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This semi/home hybrid was reviewed by another trucking site, but the actual owner of the truck later commented on a post that that review the other site did was actually not true, and that the guy who wrote that he had reviewed the vehicle had never actually driven it, so, we’re now updating this post with information straight from the owner about it:

The truck belongs to a couple, John and Rebecca Simons Pooley, and they were kind enough to answer a few questions about their giant house on wheels for everybody:

The couple isn’t rich. This isn’t just a rich person’s luxury RV. They worked for years for this vehicle, which isn’t an extra home — they live in it fulltime. The husband, John, worked as a cabinetmaker and home builder for over 30 years.

And this house on wheels you see took over 8 years of evenings and weekends to build.

Actually, the vehicle isn’t being used by the couple as a recreational vehicle these days — it’s now a parked home on wheels. They haven’t travelled with it for the last four years, and it’s currently parked on their acreage.

This Luxury 5th Wheel Has 4 Slides and a Big Bedroom

This unit is a 45 foot custom luxury RV with a bedroom and 4 slides.

The floorplan is a 45 foot coach style 5th wheel chassis with maxi storage. The floors, though, are tropic brown with polished porcelian tile and the wood used is spice glazed maple hardwood.

I sort of get the idea the luxury RV makers just set up several vehicles that kind of display the options to buyers. Because you can get any wood, floor, whatever, you want. They have other models on display showing natural walnut hardwood and luxury composite tile flooring, cherry on creyy with “5th Avenue style” fascia and high polished black solid countertops, etc.The exterior paint is custom. Some people pick colors / patterns based on personal preference, some have company or farm colors. The full body pain job is a double clear coat. Continental is a company that’s been building custom products since 1991. Their main focus is full time RV vehicle users and they specialze in premium custom jobs.

Their vehicles therefore are expected to be high performance full time usage luxury rigs. Continental Coaches makes their own chassis and body. And every part of the RV is hand-crafted. They also add automotive trims and sealants to improve performance.

As you can see in the photo above, they use a triple axle for stability and stopping power. They put Goodyear tires on standard and sit under fiberglass fenders. The hydraulic jack system for the unit uses a heavy duty “tube in tube” set of front legs to protect cylinders and add stability. They have an auto-level feature to make setting up easier. Continental Coach is located in Shipshewana, Indiana. We’ve featured several other luxury and custom RV motorhome / trailer companies on here and custom sleeper unit companies, though, too. You can see from the photos the space provided by 4 slides. A slide on each side both open at the same time can double the interior space.

Needle Nose 66

Ok, this big black custom sleeper custom everything-by-the-looks-of-it semi took some research even to find out what it was. It’s a 1966 Peterbilt 351 Needlenose.

There’s another photo of it (I only reproduce a tiny version of the other photo, because it comes from a guy on Flickr and those guys for some reason reserve all their photo rights and sometimes contact you if you use their photo, which is very weird, especially since we always give credit when we have the photographer’s name and link to them, so they get a bunch of new viewers from that, but to each their own).

The flickr photographer, Jack Byrnes Hill, said he saw this truck at the US Diesel National Truck Show at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, so maybe this truck is still around there. Other people wrote that they’d seen the truck around the area.

So, while we wait hoping some more New Jersyers and New Yorkers recognize the truck and give us some specs, I’ll post a few other of these big black boxy old-school custom sleeper unit truck photos. The other photos are just random photos that are all over the internet.

Visit photographer Jack Byrnes Hill (click here).

Giant Sleeper Tractor with Motorbike Compartment

So you’re driving your custom sleeper unit semi down somewhere away from home, and you decide to take your motorbike for a ride, so you just open the motorbike compartment and take out your bike, then go for a ride and then just tuck it right back into your semi again. Then obviously if you get bored of your bike you just sell your motorbike to We Want Your Motorbike and get an upgrade. Sounds familiar right? Same old story? What do you do if you end up in a motorcycle accident? I bring this up because a friend was unfortunately involved in a motorcycle accident recently. It really got me thinking. Whats the most important thing to do after a motorcycle accident? Its great to have that planned out before it happens so you can just act. Keep safe folks. But I digress.

In reality, many people would like to have something like this. I’ve read a lot of comments saying just that. “Where’s the bike compartment” on the other custom RV-type (toterhomes and motorhomes mounted to semi tractors) big rig vehicles.

This custom 1999 Peterbilt is no longer owned by the fellow who was interviewed by Overdrive Online and who provided the specs on this truck — whoever owns it now, let us know and send us some new pictures, please!

Side note, my friend was telling me about how important it is to have motor insurance if you’re working in the motor industry. He was transporting some bikes in his truck some of them got damaged because of an incident and he didn’t have the proper insurance to cover it. Thankfully, after that, he found a great insurance quote from Insurance 4 MotorTrade.

It was called “Home on the Road” by Gregg Blair when he had it. Blair put 1 and three-quarter million miles on it. At that time, it had the big sleeper unit on it built by ICT. That sleeper (sorry no photos yet available but we’re waiting) has a kitchen, shower and toilet, as well as a 42-inch TV, surround sound system, tracking sat dish, and washer/dryer — oh, yeah, and a motorbike compartment.

Specs:

Truck: 1999 Peterbilt

Engine: 600 horsepower Caterpiller

Transmission: 18 speed autoshift

Rears: 3:55

Frame: full-length double

Fuel carrying capacity: 500 gallons

100 inches

Photos and the information about Blair and his truck come from Overdrive Online. Visit them (click here).

Classic COE … Style

COE’s aren’t as popular as working trucks in North America — the Europe they are, they have cutting edge COE technology, but I’ve read that the reason they use COEs over there is because of length limits. In North America the main criticism is the “first on the scene of an accident complaint.” Well, you’d never want to be that, but with COE’s like the one pictured above, you might want to be first one on the scene of a classic custom big rigs show.

I do a lot of web searching to try to find out where these photos come from, but sometimes they come up with nothing … absolutely nothing. This is one of those cases. Some of the most impressing photos of big rigs and custom sleepers and custom RVs are mere photos floating around. Hopefully someone on our social media shares can identify this one at least.

It’s a Peterbilt 352 cabover.

These trucks are very rare. It’s not just because they aren’t popular to use. It’s because they were produced usually with big horsepower engines. Most of these big engines were cannibalized in the 1980’s — maybe before the “classic”-ness of these trucks was recognized.

Well, truckers and enthusiasts, can you identify this custom semi tractor?

UPDATE: Some information from Scott Schwanger, who said the truck burned to the ground almost 10 years ago…long gone…Electrical fire….

And Cory Manthei said that the real truck isn’t chopped and it burned up in an electrical fire. It was the first castrol make over truck that chrome shop mafia did. Cory Manthei added the same thing.

“The Orange Truck”

This custom semi is known as the “orange truck” by its owner, Shawn Winders of Leesberg, Pa. According to Winders, he hauls “pretty much anything and everything” with the truck. Most of his cargo is flatbed materials, though. The custom semi is a 2004 Peterbilt. That’s an extended hood you see there. The wheelbase on the Pete is 320 inches.

The power comes from a Caterpillar engine and a 13-speed transmission. Shawn Winders drives for K Line Trucking, or at least he did last year when these photos were taken of his truck. Winders did “a complete makeover” to the truck, according to Overdrive Online.

(By the way, if anyone at K Line sees our post on social media like Facebook and Pinterest and you know more about the truck, let us know — even send us a message — and we’ll update this write up on the truck.) Under Shawn’s ownership, the Peterbilt got a new motor, new clutch, new fenders, new bumper.

What do you guys think of this all-orange custom semi? It’s a basic bright color, almost like you see some classic cars done in, with chrome highlights, like the borders of the compartments and the fuel tank straps, the rims, the pipes, and the door handles. It’s got a pretty good profile, doesn’t it?, and I think the flat color really makes the shapes of the profile stand out, both the top and bottom lines of the truck. Also, look at the way those fenders wrap all the way around both the front and back tires.

To read more from Overdrive Online, click here.

Long Luxury Motorhome

What qualifies this luxury RV as “big”? Just the length of the motorhome part of this toterhome is 15.8 meters. That’s 52 feet. Then you add on the trailer which is 38 feet. Plus the 4 feet to the hitch. That means this luxury RV is 94 feet long.

The base of this motorhome/5th wheel combo is a Volvo VN which many consider to be an already impressive RV vehicle, but with the bodywork and then harnessed to the trailer, it might be even more impressive. Just to give an idea of the length, a semi in France measures at 16.50 m almost the length of this Volvo RV. In the “small” trailer the owner can load through a hatch two other cars. In the other photo we include, the garage can be seen within a hydraulic stage. I wonder how much this thing weighs fully loaded?

The interior is of course top-of-the-line luxury for a vehicle of this type. But nothing is missing as usual and the layout is classic, a large back room with bathroom and toilet and the front kitchen diner. In the original truck cab there is a sofa and a third big chair. Also two extra folding berths.

The Volvo is equipped with a 550 horsepower Cummins engine, helped by an auto box, which would come in handy when on a trip in our continent, crossing the Rockies, for example. An anti-collision radar is equipped in front.

For maneuvers, eight mini-cameras help the driver. Which would probably help. Can you imagine cornering or backing this thing into some parking spot? This is quite the luxury RV motorhome (or tractor-trailer, depending on which you decide it is). I’m sure it’s going to need a powerful RV Battery!

Canadian Flag Quilts

How many quilters do you know in Canada? Here’s seven Canada-flag inspired quilts. If you have your own Canada quilt, please add a photo of it to our posts on social media, or send it to us — we’ll make one big giant quilt picture with as many as we receive. There are so many different types of quilts that exist, like ours and this traditional quilt made with tshirts!

So, in the land of many cold months, but the greatest land on Earth, here are the seven quilters behind these seven Canadian quilts:

Above, Row 1: Paper piecing maple leaf pattern by Berene Campbell at Happy Sew Lucky; Canadian Flag, free pattern by Christine Thresh at Winnowing.

Row 2: Maple leaf block (left), seen in a finished quilt by Carly at Citric Sugar ; free paper pieced pattern (right) by Christina at Christina Creating.

Row 3: Maple Leaf Mug Rug, free template and tutorial by Lara (Buzzin Bumble) at Quilting Board; Maple Leaf free block pattern at Berrima Patchwork.

Row 4: Canadian flag table runner, free pattern at Sew Sisters.

(Photo of all the flags [bigger version]): (click here).

This list was created by Quilt Inspirations to wish Canada a happy Canada Day in 2014. Canada thanks you, Quilt Inspirations. Visit Quilt Inspirations (click here).