Was driving north bound on I-75 in Florida Thursday and came up behind the strangest looking bus I have ever seen. The first two thirds of the bus looked to be a standard over the road coach with normal seating. The back third looked like someone grafted on a large square box in place of the normal shell. The box it self was at least 3 feet taller than the bus shell itself is it looked really funny.
As we approached from the rear, my first thought was that someone had tried to make a toy hauler although as we got closer, I could not see any doors. As we passed the bus, the box area was covered with two rows of windows with curtains in them. To us, the box section looked like a double decker sleeping area.
Based on the markings, i would guess the bus was from either central or south America.
Anyone ever seen something like this and if so, what are they used for?
Paul
Was it one of the German Rotel buses, like this?
http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=23414.0 (http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=23414.0)
Scroll down to Reply 11 from Jeremy.
Did it have German / EU license plates?
John
It's aimed at Germans who want to travel in economy standard (translated-cheaply). It has an out door kitchen that pulls out from the basement. They usually check into an RV park, all help set up for dinner, then they use the facilities, party a bit, then all is silent with them sleeping in there sleeper cubbies. Actually a neat setup. Good Luck, TomC
It is not new either. They used to come through the Canadian Rockies in the '70s with those sleeper buses.
JC
I distinctly remember seeing trolls disembarking... ;D
Rather than simply being cheap I think it's more a case of being able to provide holiday tours to places that don't necessarily have hotels. Since they travel to remote locations it's actually much more common to see them based on trucks than buses.
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sawse.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F05%2Fexploranter_overland_hotel2.jpg&hash=b33db3eb9ac6d1eaa1937c7ff84588efaffba954)
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Jeremy
We used to see one similar to what you described. It came thru Chattanooga (I75 to I24) about twice a year. Had Canadian plates on it. It was some kind of tour bus. I looked the name of the company up on the internet way back then. They did tours including Canada, Alaska, Mexico, and FL and apparently they had beds set up like the old sleeper cars on trains. They would drive from one location to the next. Between hotel/resorts the tourists would sleep on the bus while one of the two drivers drove thru the night. upon arriving at the hotel, the tourists depart, check into the hotel and get shuttled hither and yon using the hotel as a base, then back on the bus to the next destination. These trips were 2 to 4 weeks long. Plus there were short stops (couple hours) between hotel/resorts for the interesting things along the way that they didn't want to spend days at. But it's probably not the same outfit.
Thanks for the information. The thing that amazed me was the fuel economy had to be horrible and drivability in any cross wind scary with the big sleeper box sticking up into the air.
Paul
I have seen these in southern Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca, around the archaeological sites. One we saw at a campground in Oaxaca had all the bunk areas as individual slide-outs. I should have a picture somewhere. That was back in 1983.