Extreme RVs Grow Bigger, Bolder With Younger Consumers

Eli Kogan isn’t the type you’d imagine would buy a giant, wildly modified automobile that can survive a rugged off-road trek. The clean-cut 27-year-old entrepreneur likes things powerful but tidy: He owns modern and vintage Porsches as well as Ducati bikes designed for the track. He founded and operates the exclusive Otto Car Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., where members discuss art and wine next to their Lamborghini Aventadors and Ferrari F50s.

But last year, Kogan purchased a used, jacked-up overlander called an EarthCruiser.

It’s not a truck, per se. Nor is it technically an SUV or van. The sand-colored metal box on wheels could have driven straight out of a Mad Max film. It uses a Mitsubishi Fuso commercial truck platform with a four-cylinder diesel engine, and it’s equipped with solar panels on its pop-up roof, a flexible canopy top, and hitches for motorcycles, storage lockers, and canoes. His EarthCruiser has a bathroom, a shower, a kitchen, and a bed that’s actually comfortable.

Covid-19 “absolutely” prompted the buy, Kogan says. He and his girlfriend use it frequently to drive back and forth on work trips with their German shepherds from Arizona to Los Angeles, Northern California, and Oregon.

“This has allowed me to hit the road and go anywhere at any time without Covid concerns in hotels and all that,” he says. “I can pull up to a remote location, push a button, and camp is deployed.”

Kogan is one of many young professionals spending more time off the grid. From Malibu to Montauk, educated and affluent consumers are reorganizing their free time around so-called overlanding, traveling in comfort toward the embrace of the great outdoors. The surge of their interest and cash has transformed the formerly humble backcountry into a playground for six-figure rigs kitted out with thousands of dollars of glamping “necessities.”

Read the full article from Bloomberg here.