trials (friends with tanks, 6x6 Ural trucks, Gamma Goats, etc.) and that often resulted in sleeping in the load bed of a semi-trailer or the back of my station wagon. I had a GMC, but that was too clean to take trialling in the mud. Certainly made a better place to sleep though with its large load bed:
Our first attempt with an RV was a 2-week tour around New Zealand. We hired a class c based on a Mitsubishi Fuso Canter. It was a bit big for New Zealand roads and I wasn't convinced it was how we wanted to travel in the future.
Eventually the GMC and the Land Rover went, replaced with a Daihatsu Sally could tow her horse trailer with, but that was later replaced by a much better towing vehicle - the 101" Land Rover artillery tractor:
Again I put some plywood across the wheel arches to make a sleeping platform and we'd insert an air-bed that would go down slowly over night causing you to wake with aching hips from lying on hard plywood.
Sally wanted to take it down to North Africa, but given its fuel consumption, poor reliability and complete lack of security (canvas, no door locks), I didn't really fancy our chances.
Namibia was a real wake-up call. We needed a 4x4, I didn't want a roof tent, and being in Africa I didn't want to sleep on the ground (predators, snakes, insects). After much research I found a small Nissan 4x4 pickup truck with a box body with pop-up roof and pop-out sleeping compartment - our experiences of that proved that we could camp in a small vehicle, and I loved having the capability of a compact 4x4 vehicle again:
After that trip Sally said "when we are older we should get something like that". Living in the wet north I was sceptical. I also didn't want to commit to a single-use vehicle. I started recalling truck campers I had seen in the US and it occurred to me a small one of those on a 4x4 pickup platform would be perfect. When Sally decided to sell the horses, giving us a lot more time, the "when we are older" moment occurred (even though we weren't much older). I decided to sell the Land Rover 101" and started hunting for a pickup truck.
Finding the truck was more difficult than I expected. Double-cab pickups over here have a uselessly short load bed, but Namibia had taught me the value of a supercab with at least some storage space behind the driver and passenger seats. Earlier, cheaper pickups were designed more for commercial use and had very underpowered engines, so that narrowed it down to two models that had supercabs and powerful engines. One make turned out to suffer from regular major engine failures. So that left us looking for a very specific truck. But after a few months we found a 3-year old one owned by a farmer. It was mechanically good, but dented and scratched (which I don't care about, but which reduced its price).
Finding the camper was even more difficult. The only ones readily available were small glass-fibre campers made in the '80s by a British company, but they were tiny. We got close to buying one, but while demonstrating it to another potential buyer a jack failed and it fell over. Then the Shadow Cruiser appeared on eBay. It was perfect (and I haven't seen anything since on eBay I would rather have bought). I got it with some last-second eBay bidding.
And here we are now.
Recently we've been contemplating what we do in future - do we need a bigger vehicle? When semi-retired will we travel for longer periods, thus justifying a class B or C? But I still want 4x4, and I don't want something that will constrain my ability to squeeze down tight lanes and tracks and explore the places others won't (for fear of getting stuck or vehicle damage). Our trip to Overland Expo last year in a rented class B demonstrated that we really like having a fixed bed over the cab - that business of re-arranging the vehicle interior every night and morning would get tiring quickly.
Our current truck and camper come under 3500kg in gross weight, and our trip to Italy this summer has been an eye-opener. Assuming we would need to move to a vehicle with 7500kg gross weight we kept an eye out for where that might cause problems - the answer was EVERYWHERE! So many roads in Europe have been reclassified with a 3500kg weight limit (except for vehicles with permits - i.e. local logging or utility vehicles). Moving to a vehicle > 3500kg could really restrict our travel plans. So we look at our existing camper and except for a few modifications we would like to make, realise that it is probably still the best compromise we are going to get.
Steve.
