- 2 months ago
We take the Alabama‑built Storyteller Overland GXV Hilt deep into Utah to see if a half‑million‑dollar overlanding rig can deliver true off‑grid comfort. Packed with 120 gallons of clean water
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00:00Car enthusiasts have a saying, you can't drive your house but you can sleep in your car. We use
00:04it to justify the crazy amounts of money we spend on our hobby. And if you had that mortgage money,
00:09would you buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini? What about this? A Storyteller Overland GXV Hilt.
00:16This is an adventure rig made to get you way outside of civilization and provide all the
00:21creature comforts of home once you get there. Air conditioning, hot water, electricity for days.
00:27For the next three days and two nights, this is my home along with my wife and my two kids.
00:32We're going to drive around southern Utah and find out exactly what this rig is all about.
00:44We set off from Lake Powell's Lone Rock Beach in a 90,000 pound caravan of two hilts,
00:50two Storyteller Beast Mode Sprinter vans, a Kenworth-based GXV Epic, and a Jeep Gladiator.
00:57The hilt alone measures 27 feet long with roughly 140 square feet of living space. And it weighs
01:04nearly 10 tons when fully loaded. And yet despite its massive size in half, the hilt is not a rolling
01:12roadblock. Within a few miles of leaving the Lake Powell shoreline, we're bombing down gravel roads at
01:17a pace you'd never even attempt in a white and beige house on wheels.
01:21We left Lone Rock Beach and headed for Alstrom Point on Lake Powell. One of our guides, Steve,
01:27said it's the most beautiful campsite he's ever been to. The thing that really stunned me though,
01:34right off the bat was how quick we were driving. We're heading down these gravel roads at 30,
01:3940 miles an hour. Some of them washboards, some of them roller coaster whoops, and the trucks just
01:46soaked it up. I said to my wife, Lauren, the thing that scares me is how competent it is at 30 and 40
01:53miles per hour on these loose surfaces, rough surfaces. I don't know where the limit is. It doesn't feel like
01:59we're anywhere near it. So then what's going to happen when I get there? Is it going to pop up suddenly
02:03and spook you? I don't know. But these trucks eat up so much of the surface with so much weight,
02:11so high. The truck itself, the cab in the back is 12 feet tall. The center of gravity of this thing has
02:18to be as tall as a small adult. And it feels so stable and so planted. It's really, really impressive.
02:25As we venture further away from civilization, the path progressively changes from a maintained gravel
02:32road into a rocky trail. Our pace slows, but the hill remains utterly unfazed. With that speed bump
02:40behind us, it's a short shuttle to the night's camp. Steve Cruz, Storyteller's VP of Operations,
02:46and our Sherpa for this adventure has set expectations high by describing our camp as
02:51the most beautiful place he's ever slept. And, well, he may have undersold it.
02:59Alstrom Point, with sweeping panoramas of Lake Powell some 1,000 feet below, is painted with nature's
03:06full palette. Sandstone streaked with every hue of pink, red, and orange. Deep Caribbean blue water.
03:13Dabs of sage green vegetation. You don't get this experience in a Winnebago.
03:21After that first drive, I really want you guys to understand what makes this vehicle different.
03:28The Hilt is built on a Ram 5500. That means it has a Cummins turbo diesel inline six engine,
03:34six-speed transmission, and four-wheel drive. Clearly it's been ruggedized with things like this
03:39flare space, steel bumper, a 20,000-pound winch, and these beefy 41-inch tires. But the magic is in the
03:47suspension. And I really want you to understand this, because it's unlike anything on a traditional
03:54passenger car, SUV, or light-duty truck. At all four corners, the stock springs and dampers have
04:01been replaced with liquid springs. That's a brand name. It's also exactly what it sounds like.
04:07Think of air springs, but instead they're filled with liquid. Now there's a twist here. Dampers are
04:12typically filled with hydraulic fluid that's incompressible. These are filled with a compressible
04:18silicon fluid, and there's two volumes for all four corners. There's this main unit that can compress
04:24up and down, and then there's a cylinder filled with additional fluid. And in between those two,
04:29there's an electronically controlled valve that can switch to vary the stiffness or how soft it is.
04:35By continuously adjusting that valve along with the compressibility of that fluid, there's a ton of
04:41control over how this vehicle rides and handles. The system looks at inputs like accelerometers,
04:48the steering angle, throttle inputs, and continuously makes adjustments up to a thousand times per second.
04:56It gives it incredible body control. It also allows the suspension to adjust
05:01with up to seven and a half inches of travel. And when you come into your campsite for the night,
05:06tap a button in the cabin and the whole thing levels out so you have a nice flat sleeping spot.
05:15The other secret sauce is how this camper box mounts to the frame. There are two pivot points
05:20that allow it to rotate left and right and fore and aft relative to the frame. And so you don't have
05:26this high mounted mass yanking the vehicle around as you're off-roading or even going through corners on
05:32paved roads. That, combined with the liquid spring suspension, gives this very tall, heavy vehicle
05:40an incredible sense of stability and composure.
05:51We had a great night's sleep in the hill, including the kids. And what more can you ask for when you're
05:56camping with kids? I know you're interested in what it's like in here, so let's take a look. Overall,
06:00you've got about seven feet of width and 20 feet of length in here. The camera is sitting on a queen
06:06loft bed that's over the cab of the truck. There is a galley kitchen right here. If you remove this
06:12countertop, you've got a two burner induction top. That can be removed and taken outside the camper if
06:20you want to do your cooking outside. You've got a pop-up outlet here with USB outlets, a wireless phone
06:26charger and a household outlet. This cutting board removes to reveal a large sink. You have faucets
06:32for drinking water and washing dishes. All of this cabinetry down here has locking drawers, of course,
06:41and these cupboards up here lock both in the closed position and they stay up when you open them.
06:48Great stuff. This dining area, I think, is really one of the highlights of the quality of craftsmanship
06:57in this hilt. Love the seating surfaces, the stitching. I also love this aluminum backsplash
07:04that's got a map of the world on it. This converts into a queen bed, so we had two people sleeping up
07:11there last night, two people down here. This closet is great for storing bedding. It also has a rod
07:17for hanging clothes and shelves that fold up if you don't want to use them. Right here you've got
07:23your microwave, convection oven, air fryer, fridge and freezer, and then you've got a bathroom here
07:30with a shower, toilet, and a sink. Here's your control center. You use this to turn the lights on and off,
07:39to check the status of the water tanks, to check your battery capacity, and also control the heat or the
07:45air conditioning. Now if you're going to use the air conditioning and you're somewhere hot, like where
07:49we are, it's about 95 degrees during the day, dropping to about 80 at night. So really what you
07:55want to do is cool the cabin as much as you can using the ambient temperature and then run the AC
08:01at night when it's time for bed, setting it to about 83 or 80 degrees, and that's pretty comfortable.
08:07Warm, but comfortable. Heat and hot water are provided with a diesel heater that uses about 0.2 gallons of fuel
08:14per hour. Of course all the electronic components run off of 16.8 kilowatt hours of lithium-ion batteries.
08:23That's enough to run the lights and the water pump for days, but if you're going to use the air
08:28conditioning it's only going to last you about 12 hours. They're recharged either using alternators
08:34that are driven by the engine, about 1300 watts of solar on the roof, or you if you're at a campground
08:41you can plug into a 30 amp shore power outlet.
08:46We're starting day two, rolling out from Alstrom Point toward Escalante. It's a bit of a lumpy, rocky walk out of here.
08:59We're going to hit some quicker roads. I hear we're going to hit some roads with a little bit of
09:18side angle on them, so it should be some interesting driving, but for now it's one last glimpse of this incredible beauty. The contrast between the
09:27orange and tans and the rocks and the teal of the Lake Powell is just so stunning.
09:45Back on the trail we zigzag north toward Escalante. A couple hours into the drive the road traces a five
09:51mile long, 1200 foot switchback climb up Smoky Mountain with stunning vistas that will take your breath away
09:58if the nerve fraying drop-offs don't do so first.
10:05The road is relatively smooth, but the steep grade means I rarely get above first gear, even with my foot on the floor.
10:12We are nearly to the top of Smoky Mountain Pass here. It's a totally epic switchback. Grades of up to about 12 degrees.
10:31We're in four low. A lot of first gear, second gear crawling. Fairly loose surface, but no issues with traction.
10:40A little bit of exposure, but there's a nice kind of built-up area of this loose surface that kind of
10:47feels like there's a guardrail of sorts for you.
10:52That was a really awesome section of driving. Not necessarily technical or challenging, but just fun.
11:01Great views.
11:03Feels really special. Makes you wonder, who put this here? Why does this trail exist through here?
11:09And yet I'm so happy it does.
11:15With frequent stops to stretch little toddler legs, day two is a long one. And it gets even longer when
11:21we make a wrong turn on the trail. By the time we realize the error, we're committed to pushing on
11:26rather than turning back. That's what the hilt is made for, right? When you're traveling with a fully
11:31furnished apartment, you can sleep anywhere. And that wrong turn ends up being the perfect mistake
11:39when we drop into a tight canyon roughly twice as wide as our trucks. Sandwiched between vertical sandstone
11:47walls, ragged at the bottom from flash flooding, and worn smooth at the top from millennia of erosion,
11:53it feels like we've stumbled on a secret we weren't supposed to find. For the next hour, every turn
11:59reveals a new marvel. And when we finally spill out into a grassy clearing, we're all wide-eyed with wonder,
12:08and filled with the deep sense of calm that comes from feeling cosmically small.
12:25The truth is, you don't have to venture off the beaten path to find raw beauty or rugged adventure
12:45in this part of the country. But the storyteller overland GXV Hill has taken us on a singularly
12:52unique trip, one that lives up to the name of the company. We'll be telling and retelling this story
12:58for years to come.
13:03Morning, day three, we've packed up camp. We are now headed toward Escalante, Utah,
13:09where we're going to pick up the highway and head back to where we started from.
13:12So this adventure is coming to an end. And, you know, all the feelings start to come together.
13:20And what this HILT is all about is exploring new places, making new memories,
13:27and meeting new people that become new friends.
13:31You know, I feel so fortunate to have been here with my family,
13:35to have taken my kids to see these places that look nothing like home in Michigan.
13:41We re-enter civilization and return to reality at the first gas station in Escalante. The Cummins
13:54diesel has averaged five miles per gallon according to the RAM's trip computer. And the HILT's fuel tanks,
14:00capable of holding 74 gallons, collect their toll. Of course, if you have the means to buy a HILT,
14:07you can probably afford the fuel too. At nearly $500,000, the HILT is either crazy expensive or
14:14reasonably priced. It just depends on whether you think of it as twice the cost of a Porsche 911 GT3,
14:20or half the price of a Southern California starter home. I'll just say this, playing that fantasy game,
14:27if you were going to spend all your money on a car you're going to live in, what would you buy?
14:31It's hard to imagine living a better life in anything else.
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