You need a vehicle to move around when extreme situations happen
The Ultimate Survival Vehicle (Bug Out Vehicle) is just an emergency vehicle kept or maintained by any person or household that is prepared for the most extreme disaster situations.
Every prepper should consider an emergency vehicle as part of his working options for surviving extreme situations. In any disaster such as a super typhoon there is a very real possibility that you may have to leave your primary refuge, to either get help, or to flee further disaster. The first safety move always involves staying put in your well-stocked home fortress and waiting for the super typhoon or any other disaster to pass, but if any situation forces you to evacuate, you need to have a survival vehicle, which is your Plan B.
Take a look at some survival vehicles you might wish to invest in, given the rate of disasters we have been experiencing almost every other year or so. Having one of them may just bail you out of trouble when disaster strikes your community and takes out the power, water, and food supply grids:
Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) or Asian Utility Vehicle
The SUV is one of the better vehicle choices for a survival vehicle along with its cheaper and more affordable cousin, the long-haul Asian Utility Vehicle--most commonly used as mini-school buses or smaller delivery trucks by small businesses. The size of both vehicles allows for ample supplies to be kept onboard as well as enough room for passengers to save an entire family of 5 in the least.
A full tank of gas on a SUV allows the driver to escape far away from a life-threatening situation and reach safer ground, traveling through rough terrain to given 4-wheel drive as well as the special tires such vehicles are equipped with. A roof rack, towing capacity enables the SUV to carry a lot of gear. You only worry is running out of fuel before you reach safety because most SUVs are not known for their fuel efficiency. AUVs can even be rigged by creative individuals into a camper RV survival vehicle that doubles as your out-of-town travel van when you go on a holiday.
Survival Jeepney
The beloved Pinoy Jeepney not only serves as a means of livelihood for the working class but it serves as an all-around utility vehicle that can take all sorts of minor hits, and can carry plenty of passengers as well as survival supplies. It can traverse well enough on even the roughest dirt roads and minor knee-deep floods or streams, and you can repair it easily as parts are available throughout the Philippines given that the jeepney is the public transportation vehicle of choice for almost every urban and suburban and rural community. You can even pull a makeshift trailer cage or a custom good sized trailer for more supplies or to save more of your personal stuff. You've seen all those pics of jeepneys overloaded with either people sitting on the roof or packed with produce and the entire contents of a house (like a desperate choice for a moving van). It runs on diesel and can at least take you far enough out of harm's way or get vital supplies from a good far place to replenish local needs in the community hit by a disaster.
Pick-Up Truck
A pick-up truck is almost the second choice of Filipinos for their work vehicle fo small and medium scale businesses because it can carry a great deal of gear in the bed and with a modified compartment kit or camper shell, a pick-up truck is as good as a survival vehicle if equipped with emergency supplies an survival gear. Most pick-up trucks are either 2WD or 4WD and are as good as an SUV in road handling on rough terrain like dirt roads or crossing shallow streams. Buying a reconditioned model or an old model is as good as gold if you are investing in an emergency vehicle capable of hauling you out of trouble. Minor repairs or even detailing a pick-up truck with military specs for survivability will give you one of the best emergency vehicles in times of trouble. Most pick-up trucks can even pull storage trailers or camping trailers for hauling more people and supplies out of a dire situation.
A Converted Bus
Some buses are mothballed for newer models as bus services try to provide better transportation services for the public. You can choose to buy one of these junked vehicles, retrofit and fix-em-up for your own survival vehicle. A retrofitted bus can even function as your RV or recreation vehicle if you spend what you can afford to make it as comfy and as homey as you wish.
Think of a retrofitted bus as your tour bus if you were a rock band. For the cost of a brand new car, it might be a good investment to buy even a small school bus and reconfigure it into an RV / Survival Vehicle. One of the best things about a bus is that it can travel long haul trips if you need to evacuate from one place to another for safety and for keeping alive.
For long haul trips, a bus can be packed with more life-saving supplies and you don't have to lose most of your treasured personal belongings because you can bring them too. Smaller vehicles force you to drop most everything and just bring what will keep you alive but with a bus as a survival vehicle, it's almost like having a home on wheels. A bus can ride through rough and unpaved roads with some measure, especially if you can fix up the bus to be off-road worthy and wade through knee-deep or even waist-deep floods.
Mountain Bike
Today's Mountain Bike is one technological masterpiece for such an unassuming vehicle. Mountain bikes of this age are built with ultra strong light construction, rack systems for storage, puncture resistant self sealing tires and pedaling gears for any terrain. You can use it alone as your survival vehicle or load it on your SUV or Pick-Up as a secondary option--for when you reach safe ground and want to scout the area to find food or more supplies. In the Vietnam War, harassed evacuees loaded all of their belongings and supplies on their bikes and hauled them to safety, then riding back to their village to haul whatever was left. As a survival vehicle, you can ride a modern mountain bike and still carry a weapon and a backpack stash of survival supplies at the least, or use it as a mule to carry everything from crates to saddle bags of supplies. It is small enough as an additional transport option on bigger vehicles and can cover very long distances (40 to 100 miles a day) depending on terrain. The only setback for a mountain bike might be traveling through knee deep mud or waist deep flood waters for long stretches.
“Blue Water” Catamaran SailBoat
This is the only Ultimate Survival Vehicle that can traverse where potentially dangerous landlubbers can't catch up with you, travel with either wind power or a reserve engine, filter its own fresh water via desalination and access to an unlimited supply of fresh food from the sea. “Blue Water” refers to the seaworthiness of boats that are built to travel the harsher weather and waves out in the open ocean.
The modern blue-water, sailing boat is a technological class of its own: using solar and wind power to create and store energy in large battery banks without the need of even starting its own diesel engine to recharge the batteries. Its own diesel engine is equipped with fuel storage to help you escape any fix faster than just wind power. Desalination tech in some advanced models allow you to make fresh water with battery power. You can stay isolated in good fishing grounds for extended periods if extreme situations turn people into bandits or plague bearers. You get a fully equipped kitchen to prepare fresh catch from the ocean and ample food storage too. Owners have very comfortable living space as soon as they get used to the bobbing on rough seas, and you can literally travel anywhere if you have a good nautical map or working GPS. If you are sitting it out in the open seas make sure you have a good reserve of vitamin supplements or you'll get scurvy like ancient mariners.
Why a Survival Vehicle?
In the event of a massive crisis, it would be nice to at least have the option to escape ground zero and reach safer places or go out amid chaos and replenish your supplies from distant areas still intact. You need to prepare your survival vehicle, whether it’s your passenger car, or jeepney, or a rigged out Armageddon truck with a weapon turret mounted on top.
This is even a small and dedicated hobby of some survival enthusiasts who craft their own personal vehicles with 4-wheel-drive, all-terrain tires, winches for lifting heavy cargo, snorkels for breathing air into the engines if floods are too high, reserve tanks, and even a dedicated kitchen for RV campers and converted buses.
In your survival vehicle you will also need emergency supplies: like food rations, water (again), a weapon for self defense which may be a gun or other equipment, survival clothing and cooking equipment, a tent or outdoor sleeping bag and thermal blankets, cash, survival flashlights and a portable radio, to tide you over as you reach safe ground and settle down.
