If you’re the kind of person who wants to take your camping off-pavement, there’s no shortage of trailers and expedition rigs to help you get there. America’s getting yet another overlanding trailer, and this one is something else. The Kimberley Kampers Kube appears to be a beefy trailer that carves out its own path in the teardrop camper world. This is a camper with a composite body, air springs, and the kind of shocks you find suspending off-road racing trucks. You get a lot, but you will have to pay the kind of price normally reserved for a BMW 3 Series for it.
Recently, I’ve been showing you a lot of campers that don’t cost more than the average new car in America. It’s awesome that RV manufacturers are realizing that not everyone has a pile of cash to spend on a camper. Still, I love looking at everything that’s out there, because some people do have the kind of money to put into a nice rig. Kimberley Kampers is one of those adventurous Australian companies building trailers meant to tackle the continent’s rugged terrain. The company’s newest fare, the Kube, looks like it’ll go anywhere your tow vehicle will go.
The Kube is Kimberley Kampers‘ cheapest offering, yet it’s still in the ballpark of $50,000.
From Australia
Kimberley Kampers was started in Ballina, New South Wales, in 1993 by Ian Canon and his son Greg. An archived version of their website explains that the father and son team were avid off-roaders for three decades. Ian and Greg decided to build an innovative camper for the many 4×4 explorers of Australia. The name is a nod to the Kimberley region of Australia, known for its tough, but beautiful lands.
By 2001, Kimberley claimed a number of innovations in the Australian camper space. These claims included the first to use a one-piece aluminum checker plate roof and floor, the first to use an independent trailing arm coil spring suspension, the first off-road camper builder to use hydraulic disc brakes, the first to use a one piece welded, hot-dipped galvanized chassis, and more. Kimberley also boasted the use of sealed rivets, 2 ton bearings, sealed lighting, and several coats of urethane for a hardy trailer finish.
From what I can tell, 4×4 owners in Australia loved these trailers for their durability and the new ideas Kimberley Kampers brought to the table. Kimberley Kampers even came to America in 2002 and in 2004, Kimberley’s Explorer model was sold in America under the King Kampers brand name. Kimberley Kampers also says it was the first to gullwing storage boxes and refrigerators on slides in 2003 and diesel hot water systems in 2005.
Kimberley’s next biggest hit came in 2006 with the release of the Kimberley Karavan.
When you’re traveling, this trailer is just as compact as the company’s previous trailers. However, when you park, the body rises up and out. Think of it as the Australian off-road version of a Hi-Low trailer. That year also marked Kimberley’s introduction of a diesel cooker. Later, Kimberley would be an early adopter of LED lighting, methanol fuel cells, and lithium batteries.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the company. In 2012, the company further expanded its line to include the Kruiser luxury off-road travel trailer line and later, the monster Unimog Kruiser expedition truck.
Financial troubles led to a restructuring of Kimberley Kampers in 2017 and the company shut its doors in 2018. James Cockburn became Kimberley Kampers’ third owner when he helped revive the company after its closure.
In 2023, the reformed Kimberley Kampers introduced the Kruiswagen, a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter-based camper van with Starlink and a 48-volt electrical system. This spring, the company has launched another new product, and it aims to take a chunk of the teardrop space.
The Kube
Kimberley Kampers does sell trailers in America, but all of them have prices that’ll make your heart skip a beat. Remember the Kimberley Karavan expanding camper from earlier? Well, that one has a price of $93,306. The luxury Kruiser travel trailers start at $91,845 and leap to $176,544 before options. These trailers pretty much guarantee that you’ll be sleeping in something a lot more expensive than your tow vehicle.
The Kube is expected to go for a more affordable $50,000. But that’s still not very cheap. So, let’s take a look at what you’re getting! The Kimberley Kampers Kube is sort of a middle ground between the compact expandable Karavan and the large and expensive Kruiser. The Kube has the “squaredrop” shape that’s so popular today but with Kimberley’s flair.
It starts as a hot-dipped galvanized steel chassis. Attached to it are a set of trailing arms and an axle-less suspension consisting of custom air springs and what Kimberley Kampers calls “mono-tube offroad racing shocks.”
This suspension system is said to be designed to give the trailer both off-road capability and a smooth ride. You may think having a smooth ride in a trailer is silly, but softening the blows from the environment helps keep things together and prevents you from discovering destroyed gear when you stop for the night.
Anyway, something else interesting about the Kimberley suspension is that the company says you can outfit your trailer with King race-spec shocks. Also attached to the chassis are ventilated hydraulic disc brakes. You can also match your Kimberley’s wheels and bolt pattern to your tow vehicle. That way, the same spares you carry on your rig work for both the truck and the trailer.
Moving up from there, the trailer’s body is made out of molded thermoplastic composite, and its floor is made out of 100-percent recycled ArmaPET plastic. The Kimberley Kube stands out for its design, which looks like it comes from the future.
So many teardrops make you feel like you’re sleeping in a cold box, but this one gives you nearly 270-degree views of the outside world for an airy feeling. Kimberley believes that by having no timber in its construction, you’ll get a trailer that will last longer and take a bigger beating.
Inside, you get a king-size bed and pretty overhead cabinets. Across from the bed is a small hallway and then a small counter featuring a window, an 85-liter fridge/freezer, and more storage. The interior is designed with a luxury hotel room feel featuring gentle LED lighting and reading lights. Heated ventilation and water come from a diesel heater. Kimberley Kampers says the Webasto diesel heater is so efficient that 3 liters of diesel will give you months of heating and water. Finally, you get a 4G hotspot onboard so you can do some work in your small trailer.
Speaking of water, Kimberley gives you a bunch of different options. The trailer has a 31.7-gallon water tank, an optional 18.5-gallon second water tank, space to hang additional water jugs up front, and even a system to draw water directly from a nearby stream or lake.
Sadly, you don’t get an internal bathroom, but you do get a tent that zips onto the side of the trailer. Inside, you’ll be able to take a hot shower or use the restroom. Also outside is Kimberley Kampers’ stainless steel kitchen drawer. It can deploy out of both sides of the trailer and contains a dual-burner stove, sink, prep surfaces, and storage spaces. You can also get your Kimberley Kube with a stainless steel dining table that attaches to the slide.
Finally, the 17-foot, 2,447-pound trailer gives you a 200 Ah lithium battery and 450-liter front storage box. Options include up to 540W of solar power, Starlink capability, air-conditioning, entertainment equipment, and more.
Expensive, But Cool
Overall, you do seem to get a lot of kit for your money. There are a lot of off-road campers out there, but the Kimberley Kube does seem to stand out. Its design is just different enough and that interior does look pretty comfy for something you won’t be standing up in.
And that is a lot of money. The Kube is going on sale in its home market for roughly the equivalent of $44,675. The camper is now listed on the Kimberley Kampers USA website, but as of now pricing has not been announced. It’s expected to land somewhere around $50,000 here in the States.
There is other somewhat bad news. Unlike a trailer from a big firm, there aren’t many places you can buy a Kimberley trailer here in America. As of today, the company notes three dealers. There’s one in Ohio, one in Utah, and one in Colorado.
Still, if you can live with that, Kimberley Kampers seems to offer a pretty neat way to go on an adventure. This is another brand I’d love to test off-road. I’d love to see how much of a difference the air suspension and so-called racing shocks would make.
What is it with trailer companies and the triple K acronym? I swear you featured some sort of Kosy Kustom Kruiser on here at one point as well, lmao.
The prices of these campers is always such a laugh. Like you said, cool but expensive, problem is there’s no shortage of cool and expensive trailers to buy…which makes it less cool.
Depreciation is the elephant in the room no one dares to talk about. Calculate how much each night’s stay is factoring in depreciation. Buzzkill, right? Econ 101. Ten years, these will be junk. And used very little.
Yeah unless you have fuck you money, I can’t see spending so much cash on a depreciating asset you won’t use on a regular basis. Just buy a cabin or stay in a resort… That said, the international overlanding crowd who would actually buy something like this are a wealthy set. This is peanuts compared to some of those Unimog-based ‘expedition’ vehicles.
nice products, but I find the pricing absurd
I don’t get a good sense of the height in these photos. Is there standing room?
If you’re an Ooompa Loompa, Sure.
Ugh. The K’s. Obviously stringing three of them together is regrettable. But even if you somehow look past that (how?) then, what is this, Donkey Kong Country? Nothing says luxury camping like replacing every ‘C’ with a ‘K’, right?
The camper itself looks cool, like something I would sleep in while playing Mass Effect. The price… is absolutely bananas. Oh, maybe that’s the tie in with Donkey Kong inspired naming scheme!
Hey, it worked for Kamp Krusty!
There was also definitely a KKK joke in there that Krusty sighed heavily seeing written out in the screen overlay. That particular issue is well pointed out at this point so I’ll drop it.
On your second point, agreed. It’s weirdly childish and not appealing. It’s not even a pun, it’s more like a lemonade stand with backwards e’s – forgivable if the work of a child but more likely the poorly considered attempt of an adult to cynically trade on twee cuteness for a few bucks.
What happened to just camping. I’ll admit I don’t take many overnight trips into nature and I get that a lot of the time the purpose of the trip is to bike/climb/whatever and not just exist outside but bringing a house with you every time just feels odd to me
I’ve camped all my life in accommodations ranging from nothing more than a tarp on the ground to fairly well equipped travel trailers. When you have to spend less of your time and energy maintaining your base-camp and/or when your base-camp offers more comforts, it makes it a lot nicer to enjoy the adventures you get up to otherwise.
The beauty of a camper like this is that it gets you as close as possible to your adventure or as far away from the regular world as possible without making you sacrifice all of the comforts of modernity.
I have pretty much no camper trailer experience, as my family had access to a cabin when I was a kid, and most of my camping since then has been backcountry canoe tripping. That said, I’ve enjoyed a bit of car camping with friends over the years, and if that’s your thing I can see why a trailer is such a win.
Tent camping backcountry-style out of a car gets old quick- especially in wet weather. Trying to fall asleep in a puddle while your dry car is 15 feet away really makes you wonder “Why am I doing this.” Tramping mud between your tent and upholstery as you prepare food out of your trunk makes even the most primitive camper seem like luxury.
Plus, the trailer can act as a long term storage container for most of your gear, simplifying the packing list and reducing stress when it’s time to pack and roll out for the weekend.
You hit the nail on the head. As much as a trailer can add complexity and expense, it also streamlines and adds tons of comfort, which can let you focus on the reason for your trip. I personally use my camper like a mobile cabin. It lets me change the scenery without changing my accommodations.
Space 1999 vibe is strong on this one. For the price, I’ll continue with hotels.com and air bnb bookings.
They probably should have run that name by some Yanks before sending the Kimberly Kampers Kube to the USA. I could have told them it seems like a cute name until you consider what the abbreviation would be.
KKK labeling all over. White only paint option at launch. What could go wrong?
I did Nazi that coming.
You got that Reich.
The interiors are so Arian bright.
When I was writing this I was debating whether I should point out the potential for unfortunate name associations. Then I knew our readers would do it for me. 🙂
yeah, no need to mess with the companies you are reporting on! We will take it on for you ha
I find these sort of lost in translation moments fun. You never know how something that seems benign in one culture could cause issues elsewhere. I had British relatives who were shocked by the support for the IRA in the Midwest after they saw so many yard signs that read “Go Fighting Irish”.
Oldie but goodie
https://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2011/01/introducing-the-milf-law-firm.html
A family member had to be counciled not to order a Car Bomb at the pub on a vacation to Ireland. She did not understand why.
My knowledge of “the Troubles” comes from:
Imperial War Museum YouTube Channel: 10%
“The Foreigner” from Jackie Chan & Co: 90%
Car Bomb is such a kickass band.
Truly a meatball right over the plate for the commentariat.
For some outdoor enthusiasts, it may not be a downside.
Between this and Cortez, the market is flush with questionably marketed luxury campers.
I feel like, at this price point and with air suspension, it wouldn’t be hard to introduce a self-leveling feature. Leave it right on the hitch on uneven ground and hit a button for the airbags to raise/lower each side until it’s level.