World's most exotic truck camper?

There were thousands of incredible custom-built vehicles at this year’s SEMA aftermarket show in Las Vegas, but none could compare to the money-no-object KiraVan motorhome.

Just getting into the six-wheel-drive 23,100kg global exploration vehicle is a feat in itself.

“Face forward when you climb into cab and face forward when you climb out; otherwise, you will fall and kill yourself,” are the precise instructions of its owner Bran Ferren.

It’s about a two metre fall or climb depending on your direction.

“The trouble with cabover trucks is there’s just no good answer to the problem of how do you climb from the ground into the cab in the limited space,” he continues.

Ferren knows every step of the KiraVan, a six-wheel-drive 23,100kg truck (including fifth-wheel style trailer), because he designed it and his team of 150 technicians based in South California built it.

Ferran happens to own Applied Minds. Google his name; he’s interesting.

“Our company invents and designs high technology stuff. We build satellites and if we can build satellites, we can build a truck,” he says.

He’s certainly built a truck loaded with technology that you might find in a satellite.

But calling it a truck is like calling Greg Norman’s super yacht Aussie Rules a raft.

With a 52ft fifth-wheel style caravan out back, the KiraVan is literally a two-bedroom, one kitchen and one bathroom apartment on wheels, capable of comfortably cruising the planet, which is exactly what Ferren intends to do with his six-year-old daughter.

The driver can control everything on the truck from the driver’s seat. It started as a Mercedes Unimog U500 chassis stretched 1014mm and from there Ferren leaned heavily on the full technical resources of Applied Minds and its employees.

As we’re talking he presses a button and a boom extends about five metres above the cab. Atop the boom is an infrared heat-detecting sensor which will be incredibly handy in Africa at night when you need to irrigate the native flora.

Ferren wasn’t too impressed by the original chassis so he doubled its strength then replaced the original suspension with a complete pneumatic/hydraulic suspension system with 560mm range of travel.

“It also has joystick control in 6WD mode so you can actually lean the suspension while you’re moving,” he said. When the hydro-drive system is engaged, it’s 6WD up to 45km/h.

The pneumatics carry through to a tyre pressure regulator system allowing Ferren to deflate on the go for soft sand or inflate for highway cruising.

There are plenty of exotic places around the world to explore, if you can go beyond the road’s end, and  the KiriVan is engineered to cover ground, paved or not. With 660 litres of diesel in its tanks, the driving range extends to about 3200km on good roads at speeds up to 110km/h.

Telecoms? Ferren likes to stay in contract, so the KiraVan is loaded.

“If you can think of it, it is in it,” he said. “For on-the-road simple messaging, it has Iridium. When you’re on the road and need broadband, it has BGAN which is Inmarsat.

“When you’re stationary, it is ViaSat broadband Ka-band. And for long range when there are no satellites, it has a two-metre deployable ABL KU dish.”

During those stays when Ferren doesn’t feel motivated to drive 23 tonnes of KiraVan into town, he can drop the rear hydraulic tailgate and off load the turbo diesel motorcycle.

The Track motorcycle uses the Mercedes Smart 800cc CDI three-cylinder engine and is almost as rare as the one-off custom KiraVan.

For more images of the KiraVan, watch the video below...