Hypothetical road trip/tow rig question

Ok, lets say you find yourself in need of a new race car support/tow vehicle/family road trip mobile. What features would you want? Extra lighting? power hookups? bigger alternator? etc... As your base here, assume an older truck.

I'm thinking decent hitch, upgraded suspension, possibly better brakes, bigger alternator/extra battery for power needs, perhaps extra engine/transmission cooling, but what am i missing? Any fancy equipment you wish you had on your own tow vehicle? 110v hook ups? is 220v possible with an inverter in a truck, or would a generator be required? Think big, but not ridiculous. Well, ridiculous is fine, as long as it's somewhat doable.

Rear facing lighting. The factory cargo lamps in my pickup are nice, but more would be better.

Power mirrors for backing the trailer.

A backup camera would be sweet for hooking up the trailer.

I think I would jump right to a generator for electrical. Honda has generators so quiet you barely know they're running.

I would buy a 3/4 or one ton, they come with most of the vehicle upgrades you mention above like bigger brakes, better suspension and cooling, etc.

Honestly, big brakes, over built transmission and cooler, ride leveling rear, great mirrors, 4 wheel steering, back up camera for the ball. The rest I'd rather have tied into the trailer and it's design so that it's not paid for a second time on the next tow rig/hauler.

Hadn't thought of a backup camera or setting up stuff on the trailer instead of the truck, good ideas. I'm starting the plans on a future tow rig project, want to use an old truck for no reason other than I like them better.

Couple more questions, how does one go about increasing fuel capacity? is there a way other than big fuel cells?

How about occupants, how to I keep kids happy? TV's, PlayStation, any way to add wifi to a pre-Internet era car? Tell them to shut up or ride the running boards?

I'm guessing if you are talking about back seat passengers you're looking at crew cab trucks? Something about as long as a locomotive

I'd go through all the running gear and upgrade brakes, tires, and cooling as much as reasonable. If you start with something 3/4-1 ton it should have healthy electrical already.

I've seen auxiliary fuel tanks hidden into tool boxes which give a big increase in capacity (75-100 gallons) usually for the guys who pull big 5 wheels and get such bad mileage they need to triple their capacity just to skip a few gas stations.

3/4 or 1 ton conversion van.

For wifi just use your existing phone as a hotspot. No reason to pay for data through your phone as well as as hotspot in the truck. Rear seat entertainment is largely tablets these days, and with decent Android tablets costing less than $100 it seems silly to worry about DVD players and whatever else we used to have in the old days. I would make sure I had at least one powered USB port for each passenger plus at least one more. If I were setting it up from scratch I'd give each seat their own dual USB port.
If I really wanted to be awesome I'd plumb in a heat exchanger for hot water. Lots of reasons to put that on the trailer instead, but we do a lot of family trips without any sort of trailer and the ability to spray dirty kids/dog off at the side of the truck would be AMAZING. A 10 gallon water tank with an on demand pump feeding a small showerhead would be a literal game changer when I had small children. Even with them bigger it's right up there on my list.
Satellite radio has been great and if I were starting with an older truck I'd put in a radio that had that and a backup camera pointed at the ball for hooking up the trailer.
There are some amazing seats in 10 year old luxury cars. If you don't need a front bench, I'd keep my eyes peeled. Nothing quite as nice as a heated seat and adjustable lumbar 12 hours into your day.

Something like a crew cab truck the length of a locomotive would certainly be cool, but I think Ian has the same idea I did with the conversion van. I have one that's pretty decked out for towing and I really like it but it needs a lot of work before I'd want to tow anything with it again. Plus it's a half ton I think. Still the air bag suspension in the rear holds air, the hitch is a pull right sway thingy rated for 10k pounds, but all the stuff is 20 years old and a bit rusty.

The shower idea is pretty awesome, I hadn't thought of that either. My kid is pretty messy but she's not old enough to really track mud all over the place... Yet. The luxury car seat idea is pretty cool, too. A conversion van with 4 captains chairs out of an older 7 series BMW would be pretty swanky! The rear bench would have to be equally awesome somehow...

USB ports are a great idea, too. I was thinking 110v power sources for chargers but USB ports might work equally well.

Using 12v to make 110v to make 5v is is little more work than you need to do when you can buy cheap outlets that turn 12v into 5v. 110v IS useful, but pretty much all personal electronics charge through USB these days.

Power-wise, ideally, I'd have both. I need to add more USB outlets in the Jeep, as I only have a pair up front. Back seat passengers get 120v though, as there's a 1500w inverter under the back seats, wired to a pair of outlets on the back of the center console and another pair in the cargo area. On/off switch is above the outlets on the back of the console.

led interior lights, some good exterior led lights ( think floodlights out the back and side) maybe an awning or something? big ass alternator and dual deep cycle batterys, onboard compressor and inverter to power tools and such. extended fuel tank. all in a e250/e350 7.3 powered van. kids can stare out the window for entertainment, like i did when i was a kid! hrumph hrumph back in my day...

basically petrolburner's motovan but with seats instead of dirtbikes :( unfortunately

I talked to a guy the other day who was a fireman or paramedic or something and he said they used ford gasoline vans because maintenance on the diesels was killing them financially, and the company that made the boxes wouldn't put them on a Chevy frame. would there be a serious downside going with gasoline (other than powahhh)?

Also the e250/350 frame would be ideal but what kind of limits does the 150 chassis have? I only ask because I already have a 150 and one of my options is going full-tuna and deck out the one I have. Back in the day it towed a 5000 lb travel trailer, I doubt I would pull anything heavier than that.

I tend to agree, based on my own personal experience of gas vs diesel for an occasional use truck. Unless you have serious towing needs, the diesel payback period is lengthy.

My main reason for wanting a 250 or 350 van is to get an extended raised roof version like petrolburner's van. That said, a 150 has many things going for it if you don't need that much room: cheaper registration and maintenance costs. Wear parts for the 150 were about half the cost of the same parts for the larger van.

I still have this debate today and it's one reason why I still have the minivan.

On my last tow rig I swore I would focus as much on the interior comfort as I did on engineering prowess, shear grunt, dependability and cool gadgets. I ended up with a King Ranch F450 and I would say that I had it to do over yet again I would dumb it back down again to a similar 3/4 or 1 ton instead but other than that consider things like a backup mirror or camera (or both like I have, rear lighting, a plug for every known type of adaptor, integral hitch lock pins, hide away gooseneck and the easiest fifth wheel to remove that is available. I tow a fifth wheel, gooseneck and bumper pull on a monthly basis or else the above van idea would probably be better for my lifestyle. One other thing Your trailer will change your life about as much as your rig. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a one size fits all trailer, but that does not mean you cannot do multi purpose.