One of the challenges of motorhome ownership is getting around once you’ve planted your stabilizer jacks. Many people haul around a motorcycle, a Smart Fortwo, or just hitch up their daily driver. But what if you’re the kind of person who can’t make up their mind? There’s a custom Freightliner FLA cabover semi out there with a tiny motorhome portion and a garage fit for three of your favorite cars, so long as they’re small enough. Some of America’s bridges are licking their chops because this behemoth is 14 feet tall. It also weighs around 30,000 pounds, yet you can drive it with your regular driver’s license.
This beast is currently up for grabs on Bring a Trailer and tells an interesting story. The truck has spent its life hauling collector cars all around America, and much of that time was spent with one owner. Now, it’s ready for adventure with someone new.
Many people buy toy-hauler RVs to bring their cars and powersports rides along on trips. Most of these rigs carry one, maybe two vehicles on a good day. This one? You have room for three and there’s still enough space for a kitchen and a toilet. Oh, and did I say you get to drive an awesome cab-over semi?
The Type Of Truck You Don’t Really See Anymore
The sight of a cab-over semi always gets me excited. You just don’t see these anymore in the States unless a committed driver is keeping a piece of vintage Americana on the road, or you spot a smaller cab-over doing landscaper transportation or delivery work. Yet, while cab-overs may be a rare sight on the American blacktop, they are descendants of the earliest forms of truck.
Truck manufacturer Autocar claims to have built America’s first truck in 1899 when it constructed the “engine-under-the-seat” Autocar delivery wagon. The company says that this was the predecessor to the modern cab-over.
It wasn’t long before that cabover style wasn’t just something that looked cool, but it was also legally necessary. As trucking magazine Heavy Duty Trucking writes, trucking became a large enough industry in the 1930s that the federal government decided to regulate it.
The 1932 Federal Motor Carrier Act gave the government the power to regulate trucking through the Interstate Commerce Commission. Next came the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, which required truckers to be registered with the ICC and prove that they were actually hauling something worthwhile. More regulations came in the form of the government limiting how long a driver can work for. Meanwhile, the states began imposing limits on how long and how heavy trucks could be. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 limited semi and trailer length to a total of 65 feet.
Those length and weight limits were a challenge, but the truck manufacturers had an ace up their sleeve. A truck was limited in length, so the preferred method to maximize cargo volume was to minimize the semi-tractor. Cabovers saved truckers several feet in length that could be used to haul more goods. But that’s only one solution. Truck manufacturers also worked to shave weight out of the tractors; again so that drivers could haul more weight behind.
These restrictions lasted for decades, making the cab-over-engine setup the dominant semi-tractor in America for the same length of time. Eventually, the relaxation of total tractor-trailer length laws meant the conventional semi became practical. It wasn’t long before cab-overs became old news.
But when cab-overs were king, Freightliner led the pack. It started with lightweight aluminum cabs when that was a novel idea. Freightliner held on to cab-overs for so long that it was the last holdout when it finally stopped selling the Argosy in America in the mid-2000s. This 1993 FLA came after cab-overs lost their steam, but before Freightliner gave up.
This Freightliner Car-Hauling Motorhome
At first glance, this 1993 Freightliner FLA looks like it was built as a large moving truck and then converted into a motorhome. However, the Bring a Trailer seller says that’s not the case.
According to the seller and the documents included in the sale, this Freightliner was built in early 1993 and was sold to its original owner that year. Apparently, it was a custom build from the start, so the truck never operated as a commercial vehicle and instead hit the road as a classic racecar (Ferraris, no doubt) hauler-slash- RV from mile one.
According to a supposed purchase record, the original owner paid $57,000 for the rig. They then spent another $13,227 to have Webco Pacific of Pacific, Missouri, mount an aluminum truck body on the truck’s custom chassis in May 1993. It’s unknown what the total spent on the truck was when new. The truck was then registered as an RV in July 1993 after the modifications were complete. So, the seller’s story about the truck being an RV from new seems to check out.
According to the seller, the original owner didn’t drive this truck themselves, relying instead on a hired driver and caretaker. The cab of the Freightliner FLA appears to be mostly stock. The 20-inch polished wood steering wheel from Vehicle Improvement Products of Antioch, Illinois was installed as part of the original build.
Sitting under the cab is an 855 cubic inch Cummins N14 turbodiesel inline-six with an air-to-air intercooler. The seller doesn’t give us a power figure, but these commonly made 350 HP and 1,150 lb-ft of torque or higher. According to the documentation, the truck cruises at 72 mph at 1550 RPM. That engine is backed up by an Eaton Fuller manual transmission with nine forward speeds and two reverse speeds. The truck rides on an air suspension and there’s a tag axle ahead of the rear axle to handle extra weight. Air brakes and a compression release engine brake handle stopping powers. There’s also a tow hitch on the back to bring even more toys along for the ride.
That’s all an awesome start, but the magic happens behind the sleeper of the cab-over. The whole rig is 42 feet long and most of it is dedicated to fun.
Starting in the very back, we see the first deck with a touch over 30 feet of space, good for two cars. Then there’s what’s more or less a four-post lift with a 15-foot deck. That bottom floor is good for vehicles 6.5 feet tall and there’s another few feet above the platform when it’s in its highest position. Obviously, this isn’t a ton of space for three vehicles, so you’re either bringing three small cars or two slightly larger cars. Reportedly, the truck has hauled vintage Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Jaguar racecars three at a time. But it’s also gotten a lot of miles, 210,000 of them, in fact, of hauling lots of collector cars.
Forward of the car garage is a small RV unit. It’s lined in wood paneling and features a kitchen and a small bathroom. There’s no shower, but you do get a toilet, a sink, a microwave, a refrigerator, a stereo, and a hardwood floor. No bed is provided outside of the sleeper cab, so you’ll have to bring your own. Documentation with the rig suggests it used to have a more proper bedroom back there with a CRT TV and a VCR. It would appear these items have been removed. What has stuck around is the CRT-based backup camera screen.
A Lotta Truck
All of this is wrapped in a massive rig that weighed 29,700 pounds on a scale and towers 14 feet tall. This is one of those vehicles where checking bridge height signs is important, unless you want to risk a bridge turning your truck in a pretty convertible. As I said before, this truck won’t require a CDL for you to drive it, but I hope you know a thing or two about handling big boys such as these.
If you do, it seems you’re getting a fantastic way to haul your stuff around without having to check into hotels. Sure, the camper part is currently lacking, but all of the hard work is already done for you. Sadly, while there are holding tanks, the seller doesn’t know how big they are. They also don’t know how big the diesel tanks are and what the fuel economy looks like. I can ignore all of that because this truck I just want to hop in the cab and start a convoy.
If you’re as smitten as I am, bidding is at $50,000 with two days to go. The truck sold for $100,000 in 2019 on Bring a Trailer after failing to sell for $195,000 on eBay that year. So, this isn’t the cheapest rig out there, but it’s also not the worst, either. Are you ready to be a big kid and live out your trucker dreams?
(Images: Bring a Trailer Seller Dfort-1, unless otherwise noted.)
Do I count 8 wheels? Never seen that configuration before
Do I count 8 wheels? Never seen that configuration before
Optimus Prime was a cab-over (originally). If I got this (which I won’t as I both cannot afford it and do not need it), I would need to Autobot Commanderfy it.