Camper vans are a sizzling hot market right now. Even when towables lost ground, camper vans got double-digit gains. Some of these vans cater to those who want to take their campers out into the wilderness. The 2023 Winnebago 4×4 Revel promises to take you just about anywhere in luxury. I love it, but its $210,000 base price gives me pause. Here’s what I mean.
Winnebago has been on a roll lately. The Hike 100 travel trailer is an adorable wonder with some legitimate off-road capabilities. The eRV2, while imperfect, is a window into an electric future of camper vans. Winnebago has even teamed up with Adventure Wagon to make a camper van with a fluid floorplan. Since 2017, Winnebago has also been selling the Revel, a camper van that the company says is “a true 4X4 RV designed to take you to places no other Winnebago motorhome has gone before.” I got to tour the latest version at the 2023 Florida RV SuperShow and I loved what I saw.
Not The Winnebago You’re Used To
Winnebago has a long history of selling quality campers for an affordable price. As I’ve written about before, one of Winnebago’s claims to fame was slicing costs by adopting car manufacturing methods into camper building. Winnebago’s first motorhomes left the factory in 1967. The company says its first F-17 and F-19 motorhomes had a huge advantage over the competition back in the day because they were no longer than a station wagon and half of the price of the competition.
Over the decades, Winnebago has built up a reputation for affordable, quality campers. However, the brand is not afraid to dip into the luxury RV space as well. When I went to the RV Open House in Indiana, I toured pretty lavish Winnebago Class A motorhomes with prices hanging around half a million dollars.
The Revel is among these luxury rigs, and back in 2017, publications like Curbed called it “not your grandfather’s RV.”
The 2023 Winnebago 4×4 Revel 44E
As of right now, Winnebago is selling just one floorplan for its off-road camper van; it’s called the 44E. At the heart of the Revel is a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500 with a high roof and a 144-inch wheelbase.
One of Winnebago’s bigger selling points for this van is that it features a part-time four-wheel-drive system with a low-range selector. Under the hood sits a 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel making 188 HP and 325 lb-ft torque. In High, the four-wheel-drive system sends 35 percent torque to the front axle. With the low range engaged, it’s a 50 percent split between the axles. There are no lockers, but the van uses an off-road traction control and stability control system to apply brakes to wheels without traction. I have a similar system in my Volkswagen Touareg and it’s shocking how effective they can be.
This powertrain is somewhat unique for now. For the 2023 model year, Mercedes dropped the V6 and the 4×4 system. The 2023 Sprinter sports a 2.0-liter diesel four making 211 HP and 332 lb-ft torque. In the 4×4 system’s place is an all-wheel-drive system. There’s no low range here, but Mercedes-Benz says that the system can send up to 50 percent of available torque to the front wheels. The 2023 Winnebago Revels still have the older powertrain and it’s unclear when the camper will change over to the smaller engine and AWD.
Mercedes sells the base vans for $59,350. Winnebago doesn’t say how much it gets Sprinters for, but there’s a chunk of the Revel’s $210,292 base price right there.
Continuing around the exterior, Winnebago adds BF Goodrich KO2 all-terrain tires, a powered awning, and a ladder to the roof. Up there, you’ll find a roof rack with clearance lights up front, two solar panels adding up to 215 watts, and the van’s air-conditioner. You can use the rack to mount gear like kayaks or similar.
At the show, Winnebago had another Revel with a few extra bits to show what you could do with one of these. On that van, the hood was covered in bedliner and the roof rack had an off-road light bar.
The doors of that one also got the bedliner and there were two storage cases on the roof. These made the van look more rugged, but it should be noted that these don’t have any substantial underbody protection. I’m also not entirely sure about the benefit of covering your hood in bedliner.
I would have loved to see something like a front skid plate at the very least.
A Functional Interior
The interior of this van is definitely more functional than beautiful. Up front, you get a driver and passenger seat that spin around to face the dinette, making a living room of sorts.
Next to the dinette is a small galley kitchen. Cooking is handled by a portable induction cooktop. There’s a small refrigerator onboard and a sink on the galley’s laminate counter.
Across from that is a small wet bath with a 5-gallon cassette toilet and shower. I wasn’t able to go in here, but I can say that this shower would definitely be a tight fit if you’re a taller or larger person. The van holds 21 gallons of fresh water and 21 gallons of waste water.
Moving back from there is the combination bedroom and garage. Another feature that Winnebago advertises here is the power lift bed system. As the name suggests, your bed is connected to a lift system that is able to lift the bed up to the ceiling, providing you with a small garage with tie-downs for whatever you can fit back there. The Winnebago’s floor is rubberized so putting something dirty back there wouldn’t ruin your day.
Other interior bits include RAM track rails to securely attach gear in the van, screens for the doors, and a bamboo rack that turns the wet bath into a closet. Powering all of this is a 320 Ah lithium-ion battery that is charged either by the solar panels or by shore power or the van’s second alternator. In terms of heating, the camper has a heater that feeds from the van’s tank of diesel. The water heater also drinks diesel.
Quality
Overall, I like the interior layout and the power bed seems to be really nifty. However, the interior is where I started to struggle with the price. The quality of the materials in there didn’t feel great and the color choices were also confusing. For example, the dinette bench was blue and white while the van’s seats were black leather. The bench seemed like an afterthought; like someone ran out of time and just put something there.
For materials like the counters, cabinets, and the walls of the bathroom, they all felt like a bad Chicago pothole could loosen them or perhaps an accident loading your bicycle could put a hole through something. This is to say that the interior felt like it would be at home in the cheapest trailers on the market, not a luxury van. The water connections are also sort of weird as they’re inside, requiring you to leave the door unlatched.
As it turns out, I’m not alone. There are seven owner reviews on RV Insider, most of them praise the van’s off-road capabilities, but note that the quality may not be up to par for the price. One reviewer said that their 2021 Revel was “the biggest let down.” For comparison, if you have $200,681 laying around, you can get an Airstream Interstate 19. That van feels like a luxury apartment inside and you still get a high-roof Mercedes-Benz Sprinter with the V6 turbodiesel, but rear-wheel-drive.
The Competition
In terms of competition, the Winnebago goes up against known names in the off-road van world like Sportsmobile. That company will sell you a 4×4 Sprinter camper van for about the same price, if not cheaper. Another Winnebago selling point is that this is an off-road camper van that you can get serviced and the company’s large dealer network.
I do love the idea of the 2023 Winnebago 4×4 Revel 44E. It’s a camper van with four-wheel-drive sold by a household name! But at its starting price of $210,292, it seems that the interior isn’t quite there. That said, I’d love to drive one and see how it wheels.
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Am I the only one who thinks the entire established RV market is more focused on putting out superficial products that only look useful? These Revels are just one example. They don’t really add anything to the off-road ability of the base Sprinter, but they dress them up as if they do. Light bars, after market wheels, covering the hood in bedliner? Really? And come on RV builders, can you stop sneezing all of the buttons and controls haphazardly onto a cabinet wall? Am I the only one who thinks that looks janky and cheap? I’ve seen brand new RVs where the switches and controls were installed crooked and misaligned.
And the interior, it ‘looks’ useful, but when you actually go out into the wilderness and use it, you discover that unless you’ve got shore power somewhere, the van doesn’t have enough battery power or solar to run all the feature conveniences (fridge, induction stove, heating system, lights) for any reasonable length of time (ie, more than a night or two). You spend over $200k for a 4×4 van that will get you out to go boon docking, but then discover its actually pretty shit at boon docking…
Having built my own long-duration camper in a 170″ Sprinter (building a second now), there’s a big difference between a simple weekender party van like this and something you can actually live in comfortably for extended periods without having to go find a place to plug in, or take a noisy, smelly generator with you. The design I’ve built (as an architect, with the help of a finish carpenter friend of mine), as long as you have at least 4 or so hours of sunlight on the 1 KW of solar on the roof each day, you’re only limited by how much water you have and how much diesel fuel you have. And, my design is pretty on the inside, really comfortable and its got fiber optic stars in the ceiling.
Since the Sprinter and nearly all its competitors use transverse layout, I4 is way easier to service than V6, especially if they are twisted towards the bulkhead. Are there any mild hybrid on the horizon?
With laser CMM and CNC these days, I would think it would be easy to knock out custom design for van conversions. I guess they can no longer blame mismatched vinyl to supply chain disruptions?
The pre 2023 Sprinter’s V6 was not transverse. The Sprinter was never a FWB based van, its always been RWD, with 4WD as an option. (I’ve owned 2 pre 2023 Sprinters, both V6s with 4WD.)
While $200k won’t buy a house in Bend Oregon, an awful lot of people have decked out Sprinters and Transits that park outside Whole Foods and at the trailheads. I don’t know how many get seriously out there, but then again I don’t go 4 wheeling either. We’ve talked about a van as something with basic facilities for mountain biking and some dispersed camping but these are way too expensive for our budget. I suspect we’ll end up with home brewing an Econoline or maybe an early Sprinter since rust is rarely a problem in Oregon
I think most of the folks making comments aren’t really the audience for these. There’s no doubt that the van platform introduces some pretty significant compromises, but the folks who own these aren’t really interested in sitting in their RV watching TV next to their neighbor in the KOA. They want a small, go anywhere platform with just the amenities needed to rest, eat and stay warm/cool after a long day of mountain biking, surfing, dirtbiking, climbing, etc. I spent 100+ nights in my Vanagon during covid working and moving from one trailhead to another and had the opportunity to meet many folks doing similar things. Most times you are driving up a gravel road and camping anywhere you can fit your rig, things you just cant do with a big RV. That said, I “upgraded” to a truck camper on a 4X4 F250, but I have several friends with both the Revel, and its competitor – the Storyteller (https://storytelleroverland.com/pages/2023-stealth-mode) and even thought the storyteller is less expensive, it seems to hold up better. And yes, neither of these options are cheap, but they do fill a specific need, and seem to hold their value – at least for now.
It’s a better deal out my way, 210k won’t get you an apartment, let alone a house
I’ve been retired for 15 yrs, so my value system is pretty out of touch.
But $200 grand for this still seems stunningly expensive.
You could buy TWO 1000hp Demon 170 Challengers for that much.
And those 2 Challengers will appreciate, you will probably end up able to fund this RV and have a Challenger to spare.
Better off renting a larger comfortable RV than try to vacation in this miniature crap box. $150,000 over the brand new van cost. I’m guess you can rent a large comfy obnoxious RV for a week for 70 years to match the cost. And if you decide to go to Hawaii one year well no problem. And if you want to go off trail just get the insurance.
I live in a coastal vacation town in Maine that is on the main road to Acadia National Park from the south (Rte 1). All summer I see every permutation of campervan roll through. The really tricked out Sprinter 4x4s that are encrusted with ladders, racks, tactical boxes, etc are inevitably clean enough to eat off of.
Considering what people spend on sailboats around here, a $210K van is not gonna really dent their toy budget.
Family is from Ellsworth and Bangor once they got off the boat! Proposed to my wife up there. Agree, never seen a car up there that looked muddy that wasn’t a local jeep/truck.
Couldn’t agree more with your comment about the materials selection, fit and finish of the interior. The overall design of the Revel is super clever — the more you look the more impressive the Revel is. I really commend the designer. However, the materials — woof.
Back in 2019-2020 one could find Revels at the then-$130 to $140K MSRP and dealers were, well dealing. Priced at $200K today, wow, that’s a pure $60K money grab.
These rigs just aren’t for me I guess. I have owned a shit load of RVs and a triple shit load of off road vehicles. They don’t work well combined for me. I’m an ex-desert racer and at I wanted my motorhome at a pit on a remote section of the course at times. Getting a motorhome out there called for taking some desert trails, often what would be the race course the next day. Stick and glue built MHs didn’t do that well at all. Panels got loose and the desert slit got into everything. Stuff in the cabinets turned to mush and sometimes the doors sprang open and tossed everything on the floor. Fridges liked to do that also.
So my MH started staying in the main pits at the starting line on smooth level ground. That solved the problem of having to rebuild the coach everytime it was out in the desert. So I don’t need a $200,000 adventure 4X4 MH for that. Yes, I know this can go lots of places off road. Well, if it doesn’t tip over as it is stupid fucking top heavy. But my little AWD Ford Escape hauling my tent camping gear can go those same places. Plus with my Escape I don’t have payments. I don’t even want to think what the payments are on this Winnie.
Please contribute an article about this desert racing! My inner 14-year-old is salivating
you are who I thought would want this, now that you don’t want it, I don’t know who it’s for ha!
Having spent a lot of time myself building out a Promaster into a camper during the pandemic, I can appreciate the complexity of design that goes into factory class B campers. There are so many details that are either (essentially) impossible to duplicate in your garage or very expensive to purchase aftermarket. That being said, I’m not really impressed by what I’m seeing here on the Revel as compared to the lesser Winnebago class Bs like the Trovato or even the Solis. Sure they lack 4wd (and while the Promaster has solid ground clearance and my knobby Goodyear Wranglers were great in the snow, a damp grassy hill would make it look stupid) but I don’t see that they put any added value into this rig. They’re building a more basic rig on a more expensive vehicle platform, but tacking a $40k “offroad” tax on it.
Which is the seemingly the problem with all the “offroad ready” campers and RVs. They add a little bit of capability for a lot of extra cost.
Wow, that interior looks like it came from a DIY project. They couldn’t even be bothered to match the upholstery between the front seats and the bench seat.
I’ve seen nicer bench seats at Waffle House
I like that the first pic makes the Winnie look like it has a shark fin on the top.
“I’m also not entirely sure about the benefit of covering your hood in bedliner.”
No chipped paint from rocks, etc. hitting the leading edge of the hood and less glare than you would have from a shiny paint surface.
And of course it looks more rugged and off-roady. 🙂
Agree. We take our Sprinter off-roading almost every trip. The hood is pretty much pristine, and I have never had a problem with glare off the hood. Our windshield, on the other hand, is cracked and pitted.
Bedliner at and below the rub-strips makes a lot of sense and will eventually be a project for ours.