Those are some impressively low wet weight numbers for a fully-featured hard side truck camper. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you can shirk your truck and camper matching math responsibilities.
Even at these low numbers, it could be a challenge to properly match the 80RB to a half-ton truck, especially a fully-optioned 80RB like the one under review. It absolutely can be done, but you will almost certainly need to special order a new truck to ensure it has the required payload.
Most half-ton trucks on the road and on dealer lots have no more than 1,800 pounds of payload. We recently visited a Ford dealer with over two dozen aluminum-bodied F150s. Even though we know you can order an aluminum-bodied Ford F150 truck with about 2,800 pounds of payload (enough for the 80RB under review), not one aluminum-bodied F150 on that lot exceeded 1,800 pounds of payload. In fact, many of the F150s had under 1,500 pounds of payload. Always, always, always check the yellow payload sticker inside the drivers door before buying a truck for a truck camper rig.
Having special ordered our last two trucks, we can verify that it’s not only possible, but easy to order a payload-optimized truck. Another benefit of ordering a truck is that you get the exact specifications, options, packages, interior, and color you want. There’s no money wasted on things you don’t need or want. The downside is that you have to wait for the truck upwards of two to three months, and you might not get all of the advertised discounts.
The safer assumption would be to match the 80RB to a three-quarter ton or one-ton truck. If you’re looking to tow with the 80RB, you will almost definitely need a three-quarter ton, or better.
A buyer should also be aware that the 8-foot floor length of the 80RB will stick out about 2.5-feet from the back of a 5.5-foot short bed. At 27.5 inches, the center of gravity should be forward of the rear axle, but you might find the appearance awkward, or just not like the idea of the camper extending that far past the truck’s bed. On long bed trucks, the 80RB won’t allow you to close the tailgate, but the unit will fit completely inside the truck’s bed.
If you can, my strongest recommendation is to go for a long bed one-ton truck. Yes, a one-ton is ridiculous overkill for the 80RB, but it’s exactly what you’ll want when your ready to upgrade to something bigger and heavier – like the Adventurer 89RB – or discover that you can’t live without a 20-foot bass boat and trailer. A long bed will also give you more truck camper model options to choose from. When buying trucks, it pays to think ahead.
VERDICT – Adventurer 80RB Pros and Cons
