Over at survivalblog, there was a recent post about a tricked-out (for survival purposes) camper rig, the “Earthroamer,” built in this case on a Ford F-550 chassis, with solar panels and all sorts of other well-thought-out survival touches. It seems to be targeted towards wealthy ecofriendly types who want to minimize their carbon footprint or something. (The website has a quote from Hitchhiker’s Guide author Douglas Adams, fer cryin’ out loud.) Yes, I said wealthy:Â the Earthroamer XV (for Xpedition Vehicle)Â starts at a bit under $200k and goes up from there as you add options.
Still, it’s worth a look if only to think of ideas for things to do when building up your own SHTF rig.
However, it seems to me that if you have that kind of change to drop on a vehicle, you might also want to be looking at a Powerhouse Coach — billed as “the ultimate RV”:
“We camped with a pickup, a trailer and another trailer to haul motorcycles and dirt bikes. It was getting to be too much. I ran a towing company, and I’d seen some pretty ugly accidents with run-of-the-mill RVs. So, I didn’t want one. My dad, [a trucking company owner] had a truck that lost an engine. He didn’t intend to fix it. I decided to build myself a motor home from that truck.” [–Powerhouse Coach head Doug Tolbert.]
A year later, he had an RV behemoth capable of easily pulling 40,000 pounds. “You’ve seen a semi pulling two trailers. That’s the type of chassis I used. It was designed to do a massive amount of work, 24 hours a day, for millions of miles. That truck thought it was on vacation when it became my motor home.”
–United Express’ Skywest Magazine, Special Idaho Section, circa May 2006
Prices start at $330,000. Storage compartments are 1/8″ plate steel standard. Tows whatever the hell you can hook it to. Interesting, although definitely not offroad-capable (although the Earthroamer might not be, either — anybody ever take a big utility truck offroad?).
As it stands I wouldn’t trust either on potentially shifting ground. Maybe if they had used a 7-ton or “Hummit” it would have been more off-road worthy.
http://www.oshkoshtruck.com/defense/products~a3~home.cfm
http://www.oshkoshtruck.com/defense/products~bushmaster~home.cfm
OK, I can see that this thread is going the way of Star Wars, but seriously, folks, for most of us, the SHTF or bug-out vehicle will either be our own family wagon, or maybe, if we’re lucky, an older but reliable purpose-designated vehicle such as a pickup camper or Class-C motorhome.
Most dreamers on the Oshkosh scale forget that one DOES NOT want to attract attention with a bug-out vehicle. One wants it to look like it belongs in the area where you decide to take it. For most purposes, then, the average camping vehicle is about ideal. They come with water tanks, they come with sleeping facilities, and they come with SOME storage, which can be expediently converted to rapid loading by buying the right PVC containers to tub up all your gear in.
If you want to go green with power generation, you can have a take-down windmill genset in there, or some solar panels, although I’m well experienced with both and am here to tell you that they are both expensive and a proper PITA, on the order of at least a $5,000 investment for only about 10-15 amps of charging (in the full sun or brisk breeze). Much simpler and way cheaper to bring more fuel and have a little Honda 1000EU generator, which will run a 40-amp battery charger for about 10 hours on a gallon of gas, and can’t be heard over 200 meters away.
Paying a bit more and getting an any-fuel stove and/or any-fuel lanterns that will run on MoGas also makes sense, getting you out of the propane business altogether.
Stick to the basics, and you might have your SHTF vehicle up and ready by the time you need it, which could be soon.
As to taking large vehicles offroad, that’s what military all-wheel drive vehicles, and oilfield exploration vehicles are for. The world’s most difficult auto rally, the Paris-Dakar, has a heavy (unlimited) class in it, and most of the vehicles are variants of military haulers or airfield off-pavement fire trucks. They will run up to 100 mph on the flats, and just swallow one to two foot ruts like they weren’t there.
I have a good friend in SD that restores cast-off military heavies. He has three now, two “deuces” and a 5-ton, plus a Mule and some trailers. As to real money, he probably doesn’t have $10,000 in all of them, but has thousands of hours in rebuilding them one component at a time.
There is a group that shares info on these vehicles, and some make decent moolah renting them out to Hollywood for movies. Some are suvivalists, and some baby their restored militaries as if they were Concours d’Elegance-grade antiques.
There was an old Soviet-era military vehicle for sale in Central California a few months back for (I think) $27,000 — looked like an old WW2 half-track, but with wheels & tires on all axles. Armored, diesel-powered, and top speed of 50 mph IIRC. I’m pretty sure it was on a website pointed out on Survivalblog, but for the life of me I can’t remember what the site was. I’ll try to find it over the next few days. Hopefully I referred to it in an old RNS post.
Yeah, none of the above vehicles is going to be mine in any near-term scenario. I’ll be sticking with the wife’s Toyota Tacoma as our primary SHTF vehicle for now, while I build up the old Pathfinder the way I want it. Still, a man can dream….
Great. More over priced SUV/RV’s driven by flatland, squat-to-piss, crystal-worshipping, L- Ron Hubbard, hedonist yuppy trash.