Ketterer: A motorhome and horsebox RV combo without peer

Ketterer Spezialfahrzeuge AG – a specialist vehicle manufacturer based near Karlsruhe, Germany - can provide prospective RV buyers with an exclusive and personalized motorhome that will be the envy of your friends and neighbors. Popular with Europe’s professional equestrian and motorsports fraternity, Ketterer’s custom designed horse trucks and recreational vehicles have traveled as far afield as the Middle East, Canada and the United States. The company currently manufactures around sixty vehicles per year and, as you might expect, these rigs don’t come cheap. The basic 240hp Mercedes Benz Atego 1524L horse truck-motorhome combination retails for €188.500 (plus tax) – that’s a $280,000 hit for what has to be the world’s most expensive horsebox (and this is the cheap one). You just got to love those horses.

Established in 1990 by Michael and Ulrike Ketterer in an 800 square metre facility in Karlsbad, Baden-Württemberg in Germany’s picturesque Schwarzwald region, the company began life with just 3 employees but has grown to encompass a design, manufacturing and sales team of 65. It was a lean first few years but the Ketterer’s got their big break in February 1995 when the then German world show jumping champion - Franke Sloothaak – purchased a luxury horse truck from the fledgling RV Company’s “Professional” range of motorhomes. As a consequence, orders for Ketterer’s horse trucks, promotional trucks and race trucks came flooding in and by 2001 Ketterer were able to further enhance their motorhome line – and their customer appeal - by adding a twin 1.20 metre (4-foot) slide out option to their units. In 2010, Ketterer introduced their 10 metre “Continental” RV line - featuring a 7 metre long (1 metre wide) lateral slide out - which promptly won the 2010-2011 Caravanning Design “Innovations for New Mobility” award – and the same year Ketterer opened their first overseas showroom & service Centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire, in England. Situated close to Blenheim Palace (home of the annual 3-day horse trials) and within a stone’s throw of the race courses at Ascot and Newbury, Didcot lies at the epicenter of England’s horse racing and horse training industry and provides Ketterer with a perfect UK based sales platform for their product.

Massive sausage crashes

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile (as featured in this edition of The Weird World of Wheels and The Best of the Weird World of Wheels) crashed in the US.

The driver of the 27-foot-long promotional sausage lost control on a patch of ice in Pennsylvania in the US. The humungous four-wheeled meat replica was eventually pulled back onto the road by a tow truck.

You don't need a big van to enjoy yourself

Hybrid

Other conversions based on hybrid or all-electric engine technology are also becoming popular in the USA, where the Toyota Prius is the conscience-salving planet-killer of choice for pretty well most of celebrity California.  The overall effect is a bit like driving a Trimphone though.

RVs for the Rich & Famous

Part I looked at high tech camping vans for ordinary mortals.  Celebs have different and surprisingly varied tastes, but share a love of gadgetry.  Jamie Oliver is probably the highest profile home grown UK media favourite who used a camper for his book tour launch, but his fame and vehicle can’t compete with some of the more extravagant American celebrity adherents.  Vin Diesel has what can only be described as a mansion on wheels with a sunroof that automatically changes to suit the light levels.  Colin Farrell has a classic Airstream that he uses when he’s filming in the USA and Pamela Anderson had her motorhome fitted out with a vibrating bed and stripper pole.
High- tech goes bananas when you enter the realms of mobile palaces for the super rich.  Here it’s gizmos and gadgetry that dominate.  Aside from the obvious gold plated fittings, flat screen satellite TVs the size of the IMAX, lightning fast broadband, living, sleeping and dining accommodations that would make the Ritz seem like a tawdry Travelodge as standard, you can also get an extra set of wheels. The VARIOmobil 1200 Platinum comes complete with three axles to handle its 25 tons gross weight thrown down the road by the equivalent of 420 horsepower and gives you an integrated garage for a Mini Cabriolet to boot – or rather where the boot would normally be!

Flight Deck in the Tellytubbies House”

Luxury travel in the sea or on the road is common of course and if you want a virtual mansion that defies convention and is a touch futuristic, look no further than the Marchi Mobile luxury camper. The chassis can change geometry to suit your needs and the tables and furniture retract into the walls like some bizarre but lavish full size Thunderbirds set. International Rescue could do with the integrated communication/location system, satellite television with 40-inch screens and of course full on internet access as well as six business class type lounge chairs with auto massaging functions.
The umm – well   “Flight Deck in the Tellytubbies House” seems to be the only fair way to describe the view forward from The Marchi Mobile luxury camper.

Another unusual setup

Off Road Camping

The more adventurous get their shot at RV glory too.  4×4 camper van conversions abound, including quaintly bonkers and British Heath Robinson affairs for battered old Land Rovers.