We Bought a Half-Million Mile Box Truck for Tiny Home On Wheels

We’ve been considering which vehicle would best serve our needs as a Tiny House. Our 2005 Ford E-350 conversion has been a great camper van, but is too small for two people – even with the DIY hightop that we installed last year. Our 1996 Dutchmen Aerolite travel trailer has worked well for us and been reasonably comfortable, but with each passing year it is disintegrating further. It was time for an upgrade. The only question concerned which vehicle would best meet our needs.

After more than a year of intermittent searching (and looking at a few vehicles that we passed on quickly – from vintage RVs to church shuttle buses – we came across an ad in Billings, Montana (about four hours away) that looked interesting. The seller lowered the price while we were still thinking about this vehicle so we finally made arrangements to look at the truck.

We ended up buying this 2014 GMC Savana Cutaway box truck for a great price that was far below normal. The new Tiny House On Wheels platform has a 16+ foot box that is 8 feet wide and tall enough to allow for standing upright.

This truck is a high-mileage fleet vehicle, but has already had the engine, transmission, and differential replaced so we shouldn’t need to worry about the major powertrain components for a while at least.

We recorded a video of our trip to look at this truck, the test drive, and some scenes from Montana and Wyoming on our trip back with the truck.

Watch the Video