Overland Build Idea

HMS Beagle wrote:
My take on this was to buy a CC, and do what you suggest but using a small fiberglass 5th wheel. Bigfoot used to make one and they can still be found used. Escape makes one currently. These are 20' trailers, but the box is only about 13', the rest is cabover. Remove the frame, mount it on a subframe that slides off of channels, just like loading a 40 yd dumpster. You could get by with the 178" wheelbase chassis, and have a pretty small overall package, demountable.

A new Earthroamer, even the small one, is around $500K. The bigger one $1M+. And they have a long order book. Now the build quality of the box is very high, but not that high.

Problem with a small Isuzu cabover or their competition, is they are very uncomfortable to drive for more than a half an hour.

I like the idea of a 5th wheel if you can make the spacing work out over the truck cab. It might be a complication if the box is allowed to rotate. It might require significant extra clearance so if the box rotates relative to the truck, you don't want it hitting on the cab.

A demountable house would be nice but does that get you into a lot of complexity and cost negating the advantages of the idea. Unless you have another use for the truck, I don't see this as a big must have item. A big part of the idea is that it's simple and cheap with 90% of the capability of much more expensive trucks. Access to tanks and other items on the bottom shouldn't be a big concern with the open frame of the truck.

Vast majority of the overlanders are built with the cab over trucks. I suspect most overlanders don't do 6-10hr runs very often. These tend to be longer trips where covering lots of miles in a short time isn't critical. Of course it's a trade off of a truck that can be worked on anywhere vs a bit more comfortable ride.