Hi from the Dartmoor South West UK

[keithmartyn]

Hi all
My name's Keith Martyn and I live in the Dartmoor National Park in Devon over here in the UK.

I spend a lot of time outdoors with my wife Julie, and our 2 dogs (despite the almost constant rain).

We do some camping too!

I've of course heard of "teardrop" style trailers but I didn't realize there were people out there who actually design and build their own. We have commercially built caravans (trailers) on our roads (mostly during the summer) but I haven't seen anything like these.
I'm not even sure what UK regs are like for these sorts of vehicles (we're pretty nanny state of here) but I'm looking forward to poking about the inner resources of the site and asking some darn fool questions too (so apologies in advance).

Having just signed up, Jules knows nothing about this yet so I'll bring her over to the site later.

I'm not sure I have either the skills or tools required anyway, but if you're happy with my "peeking behind the curtain" for now, I'll do that.

It is a great thought though.
Thanks for now
keith

[bc toys]

Welcome Keith hope you find out if they are allowed before you try to build one. Think I read some time back that if the trailer was tagged before you could build on that frame as long as you keep the vin # on it.

[keithmartyn]

Hi bc toys
Thanks for the welcome.
I'm looking into the legal requirements.
Even with a quick glance through some of the threads here it's obvious that many members have put their skills to good use.
There are a couple of camping sites over here where you can rent smaller vintage US trailers (I think they may be Airstreams) that's what got me looking - and here I am!
There's a guy not too far from me selling a 1966 Airstream Tradewind for just under £12,000 (about $19,000 US) all original but it's a 24 foot twin axle - beautiful but way too big for what I'd want
I've looked at your own photo gallery and your trailer's a sweetheart.
That's a nice external finish on your door, it looks almost like a carbon fibre type material.
Anyways thanks again
keith

[angib]

Actually Britain has had very little 'nanny state' for trailers - no registration, no inspection, no testing. Even meeting the current lighting rules seems a bit optional at times.

All that is set to change with the introduction of compulsory trailer testing, the IVA test, but that doesn't come into force for teardrops or other homebuilt caravans until October 2014, so you can let your inner renegade run wild till then.

You might want to visit a UK teardrop forum at http://teardropforum.co.uk/ as there is some discussion about the IVA test there.