Articles 

Sunshine Coast Daily Feature Article – October 2007

It’s the great Australian dream. To drive onto an isolated beach, a million miles from nowhere, your cares left behind in the smoke and noise of the city, push a button to roll out a shady awning, throw out a fishing line, sit back with a glass of wine in hand and enjoy life.

You slide out the barbeque and grill your catch. Occasionally, in the silence, you look up at the stars and wonder when you last saw them so bright. You move inside, raise the satellite dish and catch up with the day’s events on TV.

You phone your kids, tell them where you are (if you know, or care) and tell them you’ll be back when... well, when you feel like it.

So goes the sales pitch on the website of All Terrain Warriors, a Yandina business that builds specialised four-wheel drive motor homes, an extension of managing director Paul Campbell’s initial work building heavy duty tour buses for Fraser Island operators, Aboriginal missions and mining companies.

But business manager Chris Abbott said the go anywhere feature of the motor homes combined with the 10-year-old company’s reputation meant that sales pitch was almost unnecessary. He said he believed AT Warriors was one of only two businesses in Australia making campers capable of traversing any terrain...the other being in Western Australia.

“We sell mostly to grey nomads and the members of the SKIN club”, he said. “That’s Spending the Kids Inheritance Now club.”

“We are starting to experience good growth because all the grey nomads are getting to the age where they have the dollars to spend.”

AT Warriors has three base motor home models: the Scout (from $200,000); the Commando (from $395,000); and the Conqueror (from $500,000). The company’s five production staff take about four months to build a motor home onto a cab chassis or modify an existing “truck” for the Conqueror model.

Standard features include solar power, generators and suspension upgrades (so they ride like a motor home and not a truck) but there are numerous optional extras available including fridge freezers, hot water systems, washer dryers, entertainment systems and leather lounges.

“We did one for a property developer from South Australia who didn’t get much change out of $800,000” Chris said.

“It had satellite dishes, automatic levelling legs, satellite tracking, a boat on the roof with a fold down crane and hydraulic lifters that held two motorbikes.

“It’s all fibreglass so nothing rattles when you go four-wheel driving and it can tow another vehicle.

“The owner drives around Australia for nine months of the year and works a few hours a day by pulling out a desk in the motor home and getting on the internet.”

As for the cost, Mr Abbott said they were worth it.

“Previously, all that was out there was the Winnebago and that limited people to staying on the beaten track, but with these things you can go anywhere,” he said.