Hunter RMV Expedition Trucks Get Way Better Fuel Mileage Than Your House Does

According to Hunter RMV, about half of the off-road adventure rig company’s clients over the last decade of operation are living the no-fixed-address life onboard. The idea of living out of your car has very different connotations depending on your net worth, but in the case of Hunter’s customers, it means luxurious off-grid lounging at a beach in Mexico or on top of a mountain in Alaska. It also means solar-powered air conditioning, a queen-sized bed, a full kitchen inside, a camp kitchen outside, a full bathroom, and — if you option it — an all-in-one clothes washer and dryer. My 650-square-foot city apartment might be slightly more comfortable to live in, but it would take a whole lot more than one gallon of low-sulfur diesel fuel to move the 100-plus-year-old brick building it’s in nine miles down the road. 

Bradley Brownell

That’s the joy of a Hunter-built “Repurposed Military Vehicle.” You can take pretty much whatever you want along for the ride, and that ride could be anywhere in the world. While I was visiting the Hunter shop, a customer was in to witness the finalization of his rig’s build, which he planned to drive from the shop in Northwest Nevada to Alaska to pick up his girlfriend before turning around and heading to South America for the rest of the year. After spending a day in the saddle of a few machines outfitted by Hunter, I had almost convinced myself into selling our house and buying one of these to live in. Almost. 

Full Disclosure: Hunter RMV wanted me to test a few of its rigs out in the desert. The company flew me to Reno, Nevada, fed me good food, and put me up in a nice hotel room for the night. 

Hunter will build you a gorgeous house on wheels from just about any set of wheels that can carry the load. While visiting the shop I noticed the company’s “four-seasons habitation boxes” mounted on a Mitsubishi Fuso, an Isuzu FTR, a Ford F-350, a GMC Topkick, and a variety of upcycled surplus military vehicles. Hunter’s bread and butter adventure rig is based on the Acela Monterra, which is itself an upfitted U.S. Military FMTV truck, kitted out with niceties like air conditioning, Apple CarPlay, and gearing that allows them to cruise at highway speeds. Got all that?

Let’s start at the beginning. The truck pictured here started life as a style of “medium tactical vehicle” used by the U.S. Army. The vehicle was originally designed by Austria’s Steyr in the mid-1980s for a variety of municipal and military purposes. The U.S. Army bought the rights to produce a substantially modified version of the Steyr 90-series, and subcontracted Stewart & Stevenson or Oshkosh to build them with 7.2-liter Caterpillar turbodiesel engines and 7-speed Allison automatic gearboxes. These giant trucks are built to survive just about everything, drive over any terrain, and remain reliable even in a warzone. 

With that as a starting point, Acela in Bozeman, Montana takes the MTV and de-militarizes it for civil use by a civilian. Available in both 4×4 and 6×6 variants, Acela calls its completely re-engineered Monterra “the most capable truck in North America.” Acela will take a military truck and pull it completely apart, replacing any worn out components and sending each retained component for rebuild, refit, or rehabilitation. At the end of the process you have a like-new truck that is in many ways better than it was for the military. 

Delivered new from Acela, the MTV cum Monterra then becomes the starting point for a complete Hunter house build. Every Hunter build is done to the specifications of the client, and can feature as nice of fixtures or appliances as you feel like paying for. With an in-house cabinet maker, solar and wiring specialist, and a variety of construction geniuses on the company payroll, these folks can build your new house. 

Every good house starts with a good foundation, right? Hunter has developed a four-point articulating subframe for its habitation boxes, which keeps the box isolated from some of the jounce and jostle of off-roading a big military truck. You’ll still need to make sure your cabinets are latched when you put a wheel off the pavement, but this helps maintain the strength and integrity of the exterior walls. Those walls, by the way, are constructed of a thick foam with an estimated 18 R-value, which is better than some stick-built houses. “It’s like living in a Yeti cooler,” says Hunter RMV co-founder Keith Storey.

Bradley Brownell

The interior appointments are as nice as any RV I’ve looked at, but properly equipped for hauling deep into the woods or boondocking out in the desert. 1,200 watts of rooftop solar and over 100 gallons of fresh water guarantee you should be able to get wherever you want to go in comfort. There’s plenty of room inside the 15-footer box on the back of the Acela to fit a queen-sized elevator bed, as well as the dinette which can fold into another large bed. There’s room for more people to sleep in the Hunter habitat box than there is for passengers inside the Acela’s cockpit. 

Bradley Brownell

If the weather is bad you can use the indoor kitchen’s induction cooktop, microwave, sink, and counter space to prepare your meals, but if it’s nice out you’ll probably want to make use of the roll-out Traeger pellet grill on the outside of your rig under a fold-out shade awning. There’s a ton of storage on the outside of the truck to bring along whatever your heart desires, but I’d definitely pack a hammock to lay out and relax while my meat cooks on the grill. And if you went swimming or your dog got dirty in the meantime, you can rinse everything off with an outdoor shower.

At about 21,000 pounds ready-to-rock, this giant machine is hardly going to be setting any acceleration records, but it’s quick enough to keep up with traffic. As a military truck this was limited to something like 58 miles per hour when it was deployed, but Acela has fitted the truck with high-efficiency hubs and high-speed gearing that (allegedly) allows the truck to clear 80 mph. 

With angular dash faces, thin metal doors, seats out over the front axle, a flat steering wheel, and air brakes, driving this big machine on the street is reminiscent of hauling ass in a school bus. The large flat glass windows, giant mirrors, and backup camera provide excellent views to make placing the truck on the road relatively easy, and parking is a breeze if you have enough space. While most of my on-road experience with the Hunter/Acela was found driving from the shop to the two-track desert trails, I was surprisingly comfortable with the size of the machine in rapid fashion. 

If you’re used to the quiet comfort of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, you’ll probably be turned off by the inherent NVH of an ex-military vehicle. Despite all of the sound deadening added to the cabin, it’s still quite loud and there isn’t a suspension system in the world that can properly soak up 21,000 pounds of bump, but the air ride driver’s seat certainly helps. The aftermarket HVAC will absolutely chill you to the bone if you crank it up, but the blower motor is loud enough you have to speak up for your passenger, who sits miles away across the massive expanse of engine hump. As a minimalist, I enjoyed the Alpine double DIN touchscreen stereo tacked on top of the dashboard, but you’re paying for longevity, repairability, and simplicity. This is not a luxury driving experience by any measure. 

Any vehicle with a push-button onboard tire inflation system is already going to be ten steps ahead of anything that doesn’t have it, don’t you think? This big rig is pretty well equipped for the duty of driving on non-paved surfaces because the military needed to be able to ford water and drive over deep sand. It’s not going to be tackling the Rubicon Trail any time soon, just due to its sheer size, but if you hit the open expanses of the American southwest you can pretty much just pick out a destination with your eyeballs and point the truck that direction, you’ll get there soon enough. 

As-equipped, this Hunter RMV build is ready for the slow and steady. With your house on the back, and your back basically sitting on the front wheels, you aren’t going to want to go hammer down on a rough surface. Even on the rough and washed out two-track trails we found in the Nevada desert, we kept speeds down below ten mph to prevent being shaken apart. 

It’s big, slow, and lumbering, but it’ll pretty much go anywhere you could ever want it to, and keep you comfortable and alive when you get there. I can’t travel with my house, so this seems like the next best thing. 

Hunter RMV will basically build you just about anything you want, and the pricing escalates with your wildest desires and whims. I tried to get a feel for the range of prices available from Hunter RMV, asking for the bare minimum and a pie-in-the-sky number for a turnkey build. It goes without saying that these machines are expensive, as the base trucks from Acela are already deep into the six figures. I asked about a couple of scenarios and what they would cost, you can probably extrapolate your dream rig’s price from there, but if you’re serious about it I’m sure Hunter will work with you to figure out what you can afford. 

First up, I tried to get a feel for the bare minimum cost from Hunter. If you already have a large diesel truck that can accommodate a house on the back, you’re a step ahead of the game. Deliver your heavy duty highway hauler, commercial box truck, or former military machine to Hunter and you’re looking at around $200,000 for the big box on the back packed with a house-worth of furniture, fixtures, and appliances. 

The other truck I drove, the Isuzu FTR pictured above with a larger box that includes a motorcycle garage at the back, is fully equipped and high-optioned. Being a brand new truck underneath, this one is a bit more expensive at around $600,000. You can use these prices as a springboard for whatever your imagination might create. 

If you called up to place your order right now, you’ve got a little while to make the funds liquid because Hunter is already backed up with a bunch of orders. It builds about six trucks per year, and each build takes around 16 months to complete from start to finish. Good luck, maybe I’ll see you out there on your adventures!