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Big Custom Motorcoach

This big custom motorhome slash semi tractor is the work of a custom motorcoach company we’ve featured here a couple of times, Davies Motor Company, because their work has caught our attention and other peoples attention as well.

They take semi tractors (which don’t look much like these finished toterhome products they come up with) and strip them down and re-build them up into these luxury motorhomes. Basically toterhomes. They seem to have their own style though, Davies motorcoachs I mean.

The process: they buy a semi tractor, strip it, stretch the frame out, lift the sleeper off with a folk lift (if there is a sleeper on the truck).

Then they modify the cab and hood: they cut open the back of the cab wider (if needs be), rework the wheel fenders, remove the hood and pretty much everything else, paint prep by grinding and filling, do a paint prep layeer over the whole truck (all the parts that will be painted), mount new steps, boxes and other chrome features.

Then then built the sleeper frame and put the sleeper walls on — I’ve seen them use these big ones like the photo above, studio sleeper units some call them, put in windows, build the roof of the sleeper, grind it all for painting, brace it all for strength, secure the skylights, and then mount the sleeper on the frame.

They paint the truck body with its final paint, paint the sleeper with its, and then assemble the two parts.

Then they do finishing work by adding lights, frame metal, and other features, decals, and any semi truck customization.

Then there’s just the interior to customize. These are usually custom luxury interiors or even just custom comfortable interiors, depending on what the buyer wants to do with the RV.

To visit Davies Motor Company, click here.

Luxury Motorhome Interior

This big luxury custom motorhome was built by a custom RV company doing some interesting work. They’re called Davis Motor Company, out of Utah (Springville), and they’re developing nice, clean, robust-looking powerful recreational vehicles.
Any good RV owner knows they need a storage facility to store their RV when they aren’t using it. Luckily there are places similar to https://www.wildhorseselfstorage.com/rv-storage-pueblo-co/ for those who are looking.

Not much is known about this motorhome company. At least, I haven’t seen much, and their own website doesn’t offer very much information about them or their work, but maybe they want their work to speak for itself. And you can see the type of work they do in these luxury motorhome photos.

The white motorcoach is for sale for around half a million dollars, last reports said.

It’s built on a Kenworth chassis, and it would be a powerful home on wheels.

The company also seems to do some large trucks — like full size pickups, dump trucks / gravel bed trucks, and small semi tractors.

It looks like they do basic ground up work, stripping the whole truck down and rebuilding it for its new look. To visit Davies Motor, click here.

Luxury RV with Serious Power

This big factory stretch motorhome went up for auction, or is going up soon, and caught our eye. This is one of the more powerful Kingsley Coach luxury RV units I’ve seen for sale recently. It has a 600 horsepower factory diesel engine.

Besides the large engine power, this 47-foot motorcoach has an 18-speed automatic transmission, a 10KW Onan generator, awnings for the windows and doors, 2 large flatscreen TVs, Corian-type countertops, Amish-made cabinetry (custom made) through the whole unit.

It’s thought the RV has around 90,000 miles.

Some other specs:

– One owner purchased new in 2001
– Two live axles in rear
– 8 airbag suspension in rear with spring ride front
– 3 position Jake brake
– Cruise control
– 2 AC heat pumps and 2 propane furnaces
– Electric and gas combo hot water heater
– In Motion satellite system
– Side by side refrigerator
– Microwave oven
– Gas cooktop
– Washer and dryer

The auction was announced as Jan 16-25, so whether that means this year or last year I’m not sure. Anyway, probably doesn’t matter much. Mecum has new things up for auction all the time, and these big luxury used RVs come up for sale all over the place. To visit the truck auction at Mecum (click here).

Luxury Motorhome, Luxury Interior

This big Class C motorhome came up for sale recently and caught our eye for its lines and multiple RV slides, and I wanted to check and see what else it had behind its luxury RV appearance. It’s a Kingsly Coach, 51 feet, and looks to be in pretty good shape for being a decade old now when it came up for sale on a used RVs and motorhomes site.

It’s a 2006 with a 475 horsepower Cat engine, and it came up for sale on Motorhome Classifieds. It’s sold now, but the unit is still worth looking at — window shopping, or computer screen shopping, I guess.

It had 63,000 miles on it and looks like they took decent care of the machine. They said it was in “perfect condition” when they listed it.

Besides the 475 horsepower Cat, it also had a 10 speed Eaton transmission and a big Onan generator.

As far as luxury RV interior fixings go, they put a large 50 inch flatscren TB in it as well as a smaller 20 inch flatscreen.

Besides the slide you see, there are slides on both sides — it’s a triple slideout RV, and it also has elecronic awnings and that custom exterior paint job in darker colors.

It also had granite shower, granite countertops, custom RV flooring made of porcellain, custom cabinets and a lot of other luxury RV custom features.

Not sure how much it was listed for. These things go for all kinds of prices between over a hundred thousand to over half a million, but it came up on Motorhome Classifieds. Visit them sometime to see what else they have listed (click here).

The Longest Factory-Made Truck With Giant Sleeper

Since posting our original write up on this big yellow custom semi with its big sleeper unit, enough people have commented to add information and questions and sent a bunch of photos of the truck that we thought we’d do an update on it.

Randy Kenley said that this truck used to haul jet engines. He also specified the lengths of the tractor and sleeper: the wheel base is 385 inches and the sleeper is a 205 inch double eagle — which, he said, is the longest factory-made truck to date.

For our original write up on this 200″ Sleeper Tractor, click here.

The truck, according to many, was Tony Bennett’s old one, which was used working for Southern Pride. And now, according to Tammie Chapman, it’s hauling a flat bed trailer and is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah.

For those wondering about turning in this truck, Aaron Newman had some valuable info. For anyone who has driven a bus before, he said, it shouldn’t be overly hard (as a bobtail). However, he also said, for lots of P&D lots, it would be too big to be very useful, because you’d need a fairly large area for maneuvering — like they used this big sleeper unit semi for, driving around airport tarmacs picking up and delivering freight.

 

Finally, a big thank you to Bill N Kristy Thompson, who answered many people asking for photos of the custom interior (we put the three photos into an all-3 collage). UPDATE: A new interior photo was shared by Dave Chapman, who is a lifelong friend of the current owners of this custom semi sleeper truck, currently in Salt Lake.

Thanks guys.

Big Orange Semi Truck Sleepers

You may have noticed this, and I have. There’s a lot of big orange trucks out there on the street. Of course, a lot of this has to do with companies like Reliable whose business color theme is orange, and they often have big sleepers / drom boxes, and trailers painted to match their tractors, and orange is considered to be possibly a “safe” color because of its high visibility, but even in the big rig customization scene, there are a lot of orange ones.

So this page is specifically for orange rigs.

A lot of you will have come here through a post on Plains Trains or one of the other social media, so you have a chance to weigh in on the orange truck question.

We’ll be reviewing those posts and seeing what you have to say about the color orange for rigs — Do you like orange for trucks and trailers? Which ones do you think pull it off the best?

We’ll also be looking for your photos. If you post your big orange truck and we see it there we’ll add it in here and make a big orange semi sleeper collection, with the names of their owners. And as always if you want to write a few hundred words about your truck and send some classy photos, we’ll often make a write up just for you and share it.

Be safe this winter guys!

It’s almost December, and work in the cold north is moving. This post is more of a card to all the Canadians, Americans and others who work the ice roads. They make a lot of money for their families, and deliver necessary supplies to people up there, as well as the supplies the keep industry active, but there are risks. Be safe up there guys!

For those who don’t know, oil and gas, gold mining, diamond mining, and all other industries in Canada’s north are serviced by big rigs. They work in the winter and often the summer, but not the spring and fall, because the roads are too wet for these heavy trucks. In some places, they only work in the winter because they rely on “ice roads.” The trucks travel across the ice to reach their destination. These ice roads have top notch security and precautions are taken, but still accidents can happen. It is the natural world, and we live in it. The risks are to the lives of the drivers, the well-being of their families, and environmental concerns (imagine 60,000 liters of fuel or chemical product dumped into a Canadian waterway and what would happen to life around it next Spring).

The ice has to be 1.8 meters thick to use as an ice road. Teams of workers trace the roads and maintain and measure the ice. They also have trucks and tools to service the inevitable mechanical and other problems associated — breakdowns and such. And medical experts such as first aiders are always on job sites in the area.

Some of these roads are very long and are used almost year round, up in the far north — the Arctic Circle and beyond, where -50 degrees is a common temperature. That’s what they live in in the NWT, Yukon, Nunavut and Alaska in the winters.