14 extreme campers built for off-roading

Since 2008, Global Expedition Vehicles (GXV) has been building some of the most incredible trucks in the overland world. This 2010 Freightliner began as a 2WD model with a 300-inch wheelbase. The team converted it to 4WD, took the wheelbase down to a more manageable 230 inches, and converted it to be nearly bulletproof — the bodywork is an insulated 2.5-inch composite sandwich of many marine-grade components. Even the windows are made of thick dual-pane construction and stainless-steel hardware.

You can get a GXV but not for cheap. The most extreme and luxurious lifting roof model, the Patagonia, sells for more than $500,000.

For the past 29 years, overlanding pioneers Gary and Monika Wescott have been exploring the world in their unusual Turtle Expedition Vehicles. In 1989 the couple spent 14 months exploring South America, and in 1996 they drove across Russia over the course of 11 months. The explorers are now on their fifth truck (Turtle V), which is based on a 1999 F-550 4X4 chassis. The Turtle V's custom camper was so innovative that Global Expedition Vehicle now sells a production model.

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The folks from Overland Journal magazine are taking two of these well-prepared export market 2012 Toyota 78 Series Land Cruisers on a two-year journey around the world. This was the first official stop since the team began the trek in April in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

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Four Wheel Campers has been producing slide-in pop-up campers for pickups since 1972. They were producing overland campers before the term even existed, and four of the five Turtle Expedition vehicles used them. This model runs about $18,000 and is light enough (about 950 pounds) to work on midsize pickups like this Tacoma. The unit even comes with an indoor shower.

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Jeff Acquistapace from Napa, Calif., built this '82 Toyota pickup eight years ago to run the famed Rubicon Trail. With an astonishingly low crawl ratio of around 230:1, this truck can inch over large rocks practically one tire lug at a time.

This truck has evolved into a hybrid of sorts, blending extreme rock crawling with the self-sufficiency of overlanding. Today the centerpiece of this camper is the custom-mounted $2500 Autohome tent. To make it stand up to the extra weight of the tent and the camping equipment, Acquistapace added more capacity to the rear spring pack.

Jeff uses the onboard ham radio to stay in touch with fellow four-wheelers and plans to take the truck to Alaska for an eight-week adventure.

Rawhyde Adventures is an off-road motorcycle tour company that takes its guests to some of the most remote regions the world. Perhaps their most extreme adventure is the one that this year followed the famed Dakar Rally through South America.

This monstrous beast is the support vehicle for the adventure — a medium-duty 2006 Chevy Kodiak 4x4 equipped with a Duramax diesel. The truck hauls all the camping supplies, food for the tour, fuel, and spare parts.

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Wolf (first, last, and only name) has been working for Burning Man for the past 13 years. He and his girlfriend Elise drive two of these trucks all over the country on overlanding expeditions. This 2.5-ton AM General military truck is an M109 (an M35A2 truck equipped with a workshop box) with a White multifuel engine. They bought the truck three years ago and gutted the shop box to outfit it for camping. It's an ongoing project, but from what we saw, the interior is cozy.

The couple typically drives 1500 miles on overland adventures, with Wolf manning the second truck (a cargo bed version) as the support vehicle. On their last trip through the Southwest, the pair covered 750 miles off-pavement, crossing seven mountain ranges. Each truck has two fuel tanks of 50 gallons each, so they can go 400 to 500 miles between fill-ups. Wolf plans to install a slide-out refrigerator for the M109 later this year.

There's not a lot of room in this 1991 Mitsubishi L300 4WD van. But that hasn't stopped Pablo Rey from driving around the world for the past 12 years — nonstop — logging about 200,000 miles so far. Rey is a former advertising writer in Spain who now lives out of this small van; today he's an adventure journalist with several books in Spanish under his belt (and one soon to be in English).

The van isn't too far removed from stock and runs a 2.5-liter diesel with an extra fuel tank. But Rey added the roof storage, a bed inside, solar panels to recharge the batteries as well as storage racks and containers, a small kitchen, and an outside shower. It's a pretty steady rig — excluding the severe breakdown in the Sudanese Sahara, when Rey hitchhiked 500 miles to find a mechanic.

Like many overland adventurers, Bruce Baldwin (a PM reader since childhood) was fed up with the lightweight construction of today's RVs. After going through three Class C motorhomes, he decided to build his own camper from a sturdier foundation. His 1997 Ford E-350 Super Duty ambulance packs a 7.3-liter Power Stroke diesel and a limited-slip differential.

An ambulance is a great base, Baldwin says, because the chassis is strong and the bodywork is double-wall aluminum with 2 x 2 aluminum girders. That sturdy construction allowed him to add heavy roof boxes and a 100-watt solar panel — enough to run A/C, lighting, and a TV. The "Ambu-camper" also has a refrigerator and an indoor shower, 40 gallons of fresh water, a 2-gallon graywater tank, a tankless water heater, and two propane tanks.

Sportsmobile has been converting Ford vans to off-road campers for decades. Mark Wasser had his 2009 diesel model configured for maximum off-road capability with Dynatrac Dana 60 axles, locking differentials, and an Atlas 4.8:1 transfer case. He also opted for a diesel-powered cooking stove so he could have one fuel source and wouldn't have to purge propane tanks when he traveled by ferry.

The van has 46 gallons of fuel on board, solar power, 34 gallons of water, and an external shower. California-based Wasser has been to far-off locations such as Baja, Monument Valley, Death Valley, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

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Bryce Adams of Anglefire, N.M., bought this M35A2 troop carrier nine years ago for just $4000. He used it for forestry work for several years before converting it to an overland camper three years ago.

Adams wanted a camper that could carry all his toys. So this rig was built to haul a Polaris Razer, motorcycles, mountain bikes, and (eventually) kayaks. It features a sealed-off and lockable sleeping area plus an above-roof tent. And much of the vehicle's construction comes from recycled materials. The outdoor cooking tabletop, for instance, comes from the blade cover of a snow-grooming machine.

With a top speed of 53 mph and an average speed of 40 mph, this camper doesn't exactly race through long trips. But Adams has made several trips to Utah and Colorado.

Sportsmobile's bread-and-butter vehicle, the Ford Econoline van, is ending production soon. And though the company will continue its van business using GM products, it wanted to branch out. So this is the prototype of a new vehicle the company will soon be producing based on the robust Mitsubishi Fuso chassis.

The Fuso runs a 3.0-liter turbo-diesel mated to an automatic transmission and 4WD. The innovative top raises and lowers via torsion bar springs, but production models will use an electric or hydraulic system. The lower portion of the bodywork offers lots of locking storage and 63 gallons of diesel fuel for a 900 mile range. There's an 80-gallon freshwater tank and a 32-gallon graywater tank. Both ends of the truck have custom bumpers with 16,000-pound capacity winches. Sportsmobile says these trucks will sell for $120,000 to $150,000.

The XP Camper is a slide-in, but instead of attaching to a pickup bed, XP Camper specifies using their own flatbed with additional storage and an easier removal system than that used on conventional pickups. The pop top raises and lowers hydraulically with a backup mechanical system.

The camper comes with a diesel cooktop, 75 gallons of fresh water, 26 gallons of graywater and two beds (dinette folds up) with a European-style Foley mattress that uses reconfigurable springs to adjust tension. The XP Camper requires the use of a heavy-duty 2500-series (minimum) pickup platform and costs around $70,000 plus the cost of the truck.

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Australia-based Earthcruiser builds extreme overland-style campers and now sells them here in the U.S. The campers are Mitsubishi Fuso-based, but Earthcruiser modifies the suspension so the springs offer more flex and axle articulation for traversing rough terrain. The camper has a diesel cooktop and 90 liters of fresh water, and an additional 100-liter tank is available, so you could have one for showering and the other for cooking.

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