Search for an offroad vehicle to use as camper

Landcruiser Troopcarrier or a GQ 4.2 diesel patrol

How about a dual cab ute with a canopy and a roof tent? Then you have heaps of storage for gear and heaps of room for sleeping all in a self contained unit.

Hi Philip

How many people 1 or 2

In your critera you leave out the GQ patrol range from the nineties ?

The cheapset capable car I have every travelled with is a GQ RB30 model running petrol/gas
but its just a little cramped width ways for 2.

The GU range is fatter in the guts, we have a double bed it ours and its probably the most
effective camping system I know of.

With a price of $16.5 against the 2004 GU you must mean the 3lt diesel , engine issues would
rule them out for most.

The 4.2 version is very slow but regularly gets voted no 1 outback tourer however very hard to find sub $30k.

GQ was a nineties car and GU is 2000+ version

If you wish a post 2000 car then a petrol/gas GU is probably the lowest cost/ most capable vehicle out there which has adequate internal room for 2 without the use of popups or ladders etc.

Equally important is those cars have a level of technology that makes them easier and lower cost to maintain.

a 4wd vw kombi camper?

Landrover 130 or Landrover 110...

In fact "The Landy" is perfectly set-up for just that purpose...

Take a look below in classifieds and give me a call if any interest!

Cheers, The Landy

G'day Philipp,

an 80 series diesel wagon with rooftop tent would be in your price range. Very reliable and spare parts lying on the side of the road in places.

They are more comfortable than the utes and troopys.



Steve

Philipp
If you want comfort and good economy you should look at European vehicles. My choice would be the Mercedes sprinter 4x4 manual There are 3 for sale at the moment for under $20k in Brisbane at Meinhams auctions. Very capable of road as long as you know how to use the electronics. Eric.

Everbody has there preferences and their particular bias.

If economy is an issue, well that will rule out all of the 6 cylinder and V8 vehicles..they ALL drink.

ALL the station waggons have load carrying capacity issues, many of them have less than 700Kg payloads, so many touring stationwaggons are either near or overloaded even when traveling with driver and one passenger. particularly once you add bullbars, winchesn rearbar tyre carriers and such...it all adds up real fast.

then ther is the issue of how much it costs you to camp in or on the vehicle....yeh you can add a roof top tent, but that is more expense, more weight and that weight is high up...AND it effects your clearance.

If ya not particularly concerned are not fuel economy or comfort, troopies are a realy good option. if you throw a deck board across about the height of the bottom of the windows there is enough length and width to sleep two comfortably and carry a fair payload.

Single cab Tray back utes with a canopy are a real option if you want to camp in the back......there is plenty of sleeping room in an 8 foot x 6 foot tray.
A 7 foot x 5 foot tray will have less rear over hang and the tray will be about the same width as the cab.
A 6 foot x 5 foot tray will still give you enough room to sleep AND you can mount ya spare wheels between the cab and the tray.
AND ya single cab ute will have plenty of payload...most a full tonne in the tray.

Persoanlly I loathe and detest dual cab utes....to me thay are just pointless things.
The trays are too short to even stow a long handled shovel other than diagonal, almost all the load in the tray is behind the rear axle, and have you ever traveled in the rear of one of those things.

If ya thinking about the heavy utes, unless you are shorter than 4foot 10, a land cruser will see you stitting bolt uprightand still short of leg room, the patroll is a little better.

The light utes are still a little short on leg room and if you are over 5 foot 8, it can be a real issue.
The king cab or extracab utes are real good if you are tall, they allow the seat to go further back and the back to recline.

As for hiluxes..hat is what I have, Do not be affraid to look at models as early as 2001.
And if you see a V6 petrol in good nick at a good price grab it...particularly in an extracab . The v6 pertol extracab sold well as a bossfella truck and many in good nick.

I have a 3 liter normally aspitared 3litre andthey are no rocket ship but will sit at 100Kmh all day, good and tractable off road and reasonably economical.

The pre 05 3 liter turbo diesel is much saught after, they go pretty well and there is no common rail foolishness.

But remember in all this the 2.7 liter fuel injected hilux motor makes more power than the turbo diesel by far, is fairly economical, tractable off road and reasonably well behaved around water.

You may have gathered I like hiluxes......with good reason, they cost less at every turn than a landcruser, there are plenty of em around and they aren't a bad truck.

A good choice if you are not towing, "doing the hard tracks" and like a little comfort.

cheers

My budget was planned at around 20.000$ for the vehicle and another 10.000$ for the equipment. Looking up the models at redbook this seemed realistic. On the online car sales websites most troopies, GUs etc. are a lot more expensive. Is redbook unreliable when it comes to "popular" models or is it just that people put the cars in higher so that they can give you a discount ;-)

For example the 2004 Nissan Patrol GUIII with 4.2L is according to redbook around $24,800 - $28,500

on the web most of them are priced at 33,000 to 39,000

its basically the same with the Troopcarrier.

Would it be wiser to spend more on the car because of the following reason:
> I will need to sell the vehicle in two years (going back to Europe) and then have to sell everything in one big package. It seems models like the GU 4.2 or Troopcarrier with HD engine don't loose that much worth. People who buy those cars might be willing to pay for good equipment (fridge, drawers etc.), while in a vehicle like Delica or an older Ute the clientel will be less willing to pay a good price for a vehicle including equipment - hope that makes sense and you could give me your answer on that :-)

Phillip

I just sold one of my Landrover Defenders, a TDi200 110 to a couple who plan to do precisely what you are planning.

The vehicle was the “panel van” version which means no seats in the rear, so you can comfortably sleep two people in the rear and have storage room underneath. And that is precisely the way I set this vehicle up, and regularly used it this way...

These are no speed machine, but an extremely capable off-road vehicle with a good load carrying capacity, and very good on fuel economy.

I sold mine for close to the asking price, but it was well above average in terms of condition, but they will be well within the price range you are talking about, in fact the lower end of it.

There are still photos of the vehicle in the classified section on this site so you can get a sense of what this type of vehicle is like, and you can view it by clicking the link below.

And I recommend you view the classifieds on this site, if you haven’t already, as there are always well optioned vehicles for sale…

Landrover Defender - TDi200 - Panel Van

We have fitted out all sorts of vehicles for this type of trip. Troopie wins hands down to fit all criteria you mentioned.

Jim.