mobile tiny house on tracks ‘rubishack’ drives on hills, sand and water for on-vehicle camping

Rubitracks builds mobile tiny house on top of continuous tracks

After months of building it, Canadian manufacturer Rubitracks has unveiled Rubishack, a powered tiny house on continuous tracks that can cruise on roads, sand, hills, and even water. A wooden shack sits on top of four triangular, continuous tracks, holding it up. In their recent Q&A video, Scott Profit, the owner of Rubitracks and design lead for Rubishack, details how he and his team brought the mobile tiny house on tracks to life. They announced that they would be producing a 1993 Dodge Cummins-powered tiny house on tracks back in February 2024.

In July 2024, they drove it out for a test after installing the final touches on the handmade vehicle. The original wood they used for the exterior is light brown, but the team uses coffee and tea stains to increase the tannin in the wood, bringing its raw properties to the surface. They spray it with two or three gallons of vinegar afterward to make it rustic, which has always been the goal. For the head and signal lights, they repurpose the ones that school buses use, hence the big orange ones on the top and the flashing red lights in the rear.

all video stills courtesy of Rubitracks, via Youtube

‘Rubishack’ had double bed and panoramic windows

There are flowers in front of Rubitracks’ mobile tiny house on tracks, which makes Rubishack look homey even on the road. The design team plants a rain gutter as the vase to make it easier to anchor it on the shack. Rubishack may look quaint, but Scott Profit says it is 16 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 11 feet tall from the ground to the ceiling. Because of this, it can accommodate people of certain heights, as well as the double bed that sits right in front of the driver and the numerous panoramic windows. Underneath the bed lies the engine of the mobile tiny house.

The driver’s position inside the cabin is about halfway back. This allows the design team to line up the components and controls, such as the throttle cable, brake lines, and steering shaft angle. Scott Profit says they are all designed to work in that location. ‘Moving the steering to the front left corner, as suggested online, would have required a lot more engineering and redesign. Plus, we needed a location for the bed, and placing it crossways on top of the engine was the smartest choice,’ he adds in the Q&A video.

a wooden shack sits on top of four triangular, continuous tracks, holding it up

No running water or toilet, but still homey

So far, Rubitracks’ Rubishack is a dry cabin. It means there’s no running water, shower, or toilet. ‘Basically, it’s a glorified tent,’ says Scott Profit, but it doesn’t stop him and the team from making it as homey as possible. In fact, the welcome sign comes from the restaurant of the owner’s mother. The red door signals an old Scottish tradition tied in with a paid-off house. The panoramic windows are sheets of Lexan (polycarbonate) framed to resemble old, wooden windows. The Rubishack is also insulated with fiberglass (R-12 pink) in the walls, ceiling, and under the floor.

The team also sprays about 1 inch of closed-cell polyurethane foam in these parts. Scott Profit admits Rubishack was produced as part of a marketing gimmick. It is a platform for vehicle advertising, a means to promote products through the ads around the mobile tiny house as it drives around town on tracks. It’s also not road-legal at the moment. ‘We couldn’t get any permission or approval to have it registered for the road. We didn’t intend for it to be a roadworthy vehicle. The whole point of this was a social media experiment,’ the owner and design lead says.

the design team uses coffee and tea stains to increase the tannin in the wood

Still, he wonders if he’d ever build one again. ‘Perhaps, if someone wanted to pay me. The cost of building it would be quite high. The tracks alone sell for $30,000 per set. Then you’d need to purchase a suitable vehicle, costing between $5,000 and $10,000 for good running gear. Building the cabin on top would be another $20,000,’ says Scott Profit.

‘So, to build this cabin, you’d probably spend $60,000 to $70,000. It depends on how much you want to put into it and how fancy you want it to go,’ he adds. Paper bills may run out of the potential owner’s pockets. But at least, they can drive around their town with a handcrafted mobile tiny house on continuous tracks.

rear view of the handmade vehicle