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The problem with a modern airstream and a modern diesel to pull it is you will never, ever, save enough on gas to offset the price compared to a $8000 10 year old common Chevy 5.3 Tahoe or pickup and a new $15,000 Jayco mid 20 footer. The first 250,000 miles is basically free. Personally I think the $15,000 Jayco charges is robbery compared to what you get let alone a $80,000+ airstream. Why I figure I will just build one. And if you are going to build one you might as well improve the shape a bit.
I get what you are saying about size and weight, but to me 30 feet is just wayyy more then we want. With all the mountains and curvy roads around here the weight does kill mileage. No matter how you try to drive you will be burning energy with the brakes. The reason I was talking about cutting down a big airstream was because and old 20' is still to much money while and old 30' is pretty reasonable. I also don't really care about, "man that looks amazing inside, like a fine yacht!" I just want warm and dry with a place you can sleep and stand upright in, a place to heat up some soup, and a place for my wife and daughter to pee in the middle of the night. Otherwise we aren't hardly in the thing from 9am to 9 pm. Our last setup was a big 12' lance slide in in a duramax crew cab. We could get 11-14 mpg (although with diesel $.70/gal more here not much better then a 454 getting 8-10 mpg) and also take our pontoon boat but the pontoon needed a new outboard and the truck sat in the yard all but 3 weeks out of the year and a couple weekends so we sold it all, about a $20,000 total. That $20,000 is what I want to keep the new setup (camper and puller) under but get the 14ish mpg on less expensive unleaded.
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