Old’s cool with this retro camper styling from Road Warrior

Lightweight, Aussie-built, and affordable, this retro camper throwback from Road Warrior is everything you didn’t know you needed.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but no one ever talks about teaching a new dog old tricks. It’s something we were pondering when Road Warrior’s lightweight, super-modern – but also kinda old-school retro camper, the Adventurer AT, came across our desks.

Designed from the ground up to be some of the lightest on the market, Road Warrior Campers’ Adventurer and Adventurer AT kick off from an almost incomprehensibly featherweight 280kg Tare with an Aggregate Trailer Mass of 600kg. That, putting it frankly, is insane.

For context, as part of their R&D program, Road Warrior Campers shipped one stateside and proceeded to punch out 14,000km halfway across the continental United States. Oh, and they did it behind an oh-so-slick 2017 Harley Davidson Ultra Glide motorcycle. How cool is that?

If being unarguably one of the lightest campers on the market (and therefore easiest to tow on and off-road) isn’t enough, Road Warrior Campers have also made the Adventurer AT one of the coolest with some serious 70s-inspired retro camper styling. If you’re on the hunt for an off-road capable camper you can sling behind a lightweight tow-tug like a Suzuki Jimny, this little weapon might be the best news you’ll read all year. 

Although not in our favourite retro camper colour, check out the walkthrough of the Adventurer from Road Warrior Campers below:

This retro styled camper has solid foundations

You don’t achieve something different by doing the same thing as everyone else. So it should come as no surprise that the Adventurer AT and the more road-going-focused Adventurer are different. Literally, from the ground up, as both versions ride on a unique AL-KO IRS axle for full independent suspension side to side. The unique system uses no external springs or shocks and instead, tension is applied to three rubber cords inside the axle, providing the spring rate and dampening shocks. The system not only keeps weight down but ground clearance up.

The chassis has some clever design features and material selection to keep strength and durability up, and the weight down. Constructed out of 2mm thick aluminium, the main frame is a 50x50mm box section. A full-length cross-member runs from front to back with a 980mm long double-sleeved steel box tube inserted from the XO 50mm ball coupling, tying back into the main cross members.

The main structure of the body is powder coated aluminium that’s folded, riveted, and welded to optimise strength and keep weight down even further. That’s some pretty serious engineering into something that screams old-school retro camper.

Choose your own adventure with this retro camper

Both the Adventurer and the Adventurer AT are a choose-your-own-adventure kind of situation when it comes to the camping setup. The base camper provides around 1400L of storage space split between four separate compartments. Two side boxes along the flanks are perfect for stowing your cooking and food supplies and can serve as a prep area. There’s a 114L storage box up front for bulky items you don’t want banging around, but it can be upgraded to a larger unit housing an iKamper AIOKS chuck-box style kitchen.

Running down the centre of the camper is a huge 1150L main storage compartment accessible through twin doors on either side, as well as a huge rear opening. You can leave it as is for the perfect bulk storage, but Road Warrior Campers offer both a slick RVSS full-width storage drawer setup and a clever all-in-one Kufu Spark lithium power solution with either a 1500W or 2000W Redarc inverter at its core to jump-start your camping setup.

Option up the usual kit like hot water systems, showers, onboard water storage and even an EcoXGear stereo system. You can go from a simple storage space to a decked-out touring setup with nothing more than the options list.

We have lift-off

One of the coolest features of the camper we’ve fallen in love with is the Liftframe setup up top. Rather than a typical get-what-you-get mounting option for your tent and awning, the Liftframe setup stows down low under the profile of your tow-tug to help with fuel economy and fit in garages. Then with less than a minute’s work, it sets up to full head height providing the perfect height for camp setups.

The rack itself pairs well with optional iKamper rooftop tent setups but is just at home with a couple of swags or just bulk storage for items like kayaks or mountain bikes.

What’ll this camper cost me?

If you like the cut of the Road Warrior Campers’ jib, we’ve got some pretty fantastic news for you. The more off-road focused Adventurer AT with a 500mm longer drawbar and XO coupling starts from a more than reasonable $10,495 plus dealer delivery and on-roads.

While the road-focused Adventurer bumps that price down even lower to $8,395, stepping down to a smaller set of rolling stock and a shorter drawer bar with fixed coupling. While that doesn’t include the various options like electrical fit-outs and tents, it’s still unbelievably cheap considering the build quality.

If you’re head over heels in love with the retro camper paint job, and let’s face it, who isn’t, then you’ll need to pony up another $1,595 to make your friends just that little more jealous.