1997 LAND ROVER NAS DEFENDER 90

The Defender was purchased as a pre-owned vehicle from a fellow living just outside Seattle, Washington.  Already ten years old when we acquired it, the truck was immaculate and in original condition.  The chap was its original owner and only drove it in the summertime from Seattle to his summer place in Idaho. It had never been used off-road.  The rest of the year he stored it under a cover and inside his large textiles warehouse.  Yes, it was quite a find.  Especially since it was the exact colour and configuration we had hoped for.  A Monza Red, convertible top, V-8 automatic. (All 1997 NAS Defenders had automatic transmissions.)

Once we had gone through the process of importing the vehicle from the U.S. into Canada, we set on the task of modifying it for use on road and off.  In a way, I suppose it was a kind of retirement project to help fill up the days left vacant when we ended the business chapter of our life. From that beginning, it eventually became a labour of love that, even ten years later, continues on.

For a detailed account of the build, go to the Defender 90 page.

2008 NEWMAR ESSEX MOTORHOME

We decided to purchase the motorhome early in 2009, about six months after the 2008 Land Rover National Rally in Moab, Utah.  Like the Defender, it was a lucky find.  By mid 2009 when we got serious about the purchase, the motorhome was now technically a year old.  It had sat on the dealers lot un-purchased from when they originally ordered it from Newmar.  So this "year old" coach was now marked down over 30% from it's MSRP, which put it nicely in our budget range.

The coach was a joy to drive and live in, but because of it's complexity, was maintenance heavy.  Four slide outs, automatic awnings, in floor heating, double pane windows... the list goes on.  When you have all these things sitting stationary, there's little worry of things going wrong over time.  But when you package it all up, and start driving down the rough and pot holed highways, the vibration and twisting of the coach body causes the structure to literally start falling apart.  I guess that's why the bulk of these large motorhomes spend most of their life hooked up in extended stay RV parks.  After five years of ownership, our coach was showing the signs of wear.  This was the primary reason we elected to sell the coach and highway trailer in 2014. There were just too many things starting to fail that were going to be expensive to fix.

For more information about the motorhome, go to the Newmar page.

VOLVO EXPLORATION TRUCK

Spending the winters sitting in an RV park watching other people drink and play golf just wasn’t our thing, and after several years of it, we both wanted something better. That’s when we started thinking about what we enjoyed doing the most, which was seeing new places and getting away to the lesser travelled destinations around the world.  So we figured there must be a way of combining the comfort of a Class A or Super C motorhome with the offroad ability of a 4x4.  Something that could even be shipped to other regions of the planet. To our delight, there was just such a thing.

Known by different names… adventure truck, expedition vehicle, exploration truck and overland vehicle, they all describe essentially the same thing. An off-road capable RV on steroids, built for continuous use off grid, over extended periods of time.

For detailed information about our exploration truck, go to the Volvo EXP page.

There you can read all about the dream of designing and building a custom exploration truck, and the nightmare that followed.