Tiger's cost/value vs Bigfoot, ArcticFox

[FatDog]

Buy a new F350 and BF or AF, $125K+, and you now have a dual purpose pickup and a darn decent camper that hopefully (?) never leaks water ....
or
spend $200K-250K+ !! and you get a now permanent single purpose F550 pickup, converted to SRW, with an admittedly burly camper tied to it.

I want the 4x4 trail ability, but there sure is a big difference between spending on the two !
Would the 'regular guy' really need the difference even if he could really afford it ?

[dix39]

IMHO, it depends on the severity of the 4X4 trails you are referencing. We had two 11.5' campers and 4x4 srw diesel trucks starting in the late '70's continuing until last year.

Both were stick campers that eventually leaked and were fixed several times. You shouldn't have that problem.

The trucks were capable of negotiating much more difficult terrain empty than they were with the camper. Part of this was because of the height which created some "top heaviness", and limited access under trees. Another problem was ground clearance from the camper overhang in the rear.

When driving the TC on rough terrain I would always loosen the tie downs to prevent bed/frame twist from creating a lot of stress on the camper attach points.

Our off road camping evolved from carrying Trail 90's on the truck, to carrying them on a trailer, and for the last 15 or so years towing a Tracker with a Trail 90 on both ends of it.

Our TC was capable of traversing "mild" 4X4 roads/trails, but for anything else we parked the TC and used the bikes or Tracker. They were a lot more economical and fun to operate anyway.

Just my 2c.

Steve

[Bedlam]

There is even a bigger price disparity. For $125k, you can have a F550 or 5500 and carry an Eagle Cap or Host. What you described would most likely be under $100k.

I also looked at Super C's and other options that would give me 10K lb towing with 4wd and none of them penciled out better than getting a truck and TC. There are some beefier Class C's built on E450's that would give me 7.5K lb towing without the 4wd for half the price of a truck/TC, but it would have been too much of a compromise for my style of travel.

[Electrojake]

Originally Posted by FatDog

Buy a new F350 and BF or AF, $125K+, and you now have a dual purpose pickup and a darn decent camper that hopefully (?) never leaks water ....
or
spend $200K-250K+ !! and you get a now permanent single purpose F550 pickup, converted to SRW, with an admittedly burly camper tied to it.

Agreed. That is the dilemma.
There is this option ---> http://www.tigervehicles.com/

But in general, for off-road ability you need the smallest & lightest truck possible, but to carry a slide-in camper unit you need a mighty heavy truck.

Since we cant have it both ways, I recently did the following…
I bought the smallest ‘big’ truck I could find: A 4x4 RAM 3500 short bed. Payload is a little under 4000# so it can carry my Northstar with a little room to spare.
Yes that means your stuck with a mighty small camper unit, but at least your truck is small and thus has a little off-road capability.
BTW, a long bed dually just aint fit for off-roading, trust me, I know.

In comparison, I also have a Jeep TJ so I can tell you that my snazzy new ‘small’ HD RAM 3500 4x4 is indeed a bloated sow off-road when compared to the Jeep.

Another option (as mentioned in the posts above) is to buy the Ford F-550 setup and simply trailer a Jeep (or bikes) behind you.

Its been a while since your post, what was the outcome?
Regards,
-Ej-