The KiraVan Remains the Most Expensive, Impressive and Outrageous Overlander

If you’re Bran Ferren, you start building your dream rig. And then you pour millions into it, turning it into a never-ending, over-engineered project.

Ferren is a well-known technologist, inventor, and businessman. He is famous for his work as former head of research and development for Disney’s Imagineering, which saw him design Disney park rides, but also for the work his company Applied Minds has done for the military, Ford and GM, and Intel. He is smart, painfully iterative and overly complicated – the ultimate overthinker.

One of his most famous creations is the perfect example of his personality. The KiraVan came along one year after his daughter’s birth in 2009 and, today, one decade after construction on it started, it’s still the world’s most outrageous and impressive overlander. And just as much of an impossible dream as it was back then.

The idea for the KiraVan was inspired by Ferren’s desire to take his daughter camping. Instead of buying the most expensive expedition vehicle out there (since he could very well afford it), Ferren decided to build one himself because this was the only way in which he’d know for a fact that his daughter would be safe. He wanted Kira to travel to the most remote locations in the world but, at the same time, he wanted her to be completely insulated and protected.

The KiraVan is, as of the time of writing, a research and development project, and it doesn’t look like it will ever be able to go anywhere. It’s been over-engineered to such an extent that it’s a mere platform for various kinds of technologies, but with little application in everyday life – even in some of the wildest scenarios of overlanding.

Built on a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U500NA with a Mercedes-Benz 6-cylinder in-line 260 hp high-efficiency intercooled turbo-diesel engine providing 700 ft-lb of torque, the KiraVan is an articulated overlander. The tractor is the Unimog, which has been stripped of almost everything and tricked out in such a way as it now resembles an airplane cockpit. Meanwhile, the trailer includes a generous office, a galley, an eco-friendly bathroom that sees all waste decomposed into dust, and two upper levels – one for dining and a loft that doubles as Kira’s bedroom.

The total length of the KiraVan is of 52 feet (15.8 meters). Packed with food and water, it can stay self-sufficient for several weeks, with a family of three onboard, and can go 2,000 miles (3,218 km) before needing to stop for fuel. More importantly though, this thing is meant to detect every possible obstacle it comes across, whether it’s a log on the bottom of a shallow river it’s crossing, to black ice or difficult weather conditions farther down the road.

Equipped with seven communication masts that collect data, the KiraVan is like an airplane, “but stuck to the ground,” as Ferren once said. It carries specialized technology for communications, telepresence, navigation, mapping, still, film, and video production, remote exploration, physical and chemical analysis, geology, archaeological survey work and digs, scientific field research, and thorough trip documentation, as per Applied Minds. It’s not just a citadel able to take you anywhere in the world, through water and sand, and up 45-degree inclines, and a luxury condo, but also a rolling research lab.

The KiraVan has kevlar tires and reinforced body, and it can travel with the same ease and the same degree of comfort for the passengers in sub-zero temperatures and the scorching heat of the desert. It’s fitted with drones that you can send out for road recon, and no less than 22 exterior cameras that constantly monitor the surroundings.

To cap it all off, in the back is a diesel-powered motorcycle – a dinghy, as Ferren calls it. You can’t roll this monster of a rig into town to buy eggs and milk if you run out of supplies, which is when the 100 mph (161 kph) bike comes in handy. By the way, the KiraVan can only do a maximum of 70 mph (112.6 kph) on the highway, which may seem little if compared to a regular car, but is impressive for something this size. It can also switch from 4x4 to 6x6 when need be.

Everything inside has been designed specifically for the project. The passenger seat behind the driver, which is Kira’s spot, for instance, was created by Bose and is an adaptation of their noise-reduction tech found in their headphones. This time, though, it’s applied in the vibration spectrum in order to reduce humps and shudders, to make the ride as smooth as possible, regardless of the terrain being crossed. Ferren replaced the original suspension on the Unimog with a nitrogen-hydraulic system to that same end.

All this seems excessive for a family camper, to say the least. And it is. Ferren knows that the project attained a life of its own along the way, so he’s now saying it could also double as a research vehicle. Because of the kind of tech on board, it could carry anything from explorers to researchers and film crews to wherever they need to be. Moreover, he will license and share all he’s learned in the build with other companies, and include some of the findings in future Applied Minds products.

It’s a good thing he’s feeling so generous, if you think about it. The years he’s been building this monster rig (years he could have spent actually taking his daughter camping in already-built overlanders) and the millions he’s already invested in it have not amounted to anything concrete. As of the time of press, the only time the KiraVan was taken on the road (that we know of) was for the feature included in the video below.

On that particular occasion, it made it for 2 miles (3.2 km) at 5 mph (8 kph) through Los Angeles before it started leaking diesel. Not that impressive for the so-called “ultimate, go-anywhere expedition vehicle.”