Truckhouse based on AEV Ram 3500

[Rummie]

Gotta say this new Truckhouse is pretty interesting. With the two door option it's about the same wheelbase as a Gladiator. I've always liked the Earth Roamers but they are too big to go to a lot of places. This is really tempting. Not as capable as my Gladiator but it would be really nice for a lot of the trips we take.

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[Rusty PW]

The Ram 3500 has a lot more wheel base than you think. Anywhere from 144" to 172". Our Gladiator has a 137" wheel base. The 5G Power Wagon sits on a 149" wheel base.

 

[chorky]

Yeah thats cool and all but those are just so large. There was another company, cant remember the name at the moment, that was a cheaper version of earth roamer and built on the 1500 chassis. It was much more compact and kinda a middleman between the insanely large earth roamer and a small truck with a camper. But still much larger than the Gladiator.

After putting on some 500 miles this weekend on narrow roads with steep shelfs and crazy amounts of out-of-staters, I will say the absolute biggest positive of the gladiator, beside solid front axle and capability, is the narrow width. My friend who joined has a new chevy 1500 and while they had crap tons of dirt stripes (not quite a pinstripe scratch) I didnt have even one. Nada. In my opinion, this is a massive and under appreciated aspect of the Gladiator.

that being said. A Gladiator camper, if it could ever be within GAW spec, would be pretty sweet.

 

[Rummie]

The Ram 3500 has a lot more wheel base than you think. Anywhere from 144" to 172". Our Gladiator has a 137" wheel base. The 5G Power Wagon sits on a 149" wheel base.

The Ram 3500 regular cab (I mentioned 2 door) is 140" vs 137.3" for a Gladiator. Seems to be less than a 3" difference to me. Pretty darn close.

 

[Rummie]

Yeah thats cool and all but those are just so large. There was another company, cant remember the name at the moment, that was a cheaper version of earth roamer and built on the 1500 chassis. It was much more compact and kinda a middleman between the insanely large earth roamer and a small truck with a camper. But still much larger than the Gladiator.

After putting on some 500 miles this weekend on narrow roads with steep shelfs and crazy amounts of out-of-staters, I will say the absolute biggest positive of the gladiator, beside solid front axle and capability, is the narrow width. My friend who joined has a new chevy 1500 and while they had crap tons of dirt stripes (not quite a pinstripe scratch) I didnt have even one. Nada. In my opinion, this is a massive and under appreciated aspect of the Gladiator.

that being said. A Gladiator camper, if it could ever be within GAW spec, would be pretty sweet.

The narrow width of the Gladiator is definitely a plus. 100% agree with you. My wheels do stick out about 3" on each side though so my width at the tires is actually slightly more than the width of this beast at the body. I've been on narrower shelf roads than 99% of the people out there with that additional 6" of width. Of course that's only at the tires, but still pretty close overall.

This couldn't go everywhere we go since it's not going to do the level 8 & 9 trails that we have done in the Gladiator but it's not really that much larger than a Gladiator as you might guess at first glance. Definitely a cool new option that we could have a lot of fun with on many of our trips.

 

[Zybane]

People forget that things this large really restrict you in a lot of places for two more reasons beyond length and width; height and center of gravity.

Height meaning a lot of trails with tree branches will stop this thing, and tall center of gravity meaning it cannot do slopes very well. Let's not even get into the weight.

All these reasons is why I'm doing a bed cap camper build with rear window delete-pass through on my '23 37" Raptor.

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