The whole point of an RV vacation is to go on a different kind of holiday, one that sees you less interacting with other people and more spending time in nature.
As well all know so well, nature is very kind to us providing food and materials and all that. What it doesn't provide, though, is roads, which means that if you want to go exploring deeper than most people do and bring home with you like a snail, you'll have to look at an all-wheel-drive rig.
To be fair, in most cases, it's not traction that prevents motor homes from reaching certain areas but rather things such as ground clearance and their owner's willingness to transform a perfectly normal holiday into a really bumpy one. However, if you want to go "far from the madding crowd," we can't think of any better option.
Is that why the guys from Motortrend's "Dirt Every Day" show took the 1975 Winnebago Brave RV, brought it back to life and gave it an off-road makeover? No, not at all, in their case, it was all for fun. Besides, it turned out the 440ci Chrysler engine wasn't up to scratch when it came to hauling the RV up an incline.
After messing with the vehicle's wheels, suspension, and transmission during the show's seventh season, the guys at Motortrend seemingly forgot about the Winnebago Brave for almost two years. During the ninth season, though, they decided to revive the RV, but also kind of repurpose the thing. A clip with footage from both episodes has been posted on YouTube, and you can watch it below.
The underpowered motorhome (or Off-Roaderhome, as they refer to it) is to get an engine upgrade - and not just any upgrade. A brand new LS7 block and transmission made their way under the Winnebago's floor, and let's just say the noise that RV now makes it seem like the video and audio come from two different tracks.
The huge off-road tires it still has one don't help one bit with the credibility of the whole scene, but once they start to produce smoke as the Winnebago does its best impersonation of a burnout, it simultaneously starts to make more and less sense. If that makes any sense.
We won't go into any more detail, but we will say that, despite the hysterical laughing, the ending isn't exactly a happy one for the classic Winnebago. The clip is ten minutes long, but it's pretty good fun if you love cars. Plus, it has both off-road and burnouts, which is not something you can say about a lot of videos focusing on a single vehicle.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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