If you want to head out for an adventure in your car, then there are a few modifications you might want to make to get the most out of the trip. It’s a good idea to have space to sleep, some room for some extra supplies and you might consider a couple of engineering upgrades might make the drive a little easier. You can, of course, take things up a notch and grab a Jungle Yacht.
We’ve covered all kinds of RVs here at Jalopnik over the years, from ridiculous creations from companies like Brabus to go-anywhere trucks from GFC Campers. Sitting somewhere in between those two was the Jungle Yacht, which was created for Italian-born explorer Attilio Gatti for his adventures in Africa.
The Jungle Yacht was magnificent. Built in partnership with International Harvester, the luxury cruiser boasted everything any self-respecting gentleman would need for a trip through Africa, such as a full kitchen, air condition, a fully-equipped bathroom and a handful of bedrooms. Lovely stuff.
Two of these incredible machines were built for Gatti’s adventures, explains YouTuber Calum in a recent upload. Measuring more than 44-feet long, the two Jungle Yachts featured a truck unit up front and a slick trailer at the rear, both components boasted a stunning streamline design from Russian-American designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky.
The trucks came from international Harvester, while the trailers were assembled in Pennsylvania by Fleetwheels-Coats. Each one cost around $15,000 back in the 1930s, which would be more than $300,000 in today’s money.
Clearly, these trailers weren’t your humble overlanding rigs. Instead, they were about letting their inhabitants soak up the wonders of nature from the safety of their cabin. To this end, the bodies of the trucks were composed of stainless steel, which was said to be resistant to heat, weather, insects and even tropical pollen found in flowers in the wild places the trucks would be taken.
In addition, the trucks housed a luxurious observation room filled with soft furnishings from which to admire the scenery while sipping on a crisp martini prepared on the well-stocked bar. What a boujie way to see the world!
The living quarters were in one car, including the kitchen and lounge, while the second housed two bedrooms for the adventurous inhabitants. Each trailer even came with an onboard generator to offer electricity across both Jungle Yachts, and there was a phone with which you could call between the two cars - presumably to put in your cocktail order.
To haul all of this luxury adventure gear around, the Jungle Yacht had an International DS30 tractor trailer up front, which was powered by a six-cylinder gas engine that produced a mighty 84 horsepower. As the truck and caravan together clocked in at nearly 10 tons, or about the same as two Hummer EVs, the rate at which Gatti and his crew explored Africa wasn’t quite what you’d manage in a modified Jeep Wrangler today.
The formidable machines were used by Gatti for his tenth and 11th expeditions in Africa, according to Autoevolution. The two mammoth trucks were used to explore the Belgian Congo between 1938 and 1940, but their location after this became a little hazy.
Once Italy entered the second world war, Gatti was called back to his home country and the two trucks were confiscated and handed over to the British. They were subsequently converted to operate as field hospitals in Africa, and it’s there that Calum says the trail runs cold. He suggests they might have been used in Africa for a few years, before reliability issues meant it was no longer viable to keep them running and they could have just been scrapped.
If this whet your appetite for enormous overlanders but you prefer to take your adventures in the desert, then this incredible machine designed to carry cargo from Damascus to Baghdad is well worth checking out. If you’re more inclined to take a slightly colder adventure, why not head here to find out more about an enormous Arctic snow train deployed by the U.S. military.