BT50 4×4 Mag

That cavernous canopy

With the chassis stretch completed, a lot more real estate was made available for the canopy which, to put it mildly, is expansive.

A full custom setup, James initially sketched out what he was after and gave it to Jamie and his team at AMVE who turned it into a scale drawing and fabricated it into reality.

In keeping with the theme of the build, the canopy is divided into six compartments – three primary ones for the essentials and three secondary storage areas for the rest of the gear. There are two of the primary housings on the driver’s side, the first of which holds a pair of 100Ah Revolution Power lithium batteries that are overseen by enough Victron gear to fill a catalogue and topped up by a 140W solar panel up on the roof. The second is the housing for the quadbike, which must be the coolest thing ever, but if we spent too much time on every cool aspect of this rig we’d be here forever, so let’s move on.

The passenger’s side compartment spans the length of the canopy and houses a full custom kitchen that’d be right at home in a luxury apartment.

A fully functional bench is made possible thanks to the three slide-outs, two of which are double-slide, and a pair of pantries for huge amounts of storage.

There’s also a coffee machine, air-fryer, induction cooktop, griller, microwave (of course) and an 85L Bushman upright fridge centrally mounted for easy access. We’re guessing Jen and James don’t often resort to the home-brand loaf of white bread and cheap snags, or a tin of cold soup for their evening meals when out in the bush. The secondary drop-down storage boxes house the ARB twin-pump compressor and accessories, the shower and water-based gear, and the tools and recovery gear should they be required at short notice.

Under the tray there’s 191L of diesel available thanks to the ARB Frontier tank and BOAB 58L feeder tank, which gives this rig well north of 1200km of range, opening up trips like the Canning Stock Route or pretty much anywhere else for that matter. Water is stored in an AMVE custom made 80L stainless tank that feeds the 58L BOAB poly water tank. A high-pressure pump then sends it to the shower, sink or wash-down outlet after a run near the salt water. The Bushwakka 270 awning and Bushwakka double ensuite rounds out what has to be one of the most comprehensive canopies we’ve ever seen but have come to expect from AMVE. Aside from the 6-wheel conversion, AMVE handled the full vehicle build.

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