Allan's creation is quite impressive and a massive undertaking with limited resources, it is of excellent quality and I am very happy to have had the opportunity to purchase it from him.
A little bit about me, I got started fabricating when I wanted to solid axle swap my Dodge Dakota, it became an obsessive hobby of mine and I eventually made it into an expedition vehicle, I built most of it in a roommates backyard and with alot of help from fellow internet wheelers on Pirate 4X4.
http://www.fourwheeler.com/features/1603-a-crawling-and-camping-2001-dodge-dakota/
I started with my first MV a few years ago when I bought a 1966 MB Unimog 404 Cartrography truck. It was a a gamble, no title, unknown condition, sitting for a decade. I spent a year getting it running, fixing the clutch, resealing it and making it reliable. Long story short I started living in it as my main residence, I continue to do so part time. I learned a lot about what I wanted out of me next vehicle living fulltime inside it and in doing so want something with some more creature comforts, like a toilet and shower! The mog has been a great truck, I keep it original outside and "modern" on the inside.
I have 150W of solar atop it, 200Ah of storage, a patch antenna / amp for long range wifi, 40" flatscreen, furniture, LED lighting, A/C and heater and a fullsize bed.
I was doing the crazy vehicle thing on the side for a few years, my employer Local-Motors, recognized this and started LM Labs, a vehicular based hackerspace. I helped bob an M35A2 and other vehicular projects for community members. I was one of the employees there when it was a startup, number 11 to be exact, the company has blown up, gone corporate and now has 130 employees and four main locations.
I helped with the development of production units of the Rally Fighter and the XC2V DARPA sponsored crowd sourced Military Vehicle.
This is the Rally Fighter, it has been through 2 generations of development. LS3 powered, 15.5" of front travel, 18" rear, coilovers, Ford 9", power-steering, A/C with all the creature comforts.
This is the XC2V, it uses the same sub chassis as the Rally Fighter, after testing it went missing for a couple years and got bought up by an Illinois police department from the GOV during the EPA ban. It was rolled during testing by the GOV so I repaired the body and prepared it for use as a SWAT vehicle and helped install some other surplus accessories on my own time.
A couple years ago, Local Motors completely shifted directions and decided to put forth all of it's efforts into DDM (Digital Direct manufacturing AKA: 3D printing cars) and cancelled the LM Labs, Rally Fighter / XC2V development. I was pretty good at hobby level EV's and conversions so I did electric drivetrain stuff at Local Motors. We used donor EV drive-trains and off the shelf EV conversion components, my job was to make the cars turn on and "work". We are now starting to build our own drivetrain stuff in-house and packaging it in complete 3D printed chassis but I still crave working with metal/my personal projects on my own time.
Last week was a crazy situation, I have a Cummins 6BT, Allison AT545, Bluebird schoolbus running gear swapped medium duty C60 Holmes 600 wrecker that was a personal project of mine. This was going to be the next, larger, expedition vehicle project. I was planning on placing a large cab-over camper atop it and running axletech 4000's.
Randomly, it was bought right on the spot by a vehicle transport company that was passing through town. I have never had anything like that happen...
I needed a new platform quick. My buddy John James, a fellow Unimog enthusiast, saw Allan's truck for sale and posted it on Facebook, it was burning in my head for a week, Figure it was a good step forward in the right direction. Things worked out and I bought it!
Plan is to keep Allan's work as complete as possible, as it is perfect as-is, and build or source a camper (fifth wheel) to fit on the sucker as my new permanent residence. My housing situation right now is kinda screwed so I want to get in this thing as fast as possible.
