Last night a friend and I started talking about what would be the best vehicle for a 1-2 month trip across the country. The requirements would be that you would have to be able to sleep in it comfortably, and it would be a plus if it had at least some off road capabilities (not expedition vehicle capabilities, but not have any problems going down dirt or gravel roads).

My response was a Chevy Suburban, but then we decided to add the requirement that the vehicle get at least 20mpg.


So what vehicle would you get?

Requirements:
Must be able to sleep in comfortably
>20mpg

9/11/2013 10:13:54 AM

Mercedes Benz S550

9/11/2013 10:18:18 AM

Sleep in the rear reclining seats or recline the front seats?

9/11/2013 10:21:18 AM

Why not sleep in tents?

9/11/2013 11:02:39 AM

maybe the weather is bad? really though it is just because the conversation started with expedition vehicles that are setup with living space inside them, so we started talking about what we would do to the inside of a vehicle to make it livable.

I'd try to put a twin mattress and build in some shelves and have slide out drawers from the back.

9/11/2013 11:12:35 AM

Quote :

"My response was a Chevy Suburban, but then we decided to add the requirement that the vehicle get at least 20mpg."

New Suburban gets 21mpg highway.

Crew cab pickup with a camper shell on the bed would be nice. Plenty of passenger room up front, storage for bags and gear in the back seat, bed to sleep in. Bonus points if you build a platform to raise the floor level with the wheel wells and put an air mattress back there.

You could probably save enough money on gas to just get a cheap hotel if you drove a fuel efficient car instead. Tent for camping nights, hotel for when you don't want to camp.

9/11/2013 11:21:38 AM

Quote :

"Sleep in the rear reclining seats or recline the front seats?"

I think you could sleep very comfortably in the rear seat. However, if one insisted upon a large flat surface for sleeping (with perhaps utilization of an air mattress) then I would suggest the Mercedes E400 wagon, BMW 5 Series Wagon or Audi A6 Avant for this purpose.

[Edited on September 11, 2013 at 11:26 AM. Reason : all 3 available with AWD]

9/11/2013 11:26:09 AM

Umm I'm going to state the obvious and say an rv.

Followed up by where are you going and why ?
Because if just a long cruise I would get a cts-v wagon.
If any snow/offroading excursion/wrangler unlimited and suburban cone to mind.

9/11/2013 11:30:49 AM

^^^ even a crappy hotel is over $50 a night, and a lot of places I bet you'd have to pay over $100, so even for a crappy hotel you would need to save about 13 gal a day. If you drive about 400 miles per day you would need to average about 60mpg for really shitty hotels, and then you miss out on part of the fun of a cross country adventure.

a truck with a camper shell was his suggestion. can you get camper shells sturdy enough to stand on? it would be cool to have a platform for photography ansel adams style




[Edited on September 11, 2013 at 11:37 AM. Reason : ^rv and cts-v wagon aren't going to be over 20mpg]

9/11/2013 11:32:08 AM

^^^ the problem with some of those wagons though is that even with the rear seats flat you would need to be less than 6' tall to sleep in them.

[Edited on September 11, 2013 at 11:35 AM. Reason : otherwise a german wagon would be my preference ]

9/11/2013 11:35:03 AM

Hmmm, I haven't checked that in a while but I'd imagine you could sleep in the back diagonally (if you're over 6' tall). I slept diagonally in the back of my Accord 3 door hatchback once in college and I wasn't too far from being fully stretched out (I'm 6'2")

9/11/2013 12:50:13 PM

Volvo XC70 is a better alternative to the German wagons if going off road a bit more seriously.

9/11/2013 1:24:27 PM

How much of a difference do you think that extra 2" of ground clearance is really gonna make?

9/11/2013 1:34:13 PM

why not a subie outback?

9/11/2013 1:34:23 PM

^ Yeah that as well, which is like a Japanese xc70.

^^. I don't know, depends on what kind of trails or terrain you will drive through. Streams, desert, gravel, rocks, etc. also, it comes with plastic cladding to prevent damage to the body and underside. Seriously, you are not going to drive a merc, wagon or not, off road, are you? (other than an SUV)

9/11/2013 1:42:28 PM

i'm liking the XC70 or outback idea (or even a v70r if you stay on decent roads)

9/11/2013 2:01:13 PM

I'm pretty sure any of the wagons I mentioned has a larger cargo area (with or without seats folded down) than the Volvo XC70.

(though I could be wrong)

9/11/2013 2:07:37 PM

Its surprisingly difficult to find the dimension of the back with the seats folded down on google, I'm finding conflicting things

9/11/2013 2:22:10 PM

Wikipedia is good for that usually.

9/11/2013 2:31:49 PM

i bet to differ. Wikipedia is horrible with car measurements.

9/11/2013 2:38:26 PM

I don't know how accurate the measurements are, I just meant that they usually give detailed measurements. Never double checked them.

9/11/2013 2:48:50 PM

wikipedia isn't helping me at all, at least for the subaru or the 5-series or the merc

google challenge: find the length of the back of the subaru and the back of one of the german wagons.

9/11/2013 2:52:05 PM

9/11/2013 3:25:12 PM

7.3L diesel Excursion.

9/11/2013 3:46:58 PM

If offroad isn't part of the equation, I'll take a well-kept Buick Roadmaster wagon from the mid 90's. LT1, huge cargo area that would be flat with the 2nd and 3rd rows removed, comfy as your couch. A little proactive maintenance and I'd go cross-country in one. They don't make wagons like that anymore. Not exactly fuel efficient but it'll knock down low-mid 20's all day on the highway.

Taking off-road into account, I'll second the idea of a compact/midsize pickup with a platform for air mattress and a camper shell. Not sure if any pickups that aren't full-size offer a 7' or 8' bed with 4 doors, so maybe an extended cab instead of a crew cab.

9/11/2013 3:56:51 PM

Quote :

"Requirements: Must be able to sleep in comfortably >20mpg"

9/11/2013 4:00:15 PM

otherwise yeah, a giant excursion or sweet expedition style 4wd van or RV would be awesome. but the point of the game was to decide what you would buy that had decent enough mpg so you could eat up some highway miles.

i've never owned a truck with a camper shell, I'm assuming in good condition they don't leak? I'd build a platform on top to sit in a camp chair and enjoy the view.

9/11/2013 4:28:30 PM

Quote :

"^^^ even a crappy hotel is over $50 a night, and a lot of places I bet you'd have to pay over $100, so even for a crappy hotel you would need to save about 13 gal a day. If you drive about 400 miles per day you would need to average about 60mpg for really shitty hotels, and then you miss out on part of the fun of a cross country adventure."

I was talking about the $29.99-$39.99 motels that you see all over the highway. Not saying it had to be a nightly thing, but you could split time between sleeping in a tent in places that would be nice to camp and sleeping in an air conditioned motel (with a shower!) when you're just on the interstate.

Throwing up a tent isn't exactly incognito, but in just about any location where you can get away with lounging on the roof and camping out of your truck you can get away with throwing up a tent. Real campgrounds in a lot of the places you want to visit are going to charge you $15-$40/night anyway, so that's a factor to consider as well.

[Edited on September 11, 2013 at 4:45 PM. Reason : l]

9/11/2013 4:44:55 PM

I give up on figuring out the rear cargo dimensions of the luxury wagons. All they state are the cubic feet I even downloaded Mercedes' brochure for the entire E Class. Btw that volume measurement is 57.4 cubic feet

However, after spending time on the Mercedes website I feel like maybe the best choice for this "challenge" is the Mercedes Benz GL350 BluTec. With the 2nd and 3rd row folded down there is 93.8 cubic feet of room. And it's EPA rated highway efficiency is 26 mpg.

Winner winner

9/11/2013 4:47:53 PM

Ha, look at this!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CN03020/

9/11/2013 6:17:30 PM

Toyota Land Cruiser

9/11/2013 11:32:09 PM

Ford E350 diesel 4x4

right at 20 mpg...huge on the inside and capable of whatever terrain you need.

9/12/2013 3:12:21 AM

^ winner! I was going to say dodge sprinter.

9/12/2013 7:48:24 AM

I think some people are focusing too much on off road capability here. Most of the "offroad" capable vehicles being mentioned in this thread would be very tiring to drive cross country. This is why I've been proposing luxury vehicles. A lot easier to drive 500-1000 miles a day when sitting in the serene interior of a Benz and not some Ford 4X4.

9/12/2013 8:20:47 AM

i mean an expedition vehicle or sweet off-road van is something I really want, they are bad-ass, but we were thinking more road-trip. the worst off-roading I would expect would be primative non-maintained roads like the one that goes up to Wiseman's View in Pisgah National Forest (best local example I could think of). You can get any car through it, but you're going to have to go very slow and work really hard unless you have a little bit of ground clearance. I got my old BMW 325ix up there, but only because it was my beater and I didn't mind some scratches and bottoming out and I probably averaged 1-2 mph. If I had 2-3 more inches of ground clearance, the road would have been no problem.

And a luxury vehicle is going to be a lot more comfortable on the highway than any off-road van

[Edited on September 12, 2013 at 8:32 AM. Reason : .]

9/12/2013 8:31:07 AM

Ford Flex
Any minivan, especially the AWD ones
Honda Element

basically anything long and rectangular

[Edited on September 12, 2013 at 8:55 AM. Reason : Ford Transit]

9/12/2013 8:53:24 AM

Quote :

"Honda Element"

I like that option.

What are the pros and cons of this against a Subaru Outback?

9/12/2013 9:28:16 AM

slightly less expensive (depending on how new of an outback you want)
taller, so you can actually stand up, (probably still hunched over though)

you def lose some length and maybe some width though

9/12/2013 9:42:34 AM

I'd assume that the outback is better to drive than the element (but I can't personally compare them)

9/12/2013 12:40:40 PM

You can buy my 64 Valiant and rock this old school.

It gets over 20mpg (barely). You'll also be a champ doing it with no AC or radio.

9/12/2013 12:55:30 PM

Quote :

"Mercedes Benz S550"

+5494984616

9/12/2013 1:24:51 PM

Extended cab 4x4 pickup with camper shell. If it's the uplevel nice model they're reasonably quiet and pretty comfortable on the highway. The newer ones get right at or a smidgen better than 20mpg.

9/12/2013 1:26:49 PM

^have fun with the crosswinds out west

9/12/2013 1:43:47 PM

ford f250 PSD 4x4

9/12/2013 4:11:55 PM

ford f250 PSD 4x4 with full quad card

9/12/2013 4:12:17 PM

pt cruiser

9/12/2013 4:21:05 PM

I stand corrected - diesel excursion is a better choice. same motor and cab but better interior and 3rd row.

9/13/2013 3:13:59 AM

I'm seeing 14-18 mpg for the diesel excursion and 250 (and since diesel is about $0.30/gal more than gas, that's even a bigger gap than just the numbers show)

9/13/2013 8:45:21 AM

poking around looking at pictures, I'm going to have to mention the Ford Flex again.



The interior just seems really configurable, and if you actually removed some seats you could cram a lot of stuff in there. I was thinking keep the rear seats as a couch/extra passengers and try to make a bed area where the center buckets are.

Oh yeah and the eco-boost gets it to 60 in under 6 seconds and it gets 24 mpg on the highway (allegedly). AWD is an option and the ground clearance is probably enough for 90% of the places you might visit.

9/13/2013 9:01:29 AM

I doubt you can sleep across in the middle and leave the seats in the back

9/13/2013 9:08:21 AM