The launch of the original Ford Bronco was a special moment in automotive history. Americans were having tons of fun outdoors, and in building the Bronco, Ford crafted the perfect instrument for off-road fun. But how do you make a 1970s Bronco even better? Combine it with another extremely popular activity of the era: camping. This 1971 Ford Bronco is an extremely rare 4×4 motorhome designed to be the ultimate adventure machine.
The 1960s brought a boom to several industries. Americans began to discover the great outdoors and all of the activities that they could partake in the wilderness. Suddenly, a whole lot more people were going hunting, fishing, boating, and hiking. Both the automotive industry and the RV industry were quick to respond. Carmakers built 4×4 SUVs with insane off-road capability to get people to more spots than ever before. Meanwhile, RV producers cranked out new rigs with creative ideas for these outdoorsy types.
Naturally, the automakers and the RV producers would eventually meet. People loved going camping, loved off-roading, and loved the wilderness. So why not combine them? It wasn’t long before camper producers of the 1960s and 70s started slapping together motorhomes capable of going farther into the wild than any normal camper van, Airstream, or Winnebago could ever dream of going.
I have written about several of these weird builds. This era saw the creation of the Jeep Camper that turned the Jeep CJ-5 into a motorhome, the Dodge Woodsman 4×4 motorhome, the Chevy Blazer Chalet/GMC Jimmy Casa Grande, and others. An even rarer example of the wild 1970s is this, a 1971 Ford Bronco with an original Four Wheel Campers pop-up truck camper on its back.
A Force In 4×4 Camping
Four Wheel Campers was founded by Dave Rowe, and as the company name suggests, it was a product of the off-roading boom of the 1970s. If you wanted an off-road motorhome prior to the 70s boom, you didn’t really have a choice outside of a custom build. Dave’s solution was a camper that could slide into any standard pickup truck. Four Wheel Campers is still around today and gives its story on its website:
It was 1972, and Dave Rowe needed a way to go further off the beaten track. Vans had limitations, so he designed and built a hard-sided camper that could fit on a Scout, Blazer, or Bronco. The next evolution was to reduce weight via a pop-up camper and design them to fit on standard pickup trucks.
Everyone associated with Four Wheel Campers is grateful that the company developed a pop-up design and standardized on welded aluminum frames. The pop-up design reduces weight and wind resistance. The aluminum frame reduces weight, increases durability, and eliminates water damage to wood. Since the beginning, this decision has resulted in a camper that can withstand a gauntlet of off-roading abuse, decade after decade. This has translated to happy campers and high resale values!
By 1989 the company moved to Woodland, CA, where it remains today. Back then, the term “Overlanding” was a reference to what was going on in Australia. By the mid 2000’s though, as an Overlanding lifestyle began gaining traction in the United States, the Four Wheel Campers product was a natural fit. The Overlanding market and community turned out to be our first specific, definable market. Over the years, we have been fortunate to be closely involved with this dynamic group of people. As they have explored increasingly challenging terrain, their journeys have nudged us to continually improve.
Four Wheel Campers grew to offer an entire line of truck campers. If you were an off-roader in the 1980s and wanted to go camping, Four Wheel sold everything from the Fleet (for import trucks) and Hawk (for 6-foot beds) to the Keystone (8-foot beds) and campers engineered for specific models such as the the Bronco and Blazer.
While the Bronco camper was sold for several years into the early 1980s, it’s believed that fewer than 100 buyers stepped up to buy one. And so, the camper you’re looking at here is an exceedingly rare unit.
Good Ideas From The Start
One of the reasons Four Wheel Campers has survived for more than five decades is that Dave got his design right from the jump. The Four Wheel Camper is built with an aluminum structure, a great choice for a multitude of reasons. Aluminum is strong, lightweight, and durable. Dave knew that people were going to beat these campers up off-road, and a wood-frame build just wasn’t going to cut it.
The wild thing is that, given the RV industry’s reliance on lauan plywood, Four Wheel’s continued tradition of using metal still makes it a cut above many builders. But the build wasn’t the only ingredient in the secret sauce. Back in the 1970s, Four Wheel Campers said that, on average, its campers weighed only 230 pounds, which meant that you could set it down into the bed of a truck without overloading its stock suspension.
There’s more, too. Four Wheel Campers that slid into trucks like the Blazer, Scout, and Bronco mounted to the same structural points that the donor vehicle’s roof attached to, so no crazy modifications were required on your part. Finally, the pop-top design kept the center of gravity low while also not killing the truck’s fuel economy.
This camper is plopped down into the back of a Ford Bronco, which is another wonderful piece of history. Here’s what Ford says about the Bronco and why it was such a big deal:
Why and how did Ford develop the Bronco? For that story, we need to return to World War II. In addition to its other war-time production, Ford was one of three companies which worked to develop the Jeep. During the war, Ford produced more than 250,00 Jeeps and was renowned for their quality. After the war, surplus Jeeps were the choice of returning veterans and outdoor enthusiasts. However, with the improving highway system and demand for a more comfortable driving environment, even on the trails, Ford saw the chance to design and develop a best-in-class utility vehicle that could also serve as a sports vehicle. We already had experience building the Jeep, and during the late 1950s and early 1960s Ford designed and built the MUTT, a troop utility vehicle.
In 1962, Ford began to extensively survey Jeep and International Harvester Scout owners to see what they liked and disliked about their vehicles. These findings were summarized in an internal memo on July 11, 1963 noting that both vehicles had “poor comfort, ride, noise and vibration qualities” and that the size and power of both were also unsatisfactory. These findings, indicating a gap in the market, went to the Product Planning Committee on October, 23, 1963 with the recommendation for “funds for further development of a Ford utility vehicle, code-named Bronco.” A fascinating memo a week later had the subject line “1966 G.O.A.T” as it heading. The G.O.A.T. terminology was indicative of the desire to develop a Goes Over All Terrain vehicle while the document itself describes the drivability of the car.
The earliest sketches for the Bronco, dated July 24, 1963 were developed by designer McKinley Thompson, and show the now familiar box-shaped vehicle with the recognizable round headlights and two-door layout. The one jarring feature of the early design documents was the placement of the spare tire inside the vehicle’s rear storage space! McKinley Thompson, was part of the larger team working on the Bronco, but stands out because he was the first African American automobile designer working for Ford.
The original Bronco wasn’t just a hit with the off-road set, but also with professional and grassroots racers. Broncos began racking up wins at all sorts of events, including the Mint 400 and Baja 1000. What’s amazing is that the Bronco remained so popular despite the fact that Ford didn’t even really bother updating it much. The Bronco was introduced in 1966 and didn’t even get the option for an automatic transmission until 1973.
That brings us to the rig that’s for sale on the Hagerty Marketplace today.
This Bronco Motorhome
The camper part of this equation appears to be in great shape. It’s a Four Wheel Campers Bronco, and as such, it fits like a glove into the back of the Bronco, stopping right where the tailgate ends. Everything is there, from the porch light to the little post to hold the door open.
Inside, the camper’s features wouldn’t impress any modern RV enthusiast, but it has more than enough for a fun weekend away from home. You get a pop-top roof, a two-burner stove, a sink, a cooler, cabinetry with wood-grain appliques, a roof vent, a basic electrical system, and that’s it. There’s no air conditioner here, nor is there a toilet, bathroom, or black tank. Campers like these were meant to be a sort of basecamp, not a place you stayed in for a long time.
Something that’s pretty cool here: since this camper slid into where the Bronco wagon’s roof once was, there’s a pass-through from the Bronco’s cab to the camper, like a true motorhome – and unlike many pickup truck campers.
The Bronco underneath is pretty neat, too. A 302-cubic-inch V8 lives under the hood and is responsible for 205 gross horsepower. It’s mated to a three-speed manual transmission, a two-speed transfer case, locking hubs, and a quartet of drum brakes.
Reportedly, the only modern parts of the truck are its aluminum wheels, Blaupunkt stereo, and 31-inch BFGoodrich all-terrain tires. It’s not a fast truck, but it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, this should be fairly decent at getting you far off the beaten path.
By the early 1980s, a Four Wheel Campers build ran from $2,495 to $3,395 ($8,593 to $11,693 in 2025). A Ford buyer in 1971 or 1972 might have paid around $3,700 ($30,194 in 2025) for a Bronco. About a dozen of these campers have been found online in the last decade or so, and only a handful are in this condition. If the fewer-than-100-sold rarity is true, then this is a camper you might not see for a long time, especially in this shape.
These campers are so rare that one of the last times one came up for sale was in 2023, and it was this same camper and truck! It’s unclear what happened to this rig after that Bring a Trailer auction, but the auction originally did not conclude with a winner. This time, the camper and Bronco are being sold without reserve. So, when the hammer drops in five days, the winner gets the loot.
Nowadays, just about every RV company makes an off-road model, so this wouldn’t be too amazing. This rig comes from a time when 4×4 camping was much more novel. If you’re the kind of person who adores camping and old Broncos, this might just be the holy grail. Me? I’m just going to dream about camping in it.
Top graphic image: Ramsey Potts
My Grandparents had an International Harvester pickup with a camper much like this one. As kids we used to love seeing the top slowly rise up as it was cranked with something that looked like it could also be used to start old timey cars. As I recall you could still open the back door and get inside when it wasn’t cranked up, though even as kids we had to sort of squat walk to get inside.
Remember the Bronco being famous for rolling over? I do.
Bronco II, that came out years after the Classic Bronco had a Model change after ’77
Original Broncos were less tippy than Scouts or CJ-5
I guess the Chevrolet Blazer Chalet built by Chinook was a logical progression. Chinook worked in fiberglass and several models had pop tops. Two key differences were the Chalet was permanently attached and Chinook went out of business in 2005.
These seemed familiar and then you mentioned them built in Woodland, which isn’t far from Sacramento, so yes, I recall seeing them around years back.
Four Wheel Campers are awesome! So much so that I’ve had three of them over the last ~6 years.
You can build / configure them anyway you want from a basic shell to a full outright build.
They have a cult following and hold their value like crazy.
Doesn’t seem tippy at all. /s
They really aren’t because of the low-profile pop-up design and aluminum construction.
Source: I’ve owned three of them (and still have the latest one in the stable).
When I was growing up, my neighbor had a pickup-camper that sat in the driveway when he wasn’t using it. His daughters- the sluttiest girls in town- entertained a lot of boyfriends in that parked camper.
Losing the awkward teenage blues eh?
this doesn’t work if they’re banging during the day, Mr. Seger
Ah the bonus of not having a roll bar. Love Four Wheeler Campers.
There’s no doubt this thing is cool, but at over 6 feet tall I’m not seeing a feasible place for sleeping. There’s some camera trickery going on to make it seem longer, but neither the bench nor the over-cab bed can be very long, and it doesn’t look like there’s a way to raise the bench to combine them.
I think once you get down to this size of 4×4, the most comfortable way to camp without sacrificing off-road capability is going to be a tent.
This is neat! Go Fast Campers just did something similar with the 1st gen 4runner!
I remember these from when I was a kid!
I thought they were so cool that I built one from Legos for my toy Bronco
It was blue – with a trailer – made by “Gay Toys”
How prescient.