If you fancy yourself as an explorer, the RV industry is full of mammoth trucks that cost as much as a house and will happily take you further than any standard RV will go. Some of these rigs are so wildly expensive that they can easily cost you a million or more. Winnebago has decided to enter this market with a motorhome that costs half the price, yet getting a discount comes with a couple of bizarre catches. The $331,901 Winnebago Arka 20Z looks great right up until you realize that it seems like Winnebago’s designers forgot to give it a proper bathroom and kitchen. This is a camper with a bathroom that would feel at home in something a tenth of the price.
Off-road and “overland” RVs have been a rather huge trend through much of the 2020s. RV buyers, just like car buyers, love the idea of owning something that they could take on the Rubicon, even if their rig never encounters terrain harder than a curb at Whole Foods. Automakers and RV manufacturers have been quick to pounce on the trend, and it’s not hard to find a crossover with black cladding and all-terrain tires. You don’t have to look much further to find everyday travel trailers with lift kits on them. But, just like there are real off-road SUVs, overland RVs get pretty hardcore.
At the very top of the overland RV pile is the expedition truck. These motorhomes are pitched as luxurious ways to spend a week or even longer in the wilderness. Brands like EarthRoamer, EarthCruiser, 27North, Krug (pictured below), Storyteller, and Bliss Mobil are all known names in the expedition truck space. The trucks sold by these companies have huge holding tanks, luxurious interiors, towering ground clearance, and prices so high that you could buy more than one house here in the Midwest. For some expedition truck buyers, these rigs become their full-time homes, and some of these trucks do get used to travel the world.
Winnebago has been trying to get a slice of the overland market for a while. It came out with the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter-based Revel in 2018, which I found to have a rather cheap-feeling interior for its over $200,000 price. Then there’s the Ford Transit-based Ekko, which I thought looked really cool until I realized that it’s too low and too wide to do anything harder than a light fire road. I was a fan of the Winnebago Hike 100 travel trailer, but that has been discontinued since I wrote about it.
Now, Winnebago has another off-road rig, and this one is huge and expensive. Meet the all-new Arka, Winnebago’s first expedition truck.
Winnebago Goes On A Trek
The Winnebago Arka was announced on April 21 at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota. It’s the flagship of Winnebago’s new Backcountry Adventure lineup, which includes the aforementioned Revel and Ekko.
According to RVBusiness, the Arka is the result of Winnebago’s attendance at Overland Expo over the years. During these events, Winnebago’s staff camped and conversed with Overland Expo participants, finding out what they want in a camper. Winnebago also exposed itself to the same experiences that these people went on to get a real idea of what modern overlanding is like. Then, Winnebago built a secret prototype, took it out to more Overland Expos, and got feedback from the actual people who hit the road in off-road RVs.
Winnebago says that the Arka has been field tested and validated. It’s even been put on a shaker to simulate the abuses of 100,000 miles of driving. In some ways, this research is apparent in the build.
The Winnebago Arka 20Z rides on a Ram 5500 chassis cab and features a 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel cranking out 360 HP and 800 lb-ft through an eight-speed transmission to all four wheels. The truck rides on a BuckStop single rear wheel conversion shod in 41-inch tires and sports a Buckstop Truckware front bumper and a built-in air compressor.
The box of the Arka features two-inch-thick walls. These have a fiberglass outer layer, Azdel composite wall material, an aluminum superstructure, foam, more Azdel, and fiberglass for the interior. The outer fiberglass is covered in a truck bedliner-like material, and the roof is a single piece of fiberglass. Winnebago sees the Arka as an all-season rig that’s good for temps as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit or as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, thanks to its Timberline hydronic heating, heated floors, heated tanks, R-15 roof, and R-12 wall insulation.
Winnebago notes that the camping box is chassis-agnostic and that it could be mounted to any heavy-duty chassis cab pickup truck. Other exterior notes include tubular branch guards, auxiliary lights, a spare tire carrier, and aluminum storage lockers. Weirdly, despite being marketed as an off-road rig, Winnebago does not publish any numbers for ground clearance or ramp angles, not even in the Arka’s brochure. The coach doesn’t even ship with a winch. It can tow 15,000 pounds, however.
The interior is where things get really weird. The first thing I noticed inside is that, unlike most expedition trucks, the Winnebago doesn’t just have a side door. Instead, it also has a double rear door like a camper van. That’s neat, and I can see myself taking in a nice breeze on a morning with those open.
The interior is made with a degree of modularity. The lounge area can be turned into a bed with a dinette and gear storage, a U-shaped bed with a dinette, or a dinette with bench seats.
In the front cap area, you can opt for a module that allows for two twin beds or a king bed. Or, you can get the standard version, which is a fixed queen bed. In total, there’s sleeping room for up to four people, while six people can ride in the cab of the truck. Apparently, these modules can be swapped on the go to change the truck as you need. It’s not the best modularity I’ve seen in an RV, but it does look handy.
There are other good notes about the interior, too. The countertops are solid surfaces, the sink is stainless steel, and the drawers are soft-close. The cabinetry is aluminum, and everything is backed with Azdel, rather than lauan tropical plywood. I like the dual-pane flip-up acrylic windows, too. Alright, that seems good enough. The galley also has a 6.2 cu. ft. refrigerator and an optional microwave.
The off-grid gear also seems acceptable. The Arka sports a 165Ah lithium battery, 800 watts of solar (upgradable to 1,200 watts), and, per Winnebago, up to 16.8 kWh of lithium capacity when you count the auxiliary 6500W 51V Lithionics alternator.
What’s With That Bath?
Then things sort of fall off the rails. That interior looks nice, right? Have you asked yourself where the bathroom is yet? The bathroom is actually the tiny sliver of space between the primary bedroom in the overcab area and the kitchen. Or, more specifically, you have to step through the shower and climb the shower seat to get into bed.
The toilet is of the cassette variety, and it pops out of a cabinet. The shower head also reveals itself from a hidden area. The result is a space that appears so tiny to take a shower in, and that doesn’t even feature a bathroom sink. This is the kind of shower that I’d expect in a camper that costs less than $30,000, not one that costs $331,901.
But somehow, it seems even worse than that. At least a standard camper shower doesn’t require you to walk through the bathtub to get into bed. Did someone just shower, and now you want to go to bed? Tough luck, you have to walk through the wet shower to climb into bed. It seems that Winnebago’s solution for this is an insert that goes on top of the tub that, presumably, would keep your feet dry. But then, even if your feet are dry, the divider between the bathroom and the bed is a curtain. So, I hope nobody has any Taco Bell while you’re sleeping up there.
It almost seems like the Winnebago team was so focused on the rear doors and the modular living room that they completely forgot that a camper is supposed to have a bathroom. Maybe the team should have gotten rid of the rear doors or reconfigured the kitchen area. I’m not sure how I’d make the layout better, but I wouldn’t want to go through a bathtub every time I wanted to go to sleep.
Winnebago also says that this rig will be good for up to 14 days off-grid, and I just don’t see it. The electrical power seems okay enough, but the dinky toilet holds only 4.75 gallons of waste. The water tank is good for 60 gallons, with 40 gallons for gray water. So, I have to imagine that, at some point in those 14 days, you’ll both empty the toilet and refill the water.
Then there’s the features list. For your money, you don’t get a stove, but a portable induction cooktop. An air-conditioner is also officially optional, but we’re not told how much an Arka without an air-conditioner costs. Either way, why is an air-conditioner optional on a motorhome that costs more than an actual home?
They’ll Probably Sell Well
The Winnebago Arka 20Z comes in at 26’7″ long, 11’9″ tall, 8′ wide, and weighs 19,500 pounds when fully loaded. Winnebago does not list a payload capacity or empty weight. Fully loaded, Winnebago says, the rig is $331,901. Confusingly, Winnebago says that you can get an Arka without the off-road gear and just have a Ram 5500 with a built-on camper box, but doesn’t say how much that version would cost.
On one hand, the Arka 20Z is basically a bargain in the expedition truck world. As I said before, it’s super easy to ring up the cash register to the tune of $500,000, $700,000, or even more than a million bucks in this space. Options that are cheaper, like the Supertramp Paragon, tend to be smaller. Winnebago is promising a similar experience for a fraction of the price. It’s also unlikely that you’ll even spend $331,000 on this, as RVs from big box companies are discounted since practically the day they go on the market. I’ve already seen one dealer advertising $305,000 for the Arka.
At the same time, paying less nets you some quirks, like that bathroom, that toilet, that afterthought of a cooktop, and having to pay extra for an air-conditioner. You also don’t really get any neat interior materials or designs. Of course, you also have to deal with the quality of a mass-produced RV, too.
I’ll have to wait to see an Arka 20Z in person before I draw any further conclusions. But I do think this motorhome is a good first effort for a company that doesn’t really live in this space. It’s big, it’s tall, and it’s “affordable” compared to what Winnebago thinks the competition is. But I hope you like getting your feet wet when you go to bed.
Having fridge access while taking a dump is either the worst or the best thing ever and I can’t decide which. I’ve certainly taken enough food safety training to know why it’s a bad idea but still…
Showers are for on-grid folk.
Yeah, just bring some Wet Ones and a garbage bag