Hello everybody:
I thought that it might be worth to show here my project as a way of retribution for the many good ones shown here and all the inspiration that can be brought from these pages. It is a summary of the last three years of work and even if it is not finished yet, I am confident that it will be soon.
I am 47 and live in San Felipe, Chile, in a medium size town near Santiago, the capital city. Though mechanics is not my first choice for living, I love working on cars and this is not my first project on wheels. Some members here know the project from other forum. Hope you like/comment/criticize it.
This project was born as a mere concept in the last seventies, when my father asked me to draw the idea for a motorhome he wanted to build from an old urban bus. I made some designs and I liked very much the three-axles one, so much that I still keep it. The idea finally never went out of the paper but the vision of a 6 wheeled camper remained stuck in my mind since then, drawing some variations from time to time. I used to draw a lot, and from then on I love six wheeled stuff.
A few years ago I was in the middle of another project that was in a no-progress phase, a 6x6 Blazer S-10 conversion (always the 6x6 matter), and one day my wife and I went out for a little walk.
Suddenly a bus came out from a workshop and almost marched on our feet. At that moment I had a vision: the old motorhome came into my mind again, but transformed into a 6x6 bus/expedition vehicle.
When I got home I furiously began to draw what went into my mind and, to make a long story short, after a few hours of thinking, a few sheets, a little ink and some time with Photoshop, the initial concept was defined.
At that moment it seemed appropriate to take a medium-sized bus of brazilian make with Mercedes base and put in three Rockwell axles available from old 6x6 REO trucks of the army. I wanted to mount an OM 352 to move the whole thing and also to create an air-spring regulated suspension; the last would need a lot of hard work on the chassis but I thought that it was a good idea at the time.
Well, the REO trucks are very scarce here and only after a few months I found one that could fullfill my needs, and almost bought it. But the chosen model of bus tripled its price in a short period of time almost. Furthermore, the complications related to the adaptations and fabrication issues ended up killing the whole idea. Thanks God for it.
We went on vacations to northern Chile in January 2010 and, at the end of one journey visiting a desert ghost town named Humberston, I tumbled on Edy’s Robusto. It was spectacular. The vision of the magnificent MAN remained in my hard disc since then and I thought: that’s exactly what I need! An old big truck 6x6 to refurbish and to put a living cabin on.
I searched and searched and found no 6x6 for sale in my country. With no 6x6 at hand I looked overseas for importing a truck, Bedford, Volvo, Iveco, Mercedes, Magirus, any. I was about to import an old Magirus firetruck from Belgium with only 40.000 km, but the taxes, the dimensions, fees, insurances, the state of the wheels and restrictions of many kinds did not let me through. I thought a lot about her and made lot of drawings and designs, but I desisted with not much fighting.
I thought that it might be worth to show here my project as a way of retribution for the many good ones shown here and all the inspiration that can be brought from these pages. It is a summary of the last three years of work and even if it is not finished yet, I am confident that it will be soon.
I am 47 and live in San Felipe, Chile, in a medium size town near Santiago, the capital city. Though mechanics is not my first choice for living, I love working on cars and this is not my first project on wheels. Some members here know the project from other forum. Hope you like/comment/criticize it.
This project was born as a mere concept in the last seventies, when my father asked me to draw the idea for a motorhome he wanted to build from an old urban bus. I made some designs and I liked very much the three-axles one, so much that I still keep it. The idea finally never went out of the paper but the vision of a 6 wheeled camper remained stuck in my mind since then, drawing some variations from time to time. I used to draw a lot, and from then on I love six wheeled stuff.
A few years ago I was in the middle of another project that was in a no-progress phase, a 6x6 Blazer S-10 conversion (always the 6x6 matter), and one day my wife and I went out for a little walk.
Suddenly a bus came out from a workshop and almost marched on our feet. At that moment I had a vision: the old motorhome came into my mind again, but transformed into a 6x6 bus/expedition vehicle.
When I got home I furiously began to draw what went into my mind and, to make a long story short, after a few hours of thinking, a few sheets, a little ink and some time with Photoshop, the initial concept was defined.
At that moment it seemed appropriate to take a medium-sized bus of brazilian make with Mercedes base and put in three Rockwell axles available from old 6x6 REO trucks of the army. I wanted to mount an OM 352 to move the whole thing and also to create an air-spring regulated suspension; the last would need a lot of hard work on the chassis but I thought that it was a good idea at the time.
Well, the REO trucks are very scarce here and only after a few months I found one that could fullfill my needs, and almost bought it. But the chosen model of bus tripled its price in a short period of time almost. Furthermore, the complications related to the adaptations and fabrication issues ended up killing the whole idea. Thanks God for it.
We went on vacations to northern Chile in January 2010 and, at the end of one journey visiting a desert ghost town named Humberston, I tumbled on Edy’s Robusto. It was spectacular. The vision of the magnificent MAN remained in my hard disc since then and I thought: that’s exactly what I need! An old big truck 6x6 to refurbish and to put a living cabin on.
I searched and searched and found no 6x6 for sale in my country. With no 6x6 at hand I looked overseas for importing a truck, Bedford, Volvo, Iveco, Mercedes, Magirus, any. I was about to import an old Magirus firetruck from Belgium with only 40.000 km, but the taxes, the dimensions, fees, insurances, the state of the wheels and restrictions of many kinds did not let me through. I thought a lot about her and made lot of drawings and designs, but I desisted with not much fighting.