What Military Surplus Vehicles Work as RVs?

A movement has been growing over the past few years to live full-time on the road. They go by many names, but full-timing has become a popular lifestyle, especially for people wishing to get out of high-cost-of-living locations. I always tell my kids that it’s much better to own an RV and call it home than rent an apartment, and I’ll die on that hill. The normalization of remote work, the gig economy, and considerably better and more available mobile internet options have cracked the code of living in unconventional ways. 

There is a rugged sub-set of RVers and full-timers alike who want to take their touring to the next level and need something that can handle getting into the backcountry. These are usually the overlanders or boondocks; where they go, a factory RV will not. Surplus army trucks are a favorite conversion vehicle for these projects. But how do you get from the auction house to the way off there? We’ll show you. 

What Military Surplus Vehicles Work For an RV?

The cool thing about using a surplus army truck for an RV is the number of options. A quick look at YouTube and Instagram shows examples of folks who have taken all kinds of surplus army trucks and turned them into RVs. Here are a few of my favorites:

• The DragonWagon project used a 5-ton truck and melded it with a camper trailer. Rad. 

• Western Ranger Expeditionary. Definitely not your DIY special, but the base unit is a Stewart & Stevenson 6x6 FMTV. Also rad but pricey. Consider a Montana LLC registration to save on that vicious sales tax if it's in your price range. 

• Bantha, a converted FMTV mobile command center truck. They’ve been all over in this truck and do a great job chronicling it. 

There are many others, including a few guys still using the vintage M35 2 1⁄2-ton trucks, or “deuce-and-a-half.” Mobile command center versions of trucks of these sizes have always been mobile, which are natural conversion projects. The mobile command centers are already box trucks built on either a 4x4 (LMTV) or 6x6 (M35, FMTV) chassis. The box is designed to operate in all elements and is weatherproof. And the FMTV M1087 mobile command center has a slide-out on each side of the box, roughly doubling the square footage.

Why Should You Choose A Surplus FMTV/LMTV Over A Motorhome?

Well, here’s the deal: not everyone should. In fact, most people shouldn’t. A manufactured motorhome is built from the factory to roll straight out to the lake or campground. If that’s what you plan to do with it, just buy a Jayco or Keystone or whatever brand you like and hit the road. Of course, you should register it through our Montana LLC RV program to pay NO sales tax; those new rigs aren’t cheap, you know. 

But if the local campground or KOA isn’t your scene and you would like to see a little more than the local state parks, then a surplus army truck could be your ticket. There is no shortage of them at the official auction houses, and with a surplus of trucks, you’ll also find ample spare parts, tires, etc. If you can’t find an LMTV or FMTV with a command center box already installed, you could always buy another version and wait to find the box. They are modular trucks to the box that mounts right up to it. 

Where Can You Even Find One?

The usual suspects are

Courtesy of govplanet.com.

• Auction houses

• Facebook Marketplace,

• Craigslist

The government contracts with a few specific auction houses to conduct their sales, and https://www.govplanet.com/ is one of the main ones. 

It is also arguably one of the cheapest places to find them. 

Now here’s the thing: they sell trucks in all conditions, including disassembled engines, missing transmissions, and so on. But the auction house does a whole rundown on the truck's condition. They’ll include whether or not it runs, and in some cases, they include videos of a truck starting and idling. Since the images and videos are unique to that specific listing, you’ll at least know whether or not it is a running unit, so that’s a great start. 

How About An M35? Are These Good For RVs?

The M35 truck was a workhorse of the army fleet for many years and was produced in three iterations: the M35A1, M35A2, and M35A3. The original A1 began production in 1950, and the final A3s rolled off the assembly lines in 1999, so it was in production for 49 years total!

With a governed top speed of 58 mph, the M35 won’t get you anywhere fast, but it will get you anywhere you need to go. 

The van version of the M35 was the M109, and the M185 was the mobile machine shop version. These van boxes are metal cubes mounted on the truck with several windows and entry doors on the back. This truck would make an awesome Overlanding RV, and there are lots of examples just a Google away. 

The supply of these trucks is thinning out at auction houses, but plenty are still roaming around. And yes, our military vehicle titling service will cover these.

Are Surplus FMTV/LMTVs Street Legal?

I need one…for reasons.

Now it gets a little tricky. While it is legal for the military to operate their fleet of vehicles on public roadways, they are categorized as off-highway vehicles (OHVs). So once they are sold to the civilian population, they are an OHV sold with a bill of sale and an SF-97.

The vehicle will probably need to be transported off to the home destination, and many of the auctions stipulate this. You’ll either need to bring your own truck and trailer or get on a freight service to have it shipped. 

Once you have it home, you need to change it from an OHV to a street-legal vehicle, which is a titling action, not a registration. The registration can only happen to a vehicle that has been legally titled, so titling your military vehicle is your first step. 

Once you get the title issued, registration is a breeze; as long as the title is clean, there aren’t too many hindrances to a clean title, and in our case, registration and plates are issues with the military title.

How Do I Get A Title?

You can go to your DMV with a bill of sale and hope they help you. If you are in someplace like Colorado, that will be a big, fat NO.

We know that some states are more amenable to titling surplus military vehicles than Colorado, but why find out the hard way which ones are? Why subject yourself to the frustration of going to the DMV only to be turned away? And especially in states with emissions standards, which surplus army trucks will never pass? Our military vehicle registration service is your solution to these problems. Your registration will come from a state that will get you completely street-legal and on the road. No inspections, no hassles.    

Courtesy of the Colorado DMV https://dmv.colorado.gov/military-vehicles

Do I Need An SF97?

You don’t need an SF-97 to do the program, although it doesn’t hurt to have it. After 20 years of dealing with the military, my rule of thumb was to take and save every piece of documentation they provided if it’s anything regarding money. 

If you spent money buying the truck, take every piece of documentation that comes with it. 

Now, an SF-97 is branded in one of two ways: off-road or non-off-road. It makes a difference in which program you’ll need to use. 

If you have an off-road branded title or SF-97 with your truck, our street legal service will go through Montana, which has 0% sales tax. But if it is branded non-off-road, it goes through Utah, which has a tax rate of 7%. 

Is A Bill Of Sale Enough?

Yes, you can use a bill of sale for the military vehicle, assuming it is branded non-offroad. However, you must have a title or an SF-97 and a bill of sale for off-road branded surplus army trucks. 

The Dirt Legal Advantage

If you try registering your decommissioned military vehicle on your own, you are at the whim of your DMV with no backup. We know the lay of the land and can get it done faster and easier, so you can focus on other things. 

How It Works

From the end user’s perspective, it’s pretty simple. We work with a few states that are amenable to out-of-state title and registration issuances without a lot of hassle. You send us the required paperwork, and we will do the rest. 

What We Need From You

We will need the following:

For a Montana plate:

• ID/Passport/Drivers License (Copy)

• Title or SF-97 with a bill of sale

For a Utah plate:

• ID/Passport/Drivers License (Copy)

• Bill of sale

• Proof of insurance

• Proof of tax paid in the form of a dealer bill of sale or DMV tax receipt (if applicable — if you don’t have proof, you’ll need to pay tax unless we are registering your vehicle in Montana)

• Photo of VIN

• VIN Inspection (We provide this form to be completed by your local police or the DMV)

You’ll need to confirm the following parts are installed on your vehicle before driving it on the roads:

• White headlights with low and high beam

• Red tail lights with brighter or separate brake light

• Reflectors: yellow front and rear

• White license plate light

• Front and rear turn signals

• DOT tires

• Mirrors

• Horn

• Quiet exhaust with muffler

• Seat belts

• Handbrake

• Rollover protection

• Windshield and wipers

Since these army trucks were driven on federal and state roads, they are usually already equipped with all of these items but double-check to make sure. You do not need these parts installed for us to register and tag your vehicle. 

Wrapping Up

Surplus military trucks make awesome RVs. They are made to drive through deep running water and haul troops, gear, parts, and big guns to the most remote parts of the world. And the coolest thing about them is that the DoD gets rid of lots of them. Some are duds, but lots of them are totally serviceable. Oh, and the duds? Don’t overlook a cheap one to cannibalize for parts. They might only go for a few hundred bucks and have thousands worth of good parts. 

But there are a lot of gems out there, and they can make incredible RVs with a little bit of elbow grease and, of course, a street-legal title and tag from Dirt Legal!