World’s First Solar-Electric Hybrid Gypsy Wagon: SunRay Kelley’s Magical RV

Gypsy wagons are the precursors of today’s motorhomes and RVs, canvased caravans, or horse-drawn vardos that used to travel the world many decades ago. Gypsy wagons still exist today, though only a few of them are still drawn by horses, and they usually make special appearances at horse fairs and some communal gatherings.

SunRay Kelley is not a Romani traveler. In fact, his family has lived on the same vast spot of land outside Sedo-Woolley, Washington, U.S., for generations: he was born and raised there and has now built a homestead that includes several houses, treehouses, and other wooden structures. But Kelley always loved the idea of how gypsy wagons integrated into nature through the use of open spaces and natural elements, their self-sufficiency, and artistic merit.

In 2010, Kelley, now an internationally-famous naturalist artist, set out to create the world’s first solar-electric hybrid gypsy wagon, or what has come to be known as Gypsy Wagon One – GW1, for short. It was an old but still pretty solid Toyota Dolphin camper, from which he only retained the chassis. The front end was replaced with the nose of a 1933 Willys made of fiberglass and weighing only 30 pounds (13.6 kg). The rear end was a new all-wood camper with an aluminum frame that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Tolkien novel but was relatively lightweight and insulated.

Kelley’s Gypsy Wagon (or any other of his creations, for that matter) is often described as “magical,” and it’s no exaggeration. The original GW1, for instance, was a retro-rustic frankenvehicle that also happened to be a complete home on wheels, with a full kitchen, a small two-person bed that doubled as living, a master bedroom in the cab-over bubble, and a composting toilet and an outdoor shower.

It had solar water heating, a (bio)diesel generator, and was dubbed the world’s first solar-electric hybrid gypsy wagon that could sleep a family with two kids on the road. It proved a hit: since then, Kelley has built six such Gypsy Wagons, each bringing new improvements both to the design and the approach to sustainable off-grid capabilities. Talk about a limited-edition product!

The latest build was completed in the summer of 2020 and listed for sale in January 2021 for just $49,000. The first video at the bottom of the page is of a tour of the rig, with a presentation from Kelley himself. It’s longer than GW1 and now features a slide-out for the living, which means that you can now sleep two adults comfortably on the bed. The extra space allowed Kelley to add two solid wood tables with seating integrated into the furniture and, perhaps more importantly, a proper restroom with a composting toilet. The shower is still on the outside, though.

Using an ‘82 Dolphin as a base, whose nose it also retains, the latest GW has 1,000W of solar on the roof (and a living roof) and a 3,000W inverter and is perfectly capable of going off-grid, Kelley says. It also features a 3-burner Dometic propane stove, a fridge and freezer, and a water heater. Like the original rig, it has plenty of glazing, including in the cab-over bedroom, which is still like a bubble of glass with a mattress in the center. This much glazing means it can get pretty hot in the summer, but all the windows open up for better ventilation, and there’s also a pop-up skylight.

Kelley says that building a Gypsy Wagon takes him six months of work on a daily basis to put together and then another six months of retouching and perfecting the details. Then again, he’s not exactly the kind of man who sticks to a plan, even when it’s on paper. Kelley calls himself an evolutionary architect and designer, and he defined that in a 2012 NYT interview as, “You make plans, but if a better idea comes along tomorrow, you’re willing to change [them].”

His goal in building anything, whether it’s a Gypsy Wagon, a recumbent electric trike, a solar-powered standing scooter, a treehouse, or a family home, is to push the limits and to create something practical and beautiful that integrates into nature. Looking at the videos below and seeing him barefoot and smoking cigar-shaped “herbal palliatives,” you’ll instantly know that the man is a diehard hippie of the true kind, not some kind of avocado-eating poser.

Kelley hates being boxed, whether figuratively or in real life, so his GWs are anything but boxes. They’re also real works of art, with the campers entirely built by hand and with love. “I’m hoping that seeing is believing, and that seeing what I do shows what [else] is possible,” he once said.