The Bear Spraying, Bulletproof ‘Extinction Level Event’ Camper Is The Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Slept In

A little over a year ago, a patently ridiculous camper crossed my desk. The folks of Mammoth Overland hauled the Extinction Level Event Off-Road Trailer to Overland Expo West with a big promise. This camper isn’t like any other you’ve ever seen with its bear spray cannon system, optional bulletproofing, weapons storage, a drone launch platform, cameras, a sealed cabin with an air-filtration system, and so much more. I finally got to spend some real time with the camper affectionately abbreviated to ELE and this camper is, without question, the coolest thing I’ve ever slept in and I cannot think of something else that even comes close.

I spent two nights and three days with the Extinction Level Event (ELE) trailer in the wilderness of Washington State. This trip in itself was something different. Washington, unlike my beloved Illinois, has an expansive network of trails the public can drive on. These trails span so far and so wide that you can spend an entire day on them and never see another human face. You can camp at the tops of hills thousands of feet tall and hear nothing but the gentle breeze and wildlife.

I knew I was going on a solo trip, but I had never expected solitude. Indeed, I spent nearly entire days never seeing another person and sometimes never even seeing another mammal. The only reason I didn’t go the whole trip totally alone is the fact that I occasionally came out of the trails to explore other parts of the state or to reach other trail systems. This is something I’ve never experienced before and it changed me, but that’s a story for a different day.

Despite all of this, I wasn’t afraid to be alone. I didn’t care that I didn’t have phone service or that I faced pitch-black nights lit only by the stars. Why? I had ELE with me, and I was confident my little orange bunker kept the unknown outside.

(Full Disclosure: Mammoth Overland loaned me its very first ELE to use for two nights and three days. Differential Communications, the PR arm behind brands like Mammoth Overland and Overland Expo, loaned me an overland-prepped Ford Ranger. Diff Comms paid for my travel to and from Mammoth Overland’s factory. I paid for my own fuel and provisions.)

Built Like An Airplane, Because The Company Builds Planes

If you’ve been reading my content for long enough you know that I love RVs that are built like planes. Too many RVs are of the “stick-built” variety, involving plywood sandwiches that split open, wood that rots, roofs that leak, and quality so lackluster that critical safety equipment breaks on the first day.

A handful of RV manufacturers throughout history have found a better way. A century ago, RV pioneers found out that building campers like planes was a brilliant idea. The same riveted all-aluminum construction that makes a plane strong also makes for a camper that can stand the test of time.

A number of history’s early aircraft-inspired trailers weren’t just built by people who appreciated aviation but by builders involved in the industry. William Hawley Bowlus built riveted aluminum trailers before Airstream’s Wally Byam and his trailers were built like the planes Bowlus helped construct. Most famously, Bowlus led the construction team for Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

Then there’s William G. Skelly’s Spartan Trailer, which was a division of Spartan Aircraft Company. Once again, these trailers were built like planes because the company that built them also constructed planes.

But those were all in the past. If you want to see what something like this looks like today, look no further than Mammoth Overland. This company is a subsidiary of Vashon Aircraft, which was founded by John Torode in Washington in 2012. Vashon Aircraft’s mission is to make aviation more accessible for everyone who wants to take to the sky. If you’re not tuned into the aviation world, it helps to know that a basic new Cessna 172 can cost you around $600,000. Used ones older than you are may still be more than $100,000.

Torode hated that, so his company developed the Ranger R7 Light Sport Aircraft.

This all-metal aircraft is designed to be easy to fly, easy to train in, and far more affordable than the aviation establishment. Vashon does it by cutting out everything you don’t need. A Ranger makes no effort to be pretty, doesn’t try to hide its rough edges, and doesn’t get any unnecessary fluff. The plane is basically a large flight deck with some wings, wheels, and an engine attached to it. As such, a base model Ranger is $159,500.

There has always been a bit of an outdoorsy element to Vashon, too. The company’s founder and its staff love spending time out in Washington’s vast outdoors. As such, they baked in a feature into the Ranger where its seats can fold flat so you can camp out in the plane. But that was just the beginning.

The folks who ran Vashon got the idea that there should be a trailer built exactly like a plane, from a company that builds planes. Mammoth Overland was founded in 2021 with a focus on building off-road trailers constructed like the Ranger. One of the early ones is pictured above.

I visited Vashon’s and Mammoth Overland’s factory near Seattle and found myself pleasantly surprised. Again, some companies claim to build campers like planes, but Mammoth Overland is as legitimate as you can get. The Mammoth Overland trailers are built out of the same aluminum used to make the Ranger and are assembled using the same rivets.

The machines used to form the Ranger’s parts are also used to form Mammoth Overland’s trailer parts right there in the same facility. Walk around the factory and you’re bound to see a workstation with someone riveting together an elevator next to someone at another workstation riveting the interior of an ELE together.

The kind team at Vashon and Mammoth Overland tells me that the factory I walked through used to build complete aircraft, but the aircraft operation grew large enough to require a separate facility. So, this aircraft factory now builds complete trailers as well as aircraft parts that will be shipped out to the other factory. As of right now, this somewhat small facility is large enough for Mammoth Overland’s current production of about 10 units a month. But one day, the camper operation may also need to get a bigger space.

The construction of an ELE is refreshing in its simplicity. Like the planes, the trailers begin as raw aluminum with rivet holes pre-drilled to ensure a perfect alignment every time. The team then bends and forms this aluminum into the required shapes. An ELE features an inner riveted aircraft-grade aluminum shell that is riveted together first. Then, high-density foam insulation is added before the outer shell is riveted over the outer shell. During the construction process there’s sealant added at joints and wiring is fed through grommets.

The trailers are essentially built on something like an assembly line, but unlike the trailers churned out of the factories in Indiana, the builders here are taking their time, firing off one rivet at a time. Completed shells are then grouped up, where they are later mated to a steel tube frame. Once the shells have a chassis, the team paints the trailer, adds graphics, fills out the interior, and eventually, puts on the finishing touches. When a trailer is finished, it joins a line of other finished trailers ready to be towed out of the factory hitched up to the vehicles of their new owners.

I’m told that two people have even ordered their ELEs with optional fiberglass and metal bullet-resistant material that is bolted to the trailer’s exterior. One of those trailers has been constructed while the other will come down the production line soon enough. Sadly, my tester did not have the bulletproof panels attached, but it’s awesome that they do actually exist.

What I love here is the total lack of wood. The trailer’s design is already resistant to water leaks, but even in the worst-case scenario, there isn’t a bit of wood to rot out or lauan wall to split open. If you do spring a leak, you can just seal it up and keep on camping. Perhaps even cooler is that simple aluminum structure. From my eyes, if you manage to damage your ELE and you’re nowhere near the Mammoth Overland crew, you can just cut out the damaged aluminum and rivet in new aluminum. You can’t do that with a stick-built camper.

Technically, this has already happened. The Autopian attempted to review the ELE last year, but a crash cut the test short. The team at Mammoth Overland rebuilt the trailer so well you couldn’t tell a truck smashed it. Yep, I slept in the very same trailer that got hit by a truck!

The result is a trailer that isn’t pretty in the traditional sense, but one that I have no doubt will continue to exist long after my parents’ giant wood-framed travel trailer has been reduced to rubble. Yet, I quickly found out that ELE’s rugged, post-apocalyptic aesthetic grabbed basically everyone’s attention.

A Rolling Bunker

Mammoth Overland could have just built a trailer like a plane, but the company didn’t stop there. The Extinction Level Event trailer is perhaps the most over-the-top camper I’ve seen in my life, but it’s just the right amount of crazy.

When I first read ELE’s press release last year I admit that I wasn’t sold, at least not initially. The trailer seemed like prepper bait, or something made just to attract someone who might daily drive a multi-fuel military vehicle because the apocalypse is right around the corner. I cannot think of a current real-world instance where you’d need a camper to be bulletproof and I’d sure hope you wouldn’t need an air-filtration system and a Geiger counter in your camper. At least, I sure hoped Mammoth Overland wasn’t aware of an impending apocalypse.

Everything about the ELE is simply outrageous, but in my eye, the trailer is so proudly crazy it comes right back around to being perhaps the coolest camper on the market right now. The more I looked around the trailer, the more it made me smile. Yet, it also makes a ton of sense at the same time.

I’ll get into the features in a moment, but you’re probably asking yourself how an aircraft builder gets into making campers for the apocalypse. Well, it started when Mammoth Overland put its first trailer on the market in 2021. That camper featured a riveted aluminum shell, a Timbren 3500HD axle-less suspension, and an outdoor shower. Washington has a lot of bears, so people asked if Mammoth Overland’s trailers helped keep the creatures outside. That gave the company an idea:

“People ask me all the time if our trailers are bear-proof — and they are, technically. That got me thinking: ‘What if we made a trailer that’s truly bear- as well as apocalypse-proof?’” said Scott Taylor, Mammoth Overland President. “I grew up in Montana, and Montanans know a thing or two about bear-proofing and self-reliance. We designed ELE to aircraft standards. It can handle whatever campers might encounter, from bears to wildfires to social unrest, so overlanders can explore fearlessly.”

No matter whether campers are looking for a bear-proof off-road trailer, prepping for societal upheaval or natural disaster, or simply want the strongest and safest overland trailer on the market, ELE has something for everyone — including a six-bottle wine rack.

Out of the other end of the inquiries came the absurd Extinction Level Event trailer. The Mammoth Overland team calls her ELE, pronounced “Ellie.” The trailer was so endearing I ended up calling her Ellie, too.

Alright, so you’re already aware that ELE is made out of a double-hulled aircraft-grade riveted aluminum shell with a foam insulation sandwich in between, so now it’s time to get nutty. We’ll start with the exterior.

ELE isn’t just an aircraft aluminum shell sitting on a steel frame. While this aluminum is strong, Mammoth Overland has beefed up the trailer with a lot of extra protection. To protect the trailer off-road, the front of the trailer is covered with steel armor so the trailer can bash its way through tree limbs, rocks, zombies, and projectiles while remaining undamaged. Other protection comes in the form of a large underbody steel skid plate other bash plates.

As I tested last week, this trailer really does push its way through any off-road obstacle while remaining completely unharmed. The trailer’s thick paint doesn’t even get easily noticeable pinstripes from scraping its way through narrow trails. If all of the trailer’s metal isn’t enough for you, Mammoth Overland will bolt up what it says is Level 3 bulletproofing to your trailer for $25,000.

I’m not even close to being done with the trailer’s exterior yet, and I’ll let myself from a year ago continue:

We’re still not done with the exterior just yet. Mammoth Overland has made it clear that this camper is supposed to survive whatever riots or perhaps warfare you may encounter deep in the woods. To keep the cabin clearly separated from the outside world, the camper’s doors are said to be submarine-style pressure doors. These close with four pins that are inserted into the walls of the camper. Mammoth Overland says that the interior is sealed off from the outside world and maintains a positive pressure of 0.25 PSI.

That would be crazy enough, but Mammoth Overland elaborates on just how far this system goes:

The pressurized cabin can be completely purged and refilled with purified air in less than three minutes through an integrated, medical-grade E.L. Foust air filtration system, providing up to six months of purified air. The system is so sophisticated in fact that it’s capable of filtering out odors — something consumer-grade purification systems can’t. In addition to filtering the air supply, ELE can refill and filter its onboard 22-gallon water tank in just 10 minutes.

There’s so much interesting stuff going on with the exterior. The trailer sports multiple hefty racks so you can mount shovels, traction boards, jerry cans, or whatever else you think you might need out there. There are bulky steps strategically placed around the camper’s body so someone short like me could climb up to the roof to retrieve things or to observe the ruined world.

The roof also has a pelican case for storing a Starlink dish so you can get Internet just about anywhere, provided the reason for the apocalypse doesn’t have to do with the Kessler effect.

The trailer’s body also houses flood lights, underglow, and four somewhat hidden night vision cameras which send their feeds to a small screen with an SD card. Forward of the trailer’s body is a 360-degree hitch and a large locker fit for storing weapons, a cassette toilet, a generator, or anything else you may need out in the wilderness. This locker is cavernous, so you can toss guns and a generator in there with plenty of room to spare.

At the rear of the trailer and cleverly hidden behind two spare tires is the trailer’s outdoor kitchen. You get a powered cooler/freezer, a two-burner propane stove, a sink, an instant water heater, and plenty of storage. This kitchen is mounted to a swinging apparatus and something I love about it is that it’s nice and low. A problem I have with some off-road trailers is that their kitchens sit sky-high, so I’m left trying to cook steak on my tippy toes. That’s not an issue here, which I was appreciative of.

The kitchen area here is also where you’ll interact with the trailer’s 22-gallon water tank. The pump is turned on with the flick of the switch and you can use the water to wash dishes and prep food or to shower inside of a tent placed behind the kitchen. There is no gray tank and whatever comes out of the kitchen sink empties through a hose either into a tank you provide or onto the ground.

In my experience, the 22-gallon tank totally betrays the camper’s outdoorsy mission. I was out of water by the morning of my third day. I used it just for cleaning dishes and for showering. Admittedly, I could have made the water last longer by using it conservatively, but if I may suggest an improvement, it would be perhaps at least doubling the water capacity if possible. After all, this trailer is supposed to survive an apocalypse or a natural disaster, right?

Also, the concept of an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor shower, and an outdoor cassette toilet are a bit funny when you think about the survivalist aspect. If the air is toxic outside you can’t leave the trailer to poop, shower, or cook. Again, this is an example of why you shouldn’t take the trailer 100 percent seriously.

Hilariously Over-The-Top

Somehow, I’ve gotten through this review without even mentioning just how crazy ELE gets. Now let’s have some fun.

Mammoth Overland’s answer to the bear question is what the company calls the Bear Spray Defense System. Located inside of the trailer are buttons protected by bright red covers. When those buttons are activated, canisters housed in black boxes at the front of the trailer will deploy a 25-foot by 10-foot wide cloud of spray, which is supposed to teach a bear a lesson or two about getting too close. The bear should scamper off and leave your orange fortress alone.

Theoretically, you can also use the bear spray against a future “bandit.” Bear spray is not an approved self-defense tool, contains pesticides, and could be used against you in a court case. So, you shouldn’t use it against a human unless you have no other choice.

And this trailer does offer you other choices. If for whatever reason there’s some imminent danger that isn’t deterred by the bear spray, there’s a gun rack inside of the trailer plus the aforementioned weapons locker. Presumably, you’d arm up, pop out of the sizable roof hatch, and dispatch whatever is threatening you.

Again, I should stress that it’s unlikely you’ll ever need any of this stuff in an overlanding camper. It’s unlikely you’ll find a riot in a forest or desert. The universe of Fallout is hopefully not going to happen anytime soon. But, it’s so wild that I can’t help but laugh and smile.

While I camped in ELE, I did see some real use for many of her features. For example, the submarine-style doors, thick seals, and filtration systems are supposed to separate the interior environment of the trailer from the outside world. I could see that being helpful if the owner of an ELE gets caught up in the smoke of a destructive wildfire. The trailer could also be a temporary home during a natural disaster. The interior also includes an ICOM dual-band radio and its own weather station.

Likewise, it’s unlikely you’ll ever use that roof hatch to dispatch zombies, but it’s a fantastic way to climb out of the trailer and stargaze. Things got eerily quiet in those dark Washington nights and I didn’t feel comfortable stargazing from a folding chair. But I did feel better about poking my body out of that roof hatch. I also got to watch one of the best sunrises I ever witnessed by sitting on the trailer’s observation platform.

That’s how the ELE became the coolest thing I’ve ever slept in. Most of the features that made the trailer silly actually had a legitimate use. The giant weapons lockers held my provisions, the weather station helped me plan my mornings, I even loved the upper porthole-style windows.

Yes, they added to the bunker aesthetic, but they also made the trailer feel remarkably airy in those early mountain mornings after the sun rose above the horizon. The cabin’s 4′ 2″ of interior height wasn’t enough to stand up in, but it was enough for me to “stand” on my knees, which was more than good enough enough space to get dressed without a struggle.

Too many off-road trailers make you feel like you’re sleeping in a bank vault with basically no windows and no natural light.

ELE, despite trying to be a rolling bank vault, doesn’t make you feel like you’re sleeping in one. The trailer adds to this with its 12-volt air-conditioner, which does a great job keeping the interior cool. If you’re cold, there’s a Dickenson propane heater. There’s also a 400 Ah lithium battery, and it stayed strong throughout my entire trip.

I even loved the mattress. RV mattresses often suck for bigger people like me but this one was comfortable. When it came time to lay my head down, I popped open the roof hatch, turned on the air-conditioner’s fan mode, and started sawing logs in no time. I slept through both nights, getting the good kind of restorative sleep I sometimes miss in trailers with crappy beds.

Getting Dirty

You’ll note that I haven’t said anything about how this trailer is off-road. Thankfully, there isn’t a ton to write about.

ELE weighs 2,400 pounds empty, has a tongue weight of 400 pounds, and stands 6’11” when things aren’t mounted to the roof. All loaded up, she weighs 3,500 pounds, which puts her well within the limits of many crossovers. The Ford Ranger towed ELE well, but generally needed to be in boost all of the time to do it with any real power. Sadly, fuel economy suffered and the truck returned a shocking 10 mpg.

I don’t think that was entirely the trailer’s fault. The loaner Ranger was loaded down with overlanding gear, had a roof tent above its bed, was shod in big tires, and wore heavy metal bumpers. The whole consist of truck and trailer drove and handled heavier than expected, but I think most of that was due to the truck itself being a bit porky compared to a stock Ranger. The truck absolutely felt ELE back there, but I did not think the truck was outside of its element. Instead, it was just thirsty as I heard that turbo constantly spooled up like a jet turbine.

ELE handled the trails with ease. Her Timbren 3500HD independent suspension didn’t have a ton of travel, but the trailer never had an issue getting over obstacles. My biggest note from towing the trailer through the forests was that if you hit a fire road pothole hard enough, the trailer may very briefly bounce a tire off of the ground. It seems like what happened is that the suspension bottoms out and there’s nowhere else for that energy to go, so the trailer bounces.

Don’t treat the trails like a rally stage and you’ll be fine. But even if you do hit something hard, the trailer doesn’t seem to care one bit. It didn’t matter if I chucked potholes, tree limbs, or entire bushes at the trailer, it didn’t flinch one bit.

Oh yeah, sometimes my onX trail maps were inaccurate, requiring me to perform U-turns in areas too small for a 4×4 to turn around in, let alone a truck and a 15-foot-long trailer. In those instances, I had to intentionally shove ELE off of the trail and into the brush and other nasty stuff. Once again, the trailer got through it without so much as a ding.

I took ELE up and down slopes as steep as 13 degrees with mud, loose gravel, and cliffs on each side. She also went through banked trails and trails that didn’t have enough clearance for her 7’3″ width, yet she never faltered. So, as an off-road trailer I think ELE does exactly as you’d expect her to.

Everyone Loves ELE

When I chatted with the builders of these trailers, I learned that yes, these trailers do have all of the prepper stuff, but it’s also just in good fun. You can buy an off-road trailer from perhaps a million different companies, but only one has just this right amount of absurdity.

My recommendation is that you don’t take it super seriously. Be a bit silly with it and picture yourself roaming the wastes on Fury Road. Taking ELE on an adventure takes on a different feel, like I am a nomad from a sci-fi future or whatever.

ELE was also a bit of a rockstar. It didn’t matter where I took the trailer, someone always made a comment, asked a question, or took a picture. Kids got excited, firefighters gave it a thumbs up, and many begged to see what ELE looked like inside. Mind you, this was still in Washington around trails and mountains, where off-road rigs are a common sight. Yet, ELE’s mix of bright orange paint and that bunker chic had everyone talking. Those people, much like me, also giggled when I showed them the submarine doors, the gun rack, and the roof hatch.

That’s what this trailer is all about. It’s just so much fun wrapped up in rivets and 33-inch tires.

It was through these people I learned that ELE’s cool factor is simply off of the charts, more so than any other RV I’ve come across. Here I was driving a Ford Ranger with thick tires, a winch, a roof tent, and all of the goodies you’d see at an Overland Expo. Not a single person cared about it. Everyone wanted to talk about ELE. Again, these people have seen other off-road trailers before, but none of them caught their attention like ELE did.

I’ve seen and played with a lot of cool RVs in my day, but none of them got attention like ELE did. If there’s an automotive equivalent to ELE it would probably be something like the Polaris Slingshot, which also gathered small crowds everywhere it went. But I’d say ELE got even more attention than the Slingshot did, and none of those who looked at ELE seemed disgusted, which you can’t say about the Slingshot.

I’m with those who were in love with the Mammoth Overland Extinction Level Event trailer. The folks of Mammoth Overland could have made just another metal trailer and marketed it as one built like a plane. Instead, they went above and beyond, giving it a fun theme.

I will not say that the ELE is the perfect trailer. Personally, I love real toilets and showering in something that isn’t a tent. I also love being able to stand up in my trailer. But I’d be willing to make an exception for ELE because she was just that fun and comfortable. If you’re into lightweight trailers of roughly teardrop size, I recommend putting the ELE on your list.

You get everything I talked about in this review for the price of $67,000. And I mean you get everything from the submarine doors, generator, toilet, and bear spray to even things I didn’t mention like a water purifier, a wine rack, and 200 Watts of solar. There are just two options, one for a custom wrap job for $500 and $25,000 for the bulletproofing. Otherwise, every ELE comes fully loaded right from the factory.

Is the ELE expensive? Absolutely, and I’m always someone who advocates for cheaper trailers. However, if you have the kind of dough commanded by this trailer, I have no doubt you’ll have a ton of fun. This is the perfect kind of camper for someone who loves Fallout, Mad Max, the Walking Dead, or gamers playing Call of Duty Zombies. It’s perfect for the cosplayer, the grown-up kid who wanted to be a pirate, and yep, the prepper too. ELE is for the kind of person who wants more than just a camper, and she should serve you well, just as she took me on an unforgettable adventure.

Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.