Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Has anyone ever seen a tear made from car (Volvo) body parts? My son's friend has been thinking about building along those lines. I couldn't find any when I searched.

Not a Volvo.... but I used to travel in the same circle as one made from a VW Beetle body mounted to a trailer frame. Two hatches...... the trunk and the engine compartment!!

are there any pictures? That sound like what he is thinking - cutting part of a station wagon and using the hood as the hatch. mounted on a trailer.

I'll go through the old photo albums and see if I can find a pic to scan. I have to go back about 15-18 years ago in order to find it...... way before I had a digital!!

I do remember they used the whole VW body (fenders and all). The trailer axle lined up with the rear wheel well and centered the wheels there. The way the early VW's were made, the entire body could be lifted off the chassis intact by removing 20+/- bolts. I did it to two of them for dune buggies, but I wanted the chassis, not the body.

Back when Custom Vans were king, I saw a four wheel trailer made from a van, that matched the body style of the tow vehicle...the entire power train was removed to enclude the dash and the interior was converted to match the custom interior of the Tow vehicle...result was a tandem camper with a sliding door in each section...way cool...this made me think of that....

suggest he use a vehicle body that matches the tow vehicle....

did a search and found a trailer made from an MGB Body..he may learn something from this...

http://www.mgexperience.net/article/mgb-trailer.html




and a corvair done the same....

The Corvair trailer shown above is a particularly nice example of using only the forward-of-cowl part of a car, with the front axle, capped by the stock tail. There's little reason to do this except in the bizarre category of "push trailers", which use the complete drivetrain, front suspension, and surrounding bodywork of a front-wheel-drive car to push another vehicle - usually a battery-electric car on trips longer than the battery can handle.

In the Corvair case, of course, the trailer has been made from the end of the car which has only a trunk, and no engine. Here is it obviously done just to match the towing car, which is perhaps a good enough reason in itself.

I'm in the process of doing something along these lines. I like the early Neons, and have a 95 as my daily driver. I recently parted out a 97 4dr, and chopped it off just ahead of the B-pillar, and then fabricated a bubble front out of EMT tubing, skinned with salvaged automotive sheetmetal. Not done yet, tho I did take it for a maiden voyage last week, and it towed real fine behind the 95. I took it to the local feed coop, where I unhooked it on the scale and weighed it--820 lbs at this point. (I haven't checked the tongue weight, but it's not too heavy to lift it and wheel it around by myself---tho I wouldn't want to for very long!)

I'll add some more photos to my personal album shortly... FYI. Check for a new post in this forum, too, relative to "neon lite"... if interested.

If ya look at the Corvair pic , you'll notice the tow vehicle looks to be the same car. Bet it looks pretty cool all together!

very cool

Boodro wrote:If ya look at the Corvair pic , you'll notice the tow vehicle looks to be the same car. Bet it looks pretty cool all together!

I agree... even though it is the wrong generation of Corvair.