The EM50 Urban Assault Vehi­cle from the Movie Stripes

Every­thing I research and pon­der seems to require some lump sum of cash.  Skills are impor­tant, and should be prac­ticed, and some of them require mon­ey to prac­tice them.  One of the things I have been think­ing about recent­ly is a Bug Out Vehi­cle (BOV).  Hint, this is there the thought of mon­ey entered my mind.  There are tons of opin­ions about Bug Out Vehi­cles.  Some say it needs to with­stand an EMP, some say it has to run on diesel fuel.  Some say it has to be a motor­cy­cle, oth­ers an SUV.  The one thing that I know, is that a BOV is essen­tial to any­one in the sub­urbs or urban envi­ron­ment that is a vig­i­lant prep­per.

A BOV may be the only way of get­ting the hell out of Dodge ear­ly before a SHTF gets too bad in the sub­urbs or the city.  If you have read any of my past posts on bug­ging in or bug­ging out, you will know my phi­los­o­phy for those that are sub­ur­ban­ites and urban dwellers.  My assess­ment, or cri­te­ria, rather, of a BOV is as fol­lows. 

1. It should be large enough to hold all the gear you need for your­self and your fam­i­ly.  If it can­not you may need to buy a larg­er vehi­cle or have anoth­er one on hand.  By this I mean, if you are Bug­ging out to Mom and Dad’s house 100 or so miles away, and you have to bring preps, you need to bring those preps with you.  This could be food, weapons, farm­ing equip­ment, what­ev­er.  You will need some­thing large enough to haul it back to where you are going, whether your final BOL or a ren­dezvous point.
2. If need be, it should be able to be used as your shel­ter for a short peri­od of time.  You nev­er know what the weath­er con­di­tions may be.  If you are in a mini­van that you have mod­i­fied.  I have seen this online and have not been able to find it since… A guy did a whole mod of a mini­van, added an out­door kitch­enette in the back, as well as a camp por­ta-pot­ty, etc.  It was an inter­est­ing mod.  There are oth­ers that I have seen that are inter­est­ing… Just click the Google Link Here, and it will take you to a search for BOV’s
3. In my opin­ion, you should have a small Get Home Bag in your BOV at all times.  I say this since most peo­ple will not be able to afford anoth­er vehi­cle and their exist­ing one will dou­ble as a BOV.  The GHB is just going to be a small­er ver­sion of your Bug Out Bag, unless you are trav­el­ing a great dis­tance and you want to take your BoB with you
4. Per­son­al­ly, it should be able to go off road as well as on road.  This deci­sion is based on my geog­ra­phy.  Your geog­ra­phy may dic­tate dif­fer­ent­ly.  This of course dic­tates a lift kit, heav­ier duty sus­pen­sion, etc.  And, yes, this is more expense.  If off road, con­sid­er­a­tions are for dirt to rough road, or no road what­so­ev­er. I real­ly need to take dirt road and no road into con­sid­er­a­tion in the future.
5. It should have the abil­i­ty to at least go 200 – 250 miles on a tank of gaso­line or diesel fuel.  I would also try to car­ry a gas can that has at least a five (5) gal­lon capac­i­ty when bug­ging out.  Ide­al­ly I like this 14 gal­lon gas can/pump that I saw at Cost­co for $90.00 dol­lars.  Just my take… 14 gal­lons will just about fill up my tank once giv­ing me anoth­er 300+ miles of road to stretch in my truck.
6. Make sure you can equip your vehi­cle with some type of water stor­age.  At least 72 hours of water for each per­son.  I recent­ly bought a sev­en (7) gal­lon water stor­age con­tain­er ($11.00 at Wal­mart) that I filled, added a lit­tle clorox bleach to, to keep it potable, and will be putting it in the back of my truck.  That will sup­ply me, on an aver­age day with the ‘rec­om­mend­ed’ lim­it of a gal­lon a day of water for sev­en days, or rough­ly 72 hours of water for two peo­ple.
7. The BOV should be able to haul a trail­er of some sort in the event you need to attach one and haul extra gear and equip­ment to your BOL or ren­dezvous point.  See my point num­ber one above as to why.
8. This is just a small list of what I think “my” BOV should con­tain.  It is off the top of my head and based on what I see when I do a search.  I will try to add sub­se­quent posts with more infor­ma­tion on a BOV as I con­tin­ue to think about it/them…

Many peo­ple feel an RV would be the best as a BOV.  I believe in a VERY ear­ly stage SHTF an RV would be good to bug out in, but once the SHTF, per­son­al­ly, an RV on the open roads would be a tar­get for the refugees or locusts as my friend calls them.  Con­verse­ly, had you bugged out ear­ly, it could be your per­ma­nent or semi per­ma­nent shel­ter at your BOL.

Now, my ide­al BOV.  Hmmm… Good ques­tion. As of today, it is my Toy­ota FJ Cruis­er.  IF I had the extra mon­ey to spend, it might be a pre 1980’s Ford Bron­co with no elec­tron­ics and some­thing I could pay for with cash and have no pay­ments on.  It would be some­thing easy to work on and trou­bleshoot if some­thing were to go wrong.  It has been years since I have dis­as­sem­bled an engine and rebuilt one.  An area I clear­ly need to bone up on.  I might have some spe­cial mod­i­fi­ca­tions done to it.  Lift kit, sus­pen­sion, wheels/tires, solar pan­el, deep cycle bat­tery with invert­er, etc.

I have been think­ing it is time to buy a bike as a back­up BOV.  I believe I men­tioned a bike a bit ear­li­er.  Here is a cool post about some BOV alter­na­tives and back­ups as well:

• http://suburbansurvivalist.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/bug-out-vehicle-backups-jogging-strollers-and-bike-trailers/

Maybe not what you were expect­ing in the link above, but clear­ly alter­na­tives.

Please feel free to com­ment…  I am a stu­dent like every­one else…