 | Home > Expedition & Overland > A serious question about camping trailers - opinions needed |
 
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| Mother superior Member Since: 05 Aug 2013 Location: Surrey Posts: 494  
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Gents
Been thinking for a while about up-cycling my old caravan into a funky camping trailer, by using the chassis and any other bits that will fit. Anyhow, as I own my own company and all that I started thinking that there could be a bit of a market for this sort of thing, I know that loads of firms make camping trailers, but mine would be a recycled caravan, and sold as a rugged caravan alternative, not a full off road trailer, with a price tag to reflect this. Got a few formats in mind, sleep inside or roof tent and a couple of kitchen ideas etc but the thing is that I would really appreciate some honest feed back from you dogs to see if the basic idea would fly, after that I can start thinking about details. Sorry that this post differs from my usual offerings, ie. not complete cobblers, but I respect your views on such things. Ta Wes Oh woe, oh woe My crusty old landrover, It will not go. |
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5th Apr 2017 9:53am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11240 
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I'd say that nothing is impossible but don't underestimate the time required to adapt an old chassis. When people do this sort of thing with a Sankey, it's because the base trailer is bullet proof and easy to bolt stuff to. Caravan chassis, on the other hand, are built to weigh as little as possible and may need considerable work to turn them into something that could be acceptably described as rugged.
They're also unlikely to have a compatible track width and would need work to the hubs to allow them to run compatible wheels, which is all part of the attraction of a rugged trailer. If you ignore the 'rugged' tag, then an old 'van chassis, can make an acceptable trailer. Even then, they are quite big, though. Even a small 10ft caravan will yield a chassis that's much larger than typical camping trailers. Despite how cool they look, the market for these sorts of things is also pretty small. Importing purpose built trailers from the likes of South Africa has always been a niche area and even home-built simple rugged trailers like that offered by Douglas Motors has fallen by the wayside due to lack of sales. Personally, I put this down to the lack of opportunity to properly use these sorts of things in this country. Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
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5th Apr 2017 10:15am |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888  
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I'd say that mini caravans have a wider audience and are more suitable for old caravan chassis. There are a lot of DIY built ones around and they sell well when they come on the market - a friend of mine has built 2 for himself so far, sold his first one at a profit and is constantly asked if he wants to sell his current one. Essentially you're just looking at a sleeping pod and you can often use the windows and fittings from the donor caravan. I've also seen them with slide out rooms like the big motorhomes have.
Camping trailers, especially ones aimed at the more "rugged" market need a decent chassis to mount everything on and, in order to meet the form over function requirement of many of the Defender market, a caravan chassis would need so much work it'd probably be cheaper and easier to build a custom chassis from scratch. http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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5th Apr 2017 11:54am |
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