Originally Posted by spencyg

An amazing amount of work. I hate to be too forward, but I’m sure I’ll ask what everybody is thinking…

How much is the budget on this thing? Just the parts and base truck alone have got to be over $150k at this point, and you’re paying for labor too! Woudln’t it have been easier to buy an Earthroamer?

Hi Spence,

Let’s put it this way: It is going to be more than an Earthroamer, but much less than a Unicat.

In the spirit of this being an “Open Source Expedition Vehicle” I will be posting all of our spreadsheets with parts and costs up on our website once it is done.

YES – We could have just bought an Earthroamer and been on the road by now, but we taked to them and there were a few reasons why we decided not to go that route:

1 – Only available on the Ford F-450/550 chassis and therefore not with the CAT engine that we wanted for global serviceability. (not to mention all the problems with the Ford 6L when we started looking at it.

2 – We wanted to have 2 ‘permanent’ beds so that we don’t have to drop the dinette EVERY night.

3 – Personally, for what it is, I think the Earthroamer is over priced. I understand the need for them to recover their R&D costs and to make a profit, which is fine, but I’d rather have that money to pay for fuel and a few extra months on the road. It’s not that we weren’t willing to pay that much (we will spend more than that on this project) but I’m a big believer in value for money and getting what you paid for.

4 – I’m still working and so we weren’t in a rush to get out on the road.

The other question that people typically ask me is what I do for a living or how we can afford to build a truck like this. The fact is 8 years ago I started my own small business and have spent a ton of time and effort growing it. We’ve had a dream for years to take a trip like this once we had a family (my wife and I did a similar trip around Asia in our modified Land Cruiser 90) and so we saved up for a long time, and then sold the business earlier this year. Now we’re actually doing it. But every dollar I spend on the truck was hard earned and so I’m being very particular about how/what/where we spend it!

I hope that answers your question…