After several months of searching, we may have finally found our mobile command center. As it turns out, the perfect Autopian RV may have been under our noses this entire time. Maybe, instead of buying an Ultra Van or some crazy old and obscure bus, we just bring Jason’s rotting RV back to life and use one of Bishop’s themes? That will require no initial investment and all of us can leverage our strengths to bring it back to life. David can get twrenchfoot while reviving the engine, my wife can destroy the mold, and Jason can find the perfect taillights. I’ll be saying lines from Vice Grip Garage as I do bodge repairs to things and attempt to drive us out of there while Thomas turns the thing into a rave. Matt would make sure all of our fails end up on the Internet. What could go wrong?
Besides, I’m not even sure an Ultra Van would be an ideal camper to take through the Rockies. Imagine having to go from Chicago to Los Angeles by way of Texas!
The imaginations of Autopian readers are quite amusing today. Tap-n-Die And Some WD-40 started off a thread by saying:
Yes, use Torch’s RV, but with the following modifications:
Amber rear turn signals (obviously)
Changli wrapAlso David and SWG must live in it while they restore it.
David responded with:
We’re Going To Live In This Dilapidated RV Until We Can Fix It
…would click.
Also, David put that headline into our Slack chat. All staffers agreed that this should be the path forward, especially if our fearless leader decides to sleep in the thing. Anyway, Spartanjohn113 kept the fun going:
I’m also a fan of “My Jeep Cats Are Not Happy About Their New RV Digs And They’re Finding New Ways To Express Their Displeasure”.
But, I think Rollin Hand wins the ultimate COTD nomination today for this amusing piece of Autopian Canon:
SWG: Ok, I let you have the top bunk and first shower. NOW can I do a Jag article?
DT: NO!
At some point, David will have to let Stephen Walter Gossin write about a broken Jag, right? Have a great evening, everyone!
Not sure if this was already suggested, but this thing should be converted into a toy hauler. The rear gets a drop down door and space to park the ChangLi in addition to the brilliant suggestions already mentioned.
Follow-up: the shower should also contain a Kramer-esque garbage disposal for spaghetti.
That’s asking a hell of a lot from an RV graywater system!
I WANT THE JAG ARTICLE!
WRITE ABOUT THE JAAAAAAG!!!!!!
Sidenote: Vice Grip Garage just bought a car off of a friend’s dad, so I guess I might need to watch that? Older Chebby of some sort.
Oh wow, what a surprise! I would like to thank the Academy…
I like all of this – but they have to move back to Michigan and do the work @ David’s old house in the Michigan winter, AND can only use the Leaf to get around (the Leaf must be road-tripped from LA to Detroit).
“ AND can only use the Leaf to get around (the Leaf must be road-tripped from LA to Detroit).”
I honestly do not think that is physically possible.
AAA has a limit of service calls per year. Is you cram as many people into the Leaf as it fits, each person having a separate AAA plan, and alternating calling trucks for tows/charges…maybe it’ll be feasible?
I’m at their mid-tier plan and one call a year is allowed to be up to a 100-mile tow. (well, I mean, any call could be that far or further, but one time up to 100 at no extra charge.)
At the very least, more hands to help push too!
That’s a bold strategy Cotton!
Generator on a trailer!
Ewww…
Genuine question, are any of those designed to be used while driven/moving?
No idea. I hope not.
I’ve given it a little bit of thought because I’ve been considering doing the same thing David did. Having something with tiny range is OK for the fourth car for a family of three (Miata is always the answer except when the question is Michigan winter driving).
I have zero interest in ever trying to extend the range like that on a normal basis, But when I look at a car with a range of under 50 miles, just getting it home in the first place can be daunting.
And yes, the obvious question is how much range I would get out of something with a shitty battery **during cold weather**. Here’s where the generator comes in again, emergency top off to get the thing home.
Miata on snows is an excellent answer in my experience.
Not interested in salting the one I have. Suppose I could get a beater Miata.
Most EVs won’t even turn on the “ignition” while plugged in. Not sure about the leaf because it’s so old.
No
At least, not a decade or more ago. There was a huge (like 900+ page) thread on RV.net about cheap generators. Multiple people experienced overheating when they tried running a genset in the back of a pickup or on one of those trays stuck in the tow hitch while driving. Issue was airflow. Wish I could find it now: had a wealth of info about converting HF & the like cheap gens to propane.
On a completely different Usenet forum there was a guy who converted the front of a diesel Rabbit into a aux generator/pusher trailer in the PNW. That had electric cooling fans, so no issues.
“Here at the Autopian, we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard!”
My favorite version of that is “We do these things, not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy.”
This could be like one of his road trips to Moab, where I think the eventual result was “F it, just throw it on a trailer behind the Raptor Ford gave us to review”. 😉
I would happily be a paid intern/helper/fabricator on this project. Just let me know when to show up with a truckload of tools and my welder. I’ll bring my own camping gear so as to not disturb the feng-shui of the staff living inside.
I’d totally live in that RV, for months on end. Performing rituals to summon demons while surrounded in a circle of white salt for the duration would really bring some more character to this RV.
It’s all good as long as no one gets hooked on “cheesing“. Though, the Autopian crew flying through space in a Pontiac Trans-Am to the Heavy Metal soundtrack would be pretty rad.
In the movie Heavy Metal, the car was a Corvette C1 and specifically the style refreshed variant with a V8(as opposed to the TransAm), the scene it was in was at the start of the movie(as opposed to the spaceship scene after the two crew members snorted the Plutonian Nyborg, which is fitting given the events in the South Park episode), and the songs used didn’t match the same scenes conveyed in the movie(the song used, titled “Takin’ a Ride” by Don Felder, was used in a scene where planes were WWII-era planes were engaged in battle as opposed to the scene with the space ship going through space).
That was a really cool pastiche of the film being parodied though on South Park’s part. It was still obvious what was being referenced.
This is the streaming content that will make you rich!