$67K ‘Doomsday Trailer’ Combines All the Worst Elements of Modern Overland Culture
So many off-road vehicles and accessories subscribe to the aesthetic of being a nuke at a knife fight. Calm down and enjoy the fresh air already.
If you're so scared of the world that you can't go camping without bulletproof glass and surveillance cameras, stay home. But if you really need to advertise that fear with a bright-orange parade float, you can hook this "Extinction Level Event" Doomsday Trailer up to your truck for about $70,000.
There's a heap of overland-oriented tools and accessories being hyped right now as fans of the scene spool up for the Overland Expo show in Arizona this weekend. When the ELE came across my feed this week (short for "Extinction Level Event," implying apocalypse survivability) I thought it was a parody. I mean, the spec sheet talks about bear-spray mist to keep "bandits at bay" and claims "it can handle whatever campers might encounter, from bears to wildfires to social unrest," which, no, if you leave this thing parked in a wildfire it's going to turn into an oven after the tires melt.
Mammoth Overland out of Woodinville, Washington does seem to have a mostly nice catalog of pretty cool and well-made-looking off-road camp trailers. This thing in particular just happens to be the ultimate embodiment of everything that sucks about modern off-road and overland culture.
Overkill, overbuilt, over-bought—tactical this, domination that—the vibe of so many modern off-road vehicles and accessories now leans so hard into "nuke to a knife fight" rather than, I don't know, "enjoying the great outdoors."
The ELE trailer's apocalypse-proofing countermeasures include an air filter, water purification, gun storage, optional bullet-proofing, and of course the bear spray cannons that can cause "a 25- by 10-foot-wide cloud of bear spray potent enough to repel even the largest bears or most desperate bandits."
The idea of some entitled assholes blasting bears and "desperate" people with pain-inducing aerosol really bums me out. Leave the damn bears alone already. And if there are people outside your trailer who really want to hurt you—what's stopping them from hooking up the hitch to their truck and backing you down a boat ramp?
Besides the fact that an actual attacker could shoot the tires or one of those fuel bottles bolted to the outside before you can pop out of the hatch and pew pew pew, the whole idea of the solution to wildfires and "social unrest" being a bright-orange battle trailer is just so tiresome and idiotic.
If you really want to travel through places that could be deemed dangerous, move swiftly and keep your head down. Towing a bling bunker around is going to make you a juicy-looking target and no matter how much ammo and pain-mist you're carrying, eventually, you'll be exhausted and your metal coffin on wheels will still be immobile.
As for apocalypse survival, if you're serious about it, learn how to grow food, sew clothing, treat injuries, and cultivate a community. When the rule of law really does break down, the most tactical-looking trucks and toys will be the first things to break as myopic manly men fight over them.
