When I first saw this awesome 1969 Dodge camper I immediately thought “Vintage Earthroamer!” If you aren’t familiar with the Earthroamer brand, the Colorado-based company is a leader in the Overlanding community. They build awesome 4×4 campers based largely on the F-550 platform. This vintage Dodge camper has the same vibe all wrapped in an awesomely classic style. It can be found here on eBay with a current bid of $12,000 and a buy-it-now of $50,000. Located in Romona, California, the truck and camper have both been fully refurbished. Check out this amazing package!
It may be the fisheye lens, but the 1969 Avion camper looks very roomy! A dinette that can seat several people sits next to the fridge and opposite the sink and stove. The sleeping quarters are located above the cab in a bunk area. It doesn’t say how big the bed is, but I’m guessing it is a queen-size mattress. There is also a decent-sized bathroom area complete with a toilet, sink, and shower.
I’m sure the interior of this Dodge isn’t quite as roomy and comfortable as a new F-550, but you can’t beat the vintage feel. The seller says the seat has new foam under the new cover, so it should be plenty comfortable.
The 360 engine is said to run like a champ. It certainly looks decent from the photos. The seller says every system in the truck and camper has been gone through. This thing should be reliable for years to come.
Look at all that storage! Unlike a typical dually bed, the utility bed gives you a ton of places to hide recovery equipment, tools, supplies, spare parts, and anything else you might need for roaming. If you’re worried about fuel, this truck features three tanks with a total capacity of 75 gallons! Vintage Earthroamer? Yes!!
I have a 1967 Chevy with 63000 miles and an Avion camper.
If that utility bed is one of the ones I built for Morrison Steel in Buffalo, NY back in 1974, take a close look at all the welds. I was only one year out of Hobart Welding school at the time.
I’m not a big Dodge fan but I sure wouldn’t kick this rig off my place. You won’t find a rougher riding truck than this one but it will take you many places. I might add that I like the bed. Not very often you can find one that you can camp in and carry your tools and supplies conveniently too…
Such a neat rig, and unlike so many of them that you see for sale, this one appears to be well-sorted. As geomechs noted, it’ll be a rough ride and you won’t get anywhere fast, but you’ll be guaranteed to have the coolest camper in camp.
So Montana why did you compare to Ford instead of Ram, just asking?
Because Earthroamer builds with Fords not Rams.
75 gallons worth of fuel over 3 gas tanks. I’m guessing there’s a reason for that LOL. What an old beauty, though; I’d feel fairly awesome & shiny rolling into the campground in this.
If it’s a 360 under the hood, it would be 1971 or newer.
I tried looking it up and figure it came with a 383. Not likely that beast had the 225 or the 318.
It wouldn’t have surprised me to have seen a 318 as original equipment. The 383 was newly available in ’68 but it seems to me that it was only in the 2wd and with an automatic…
Actually the 318’s were used in dump trucks and was THE engine in contemporary Winnebago motor homes. I’m not a Mopar guy but I understand that there was the “car” engine and then the TRUCK engine. I seem to recall that the truck version had things like valve rotators and maybe a forged crank? So, yeah, something that would power a Winnebago Brave over the Rocky’s would move something like this. I worked on a lot of pickups from the 50’s and 60’s and most were 6 cylinder version. Even the bigger trucks were often things like the Chevy 292-6 cyliinder and not a big block V-8. Commercial users weren’t as concerned with performance as they were with operating costs. It’s relatively new that people buy trucks and expect them to be big cars with the same performance and all.
You’re welcome, Montana.
Geomechs is thinking what I thought, this rig would be the roughest riding truck imaginable. With buggy springs all the way around, solid front axle, and a one ton capacity, after 25 miles one would be ready to park it. Ideally one would seek the closest camp ground and permanently park it there.
Having spent summers for the last 30 odd years camping and traveling what passes for roads in the US and Canada, I wonder what people think is out there that requires such a massive rig! WHEN you get that thing stuck, you will be wishing you had done the trip on a 400 lb motorcycle. Heck, wife just gave me “the look” when I showed her the mount I’d made up to put a winch on the front of our VW Westfalia. “When..” she said “Have we gotten stuck in the last 300,000 miles?” ..Oh.. Oh! Wait! Once! Remember in Ocala National Forest!?! Soft sand and the nice hunters on a beer run in their Toyota 4×4 snatched us out before we were able to get our own recovery gear out. Thisis too heavy, too wide and WAAAAY too tall. The fact that it isn’t banged up and worn out shows how impractical the thing really is. 4wd? Yah don’t need it. “Bbbbb But I’m planning on doing thing like the Dalton Highway!” 2016, TWO VW 2wd campers. One was even an automatic..Not one problem. “But I need the ROOM! We met a nice European couple up there in their 2wd Sprinter with their FOUR KIDS!” Well designed interior to the point that they had room for the kid’s bikes. Look..This is super shiny and it all LOOKS good but I group it in with thing like flying cars. Cool IDEA, but just not realistic. 6-8 mpg? WOW…..
6-8 mpg is pretty close. About 15 years ago I borrowed a friends 4×4 truck with camper similar to this. I only got 6 mpg and had to drive 600 miles. Brutal is all I can say about the gas bill and the ride. The accommodations were good though!
I had to ferry a motorhome using a 6 gallon marine tank. 7mpg. Interstate exits 40 miles apart..
Driving with one hand while pouring out of a 5 gallon can with the other…
Say what you will, but a “no electronics, all mechanical” vehicle like this the most sensible choice if you absolutely need to get back unaided. Sure, they ride rough and seem crude compared to the new vehicles, but they are extremely robust, and with standard tools and a reasonable assortment of parts and supplies, the are repairable in the field, as they used to say. About the newest comparable vehicles I would trust to not leave me stranded are the ’93 Fords, and the ’97 Dodges when equipped with their mechanically injected Diesels and standard transmissions, and even these have more electronics than that crude ol’ Dodge!
The ultimate all mechanical vehicle is a diesel Land Rover…However…I own and have owned them in the past. Yes..you can work on them..that’s good because you have to..a lot…lather/rinse/repeat…
Compared to a modern vehicle? The electronic igntion and fuel injection vehicles have far greater mean time between failure. My 06 Sprinter? 400k and original computers/injectors/sensors/fuel pumps and alternator. So what’s supposed to leave me stranded where I can’t make it run? When is the last time your “new fangled” vehicle left you stuck somewhere?
Yes, this appeals to people because it is perceived to be “good”..But good for things that aren’t really a problem.A dead battey in this stops you just as much as a 2022 whats-it
When the poop hits the prop a la “Mad Max” and it is bug-out time, the owner of this beast will be prepared. I also assume his family will be following him with the gasoline tanker.
Exactly..people get all stary-eyed. Bug-out!!..Uh..where yah gunna GO? Where yah gunna go that wouldn’t have been reached more easily/quickly/using less FUEL in something else? If you have to “bug out” you’re living in the wrong place. Best “end of the world ” vehicle? A bicycle….
Love it! Had a ’69 D-400 with a dump box and it did ride rough. Was able to adapt the push pull PS from a W-500 and that made all the difference in driveability.
would love to have this for wilderness camping
What do you use now? A Subaru with a tent would take you places this could never go. There isn’t a whole lot of “untracked wilderness” and this is really not suitable for heavy off roading and really would be a handful on many fire roads and the like.
At 50 large there is zero chance of this big ole boat anchor finding a new home.
This one’s only lot left in life is for some hipster to park it in an Oregon liveground (not camp grounds anymore) and toot their respective horn about how elite they are cuz they spend 50k on an “old timey “ thing, as they hop in their Tesla and commute to Nike.
EXACTLY!! You nailed! This will find a home (likely time and time again) where someone can show it off and go “Isn’t this COOL!?!? Just THINK of all the places you could go in this!” When A: It’s too big and awkward and WAY too expensive to run. And B: It ain’t ever going to do any of those things due to A. Appeal to a rich dreamer….
It’s kinda sad, really. OK..I SUPPOSE some guy name “Bjorn” who just threw a rod (for the 3rd time) in his overlanding Unimog sees this and goes “Ja! I can finish my trip in that!” and it actually gets used…and..1, 2, 3..ain’t happenin’ It is simply “art” at this point..
Why all the hate for this vehicle? We get it…….you don’t like it. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!
What a beauty. The period CB radio is a nice touch. Excellent for short range local camping. I wouldn’t expect to cruise at 75 on the Interstate. With no A/C you’d better stay away from the Southwest in the summer. New England in the fall on secondary roads would be ideal.
It’s very cool but way overpriced. With duals you NEED 4 wheel drive. My ’01 commercial (11,000 GVWR) Dodge 3500 4×2 dually is worthless in snow and mud. I have a ’73 Dodge motorhome w/360 automatic that gets 17 mpg fully loaded and pulling a fully loaded 16×7 enclosed trailer. It has 51k miles, runs like a top and goes nowhere anymore as the camper shell is disintegrating, leaks like a sieve. One of the best things about old rigs is their points ignition. When the massive solar flare hits, and it will someday, your electronic ignition vehicles will be dead as will your cell phones, the internet, the electricity grid, etc. Unless you have everything electronic inside a sealed Faraday cage… forget about normal life. At least you can go somewhere with your old vehicles.
As Curly stated above I APPEAR to have hate for this vehicle. Nope. Not a bit. But, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that there isn’t going to be a massive solar flare or an EMP strike. If either of those happened, where are you going to go with no fuel? no food? What are you traveling FOR? Let’s see.. 75 gallons, 8 mpg..so somebody can drive 600 miles away to die there instead of where they were.. GREAT! Really, my point is that this is a vehicle to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. “It would be awesome if….”
Yes, yes it would..in the meantime, it has more drawbacks than positive points, and surely for the PRICE? Wow… Oh and a pulse would take out ignition coils on everything and didn’t Dodge use electronic ignition by 69?
@steve
I’m no Mopar expert but I seriously doubt Dodge, or Chrysler in general, was using electronic ignition in 1969. GM didn’t start using it till ’75 and I can’t imagine Mopar being that many years ahead of GM in something that innovative.
Yup..you are correct. 1972 for Chrysler. We used to carry two different Chrysler resistors in our service trucks. 2 prong and 4 prong. 80% of the time when a Dodge just stopped running it was a burned our ballast resistor. Chrysler was actually 1st on a bunch of stuff. Alternators etc. That’s cool but I always got the impression that the public was beta testing these great new ideas for them. “Alternator ” is actually a registered trademark of the Chrysler corp. They just got tired of sueing everyone of its use..
Oh..and before anyone starts saying I’m trash talking Mopar, GM was no angel either. They introduced the HEI initially on their school bus chassis. Why? Well, the greatest need for spark energy is low rpm/wide open throttle. Buses do that all day long. They, and we, quickly found the weak spot. The buses would quit when the spark burned right through the rotor and shorted out to the distributor shaft. NICE…..
This truck is suited for logging jobs. Not a vacation vehicle. The extra gas tank says it likes gas and not good for fuel mileage. Nice looking work truck—not a traveling vacation vehicle.