A custom fabricated frame supports the KiraVan, one of the most prodigious vehicles ever built
May 2014 - Summer is upon us, and with it comes the perennial procession of recreational vehicles—Airstreams, Winnebagos, Fleetwoods—onto the nation’s freeways.
There’s one RV you might see in a few months that might stop traffic: The KiraVan. If you haven’t seen the custom-built KiraVan on the Internet, don’t be surprised if you see the unmistakable behemoth plying the freeway, or scaling a 45-degree, unimproved mountain pass.
The man behind the KiraVan is Bran Ferren, co-chairman of Applied Minds, a Glendale, California-based concept design firm for the likes of General Motors, Intel and Lockheed Martin. Ferren previously worked for special effects powerhouse Walt Disney Imagineering, from where his knack for manifesting projects of his mind’s eye takes root. The KiraVan, however, isn’t for a corporate client—rather, his 4-year-old daughter, Kira.
At the heart of the KiraVan is a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U500, which isn’t a model you normally see among the popular S-Class and M-Class models on a dealer lot. Attached to it is a custom trailer that, when combined with the tractor, is 52 ft. long. (A motorcycle is mounted on the back of the trailer for quick-deploy trips.)
Ferren looked at trucks from several overseas companies, like Iveco (Italy), Kamaz (Russia) and DAF (Netherlands).
“I looked at every major applicable truck platform that I was aware of that seemed like a viable contender,” he says. Ultimately, the Unimog won out because it’s road legal in the U.S. From there, the modifications began.
Ferren had L.A. Freightliner extend the tractor’s frame about 3.5 ft. They also put an entire secondary frame inside the original OEM frame for reinforcement made from A656 grade 80 steel. All the hole tolerances are 125 rms or better to minimize stress or cracking. The entire secondary frame was folded and fabricated as a continuous unbroken section, effectively a frame within a frame, which was then cut and extended.
The majority of the other metal work on the KiraVan is being done at Applied Minds’ shop in Glendale, which has CNC, welding, waterjet and EDM capabilities as well as everything in between. There is extensive sheet metal involved with the KiraVan, some of which is farmed out to local aircraft precision sheet metal shops. But it rivets sections in-house, the way an airliner is assembled. “If you look at the way a lot of internal frame structures are, it’s really built more like an aircraft,” says Ferren. “You can imagine that we’re quite a well-equipped R&D prototype shop.”
The cockpit resembles the bridge of the Starship Enterprise more than an airliner, though the construction is like a plane, as Ferren mentions. There are overhead and side bridges supporting the cockpit, and the KiraVan is all built from aluminum parts, which are laser-cut, folded, fabricated and riveted together with Dzus fasteners. It’s essentially like building an aircraft chassis built in-house.
The KiraVan is about 70 percent complete. When it’s done, it will have a maximum gross vehicle weight of 51,700 lbs. with an off-highway limit of 42,500 lbs. The tires alone are marvels—they’re steel belted with retractable chains and Kevlar sidewalls, resting underneath KiraVan’s three independent hydraulic suspension systems.
Within the beefed up body of the KiraVan is a staggering array of telecommunications, navigation, weather and lighting equipment, all outlined here. It can travel up to 2,000 miles on its 170-gallon diesel and/or biodiesel fuel supply, and support three people for three weeks on basic provisions. When complete, it’ll certainly be one of the most advanced all-terrain vehicles ever made.
So, where exactly does he plan to take the KiraVan? If you see it out in the wild, take a picture and let us know. FFJ
Annotated exterior & interior:
