Global Expedition Vehicles might be one of the companies referenced above as a “Backyard” manufacturer, but please don’t tell us. We think we build a very fine world-class Expedition Vehicle.

Currently we have 2 Unimog Expedition Vehicles for sale. One is the original Prototype Expedition Unit placed onto a “brand-new” untitled 2005 Unimog U500. This is the Expedition Unit that my wife and I took to South America and all points in between, and tested for one year prior to placing it onto the “new chassis” and beginning to manufacture units for sale. Another Unimog sold earlier this year will soon be exploring in Australia and another is touring the Western US National Parks. Our last Unimog is under construction as a “Safari Expedition” model.

I have a great deal of respect for Unicat and Action Mobil. They build a fine product, and it has been well tested. I might have considered purchasing one instead of building my own had I been aware of their existence a few years back.

However, I believe that Global Expedition Vehicles builds a product every bit as good, or better, at a substantial discount from the European cost. We are a small company without the overhead of our European counterparts. We also have the flexibility of building to a customer’s layout and component requirements, although we prefer to build using the Solar and Diesel/Bio-diesel technology we currently implement, and believe to be important in today’s world.

Global Expedition Vehicles constructs using “time and field-tested sandwich-panel composites,” and we can build on any chassis a customer desires, including a domestic small chassis such as a one-ton. However, we do not consider the small truck chassis to be a world-class Expedition Vehicle due to the worldwide serviceability and capacity constraints, but is more suited to domestic travels.

See us at http://www.globalxpeditionvehicles.com. Then come visit, and I’ll give you the tour and I’ll buy lunch.

P.S. It’s a short tour.

EarthRoamer has built over 100 expedition vehicles since our start in 2002. EarthRoamer Xpedition Vehicles have been driven completely around the world and throughout the Americas. As a bonus, they don’t look like garbage trucks and are small enough to get into tight places where Unicats simply won’t fit.

http://www.earthroamer.com/galleries/mpt81/

Aside from a handful of very small “backyard” manufacturers, there are two proven expedition-grade vehicle builders in the world – ActionMobil of Austria and Unicat of Germany. Only Unicat is providing street-legal models for the North American market. Between the two they have built around 300 vehicles over the past twenty years or so and to our knowledge every one of those units is still active.

Quite a few units have been built for purposes other than private use (promotional, search-and-rescue, chase vehicles for the Paris-Dakar Race, remote filming, research, mobile labs, etc.) but the majority are being used by individuals, families or groups for adventure travel to all corners of the world.

Avi Meyers