Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I want to build a trailer and found this german small trailer.

It to me seems like the perfect trailer but can it become a home built trailer ?

http://www.henkpen.nl/mod.php?mod=invex ... 1182749429

or

http://www.henkpen.nl/mod.php?mod=invex ... 1182750493

or

http://www.dethleffs-campy.de/

Here is another really great design but it may be beyond the home builders ability.

http://www.safaricondo.com/alto/menueng.html

welcome, and good luck... the answer to your question is:

OF COURSE... anything is possible.

just a little advice, that will help you out on this forum:

1. post your geographic location in your profile.

2. posting a pick of yourself is nice. this is a pretty close community, and having your picture in your avatar is important.

3. check out the search button. most of your questions have probably been answered already.

4. learn to upload pics, and provide lots o' them when you start to build.

5. take your time and have a super experience building!

again, WELCOME!

tk

Groveb,

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for posting the links... those are a few cool looking trailer designs!

Hi Groveb,

Welcome to the forum. Yes, any design can become a home built. Some are more difficult than others... the trailmanor comes to mind.

But the design that you are showing is pretty simple. I wouldn't do the front hatch though. Even though it gives you easy access to under bed storage, it's too easy to develop a leak there.

Also check out the ET that I am building right now. It has the best of both worlds... teardrop features like a hatch and a galley... trailer features like a bathroom and a dinette...

http://tnttt.com/viewto ... &start=195
Mike...

This one;

http://www.dethleffs-campy.de/

Looks looks my Shasta mounted backwards on the frame.



Happy Trails

Len

I will fill out my profile soon. I am a almost 50 year old with one child in College and another that is a freshman in HS, so we are close to being empty nesters and I have always had a strong desire to travel. I have a part time hobby as a photographer and have started making some nice money doing that by selling "Stock" photography. I hope to be able to travel and work as a photographer to keep me busy during retirement.

I would like to buy a trailer but I just can't find one in the US that I can accept. The TAB and TADA are very close but just not right. After doing some internet research I realize that it is possible to build exactly what I want.

The ET looks like what I want to build, I will be watching the progress closely. I followed the link and looked at all of the pages, it was very educational.

I suppose what I want is a TAB that has a bathroom but doesn't have the ugly cabinets that have. I don't understand how they can have a full european design chassis etc. and then put cabinets from a Dutchmen 5th wheel in it.

I live about 10 minutes from the RV capital of the world and about 30 minutes from the home of the TAB trailers. I am hoping that I will be able to source some of the items I need for my project locally.

What I have not been able to find is a US source for the chassis BPW or Alko that is used by Thor. Also I can't find a US source for the windows Polypastic which is a dutch company that makes them but I can't find a dealer in the US. I plan on contacting TAB and asking about replacement parts for some of the items I need. I can buy the windows in Europe but the cost and shipping is very high.

I am really attracted to almost any of the European made trailers (caravans) and at some point closer to retirement when I want a home that I can pull around and live in for 4-6 months at a time I will likely buy one in Europe and ship it over and convert it to US electric.

It should be a fun winter trying to design and decide on what to build !

groveb wrote:I want to build a trailer and found this german small trailer.

It to me seems like the perfect trailer but can it become a home built trailer ?

http://www.henkpen.nl/mod.php?mod=invex ... 1182749429

or

http://www.henkpen.nl/mod.php?mod=invex ... 1182750493

or

http://www.dethleffs-campy.de/

That's not a German website.... It's Dutch....

Also look at www.predom.nl
it is a polish caravancompany that builds very small caravans made of polyester.
Also you can google for Sterckeman, caravelair, kip, rapido and trigano.
Henk

The "Predom" design is Polish, and the company is Niewiadow, but that Dutch distributor (Predom) is the site usually linked. Some were actually sold in North America, built (or just finished) in Canada by Nical but with more North American equipment... these versions were called the "Cadet", "Captain" and "Admiral" (in increasing order of size from 13' to 21' in length ).

Mini-Caravan (a website in English)
Niewiadow (official website)

By the way, a translation guide... these all mean the same thing:
Euro: "polyester"
UK: "GRP" or "glass reinforced plastic" or "glass-fibre reinforced plastic"
North America: "FRP" or "fiberglass reinforced plastic" or just "fiberglass"

Thanks Brian,

That was my missing link.

Henk

groveb wrote:Here is another really great design but it may be beyond the home builders ability.

http://www.safaricondo.com/alto/menueng.html

Let Andrew play with a design for a bit, he'll come up with something...

Flonker wrote:Let Andrew play with a design for a bit, he'll come up with something...

Sorry to let you down - that 'Safari Condo' has loads of moving parts that need to work terribly precisely. And then there is an issue about rain water that's draining down inside the trailer - now I assume they've designed it to deal with that (maybe, maybe not) but for a home-build to deal with water inside seems an unnecessary complication.

And the end result saves maybe a foot of height when towing in exchange for all the weight of the folding gear - they would have been better off building a fixed body with a pop-top.

Andrew