Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi gang, long time no see. It's been a couple of years since I made my Generic Benroy, and we've used it a lot and love it. Hard to beat the simplicity and ease of towing and maneuvering and of course the style.
But on longer trips, or on those stretches of days when it rains and rains, we've sometimes wished for something a bit bigger.
We started looking at canned hams, came to the conclusion that most of the really cool true vintage ones fall into two categories, either already restored/pimped out and priced accordingly, or priced really cheap and needing thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to make nice again.
I did not want to build another one, and all the "restorable" ones we saw needed so much work it was like starting from scratch. I also saw a couple of quasi-restored ones that were IMHO overpriced and still needing much work. No thanks. Then a pattern emerged..the newer the year the better condition, at least in our area. The '70's get short shrift due to a perceived lack of cool factor. So we found a '74 13 foot Winnebago, the mystery travel trailers of the world. Just try a google search, you'll see. I'll post a pic later. It's in really good shape and has a unique construction that make it interesting.

Here it is. Really clean. Reminds me of being a kid and seeing the motorized big brothers on the road back then. There is almost no internet presence for these, even the company, which has great info on the motorhomes and pickup truck slide ins they made ignores the travel trailers for the most part.
These were made like the big ones, a "thermo panel" is used to skin it. Looks like some sort of FRP/solid foam/wood panel sandwich with minimal framework. Probably has it's minuses, but as I see it the lack of fiberglass insulation and wooden framework means structural water damage issues will be less than more conventional designs. Otherwise it's a fairly standard design. The PO had done some nice work on the plumbing. The cushions were gross though! Word of warning, replacing those can cost as much as you'd pay for a fixer upper camper alone! The interior color scheme is "lime green", a nice period variation on avacado back in the day.

I like it, cool

Here's the dinette area. I built new seat panels to replace the beat up old chipboard stuff. The faux wood paneling is in great shape and the green floor really pops when it's cleaned up.

Welcome back, Mr. Shoeman!

Congratulations on your new-to-you trailer, too! Avocado green is back in style, ya know.

Hi shoeman,

Congrats on your great find. It appears to be in great condition from
what your pics show so far.

@12-15 years ago I saw a nice one that was about 19-21ft long and its
sides were canted out on the bottom and in on the top and met at a
center-line of sorts. Your post inspired me to Google image search
"Winnebago Travel Trailer" and I came up with this:

http://rvinsights.blogspot.com/2011/03/ ... ailer.html

And I found out it was @ a 1979 and used 2" thick sandwich panel
construction. So a little mystery was solved. They were a nice looking
unit - as is yours.

Good luck with your refurbishments and have fun camping with it.

Cheers,Norm/mezmo

Thanks. I'd seen that site too. The big versions get more press. Interestingly, there is a sticker with the VIN # etc that reads "assembled by Chrysler as an unfinished vehicle".
So I wonder what's up with that? At first I thought maybe they made the shell/structure and Winnebago finished them off, but as we know these are usually built "inside out" so I doubt that theory.
$1000 worth of new high density foam goes in it this weekend. A Joanne's coupon saved us 40% of that though! Phew.

Let's see the new cushions.

Hey Shoeman, that really is a nice looking camper! I know what is said about the cost of replacing cushions (or mattresses). I just ordered a new 4 1/2" memory foam mattress made to custom dimensions (69" wide by 77" long) for our new Little Guy 6 wide. Including charges for making a custom size and custom cotton cover, the price was $599.00! The mattress including the thickness of the cover will be 5 1/4".

I slept on the standard mattress that comes with the Little Guy (with 15 fused vertebrae) for 7 nights and it nearly killed me!! I had to resort to sleeping in my back brace and then sleeping on a pillow placed in the hollow that formed in the poorly supported mattress. I am sure life will be greatly improved with the arrival of the new memory foam mattress.

I hope you enjoy your new acquisition and you don't have any water leaks or structural damage. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Clyde in California

Shoeman has got right , everyone needs a Stable of travel trailers.

Welcome back Shoeman....and yes...every self respecting Tiny Trailer person ought to have a couple to pick from. Potential bad weather? Take the standie....Nice weather and smaller camping spaces...take the tear. I see nothing wrong in owning a couple. I camp with some others that also have trailer "options". Before a trip, we talk about who's taking what and adjust accordingly. As far as finding what you want...yeah...sometimes it's tough. There are lots of beaters out there that the owners think are absolute gold mines. You gotta look at a lot of peasants till you find your queen! Doug

Funny timing. We're actually going to put the Winnebago up for sale this spring. We like the convenience of it, but the beds are just too small. I'm 6'6" and there is not enough room on the couch bed or whatever you call it for both of us, so we ended up putting the table down for my wife to sleep on and leaving it that way on most trips. Not what I had envisioned. So our experiment with a "bigger" camper did not pan out so well. Bummer, as we put a lot of work and $$ into it, but that's SOP I suppose.
I have to fix one brake light that quit on our last trip, then haul it out of the garage and hang the for sale sign on it soon. If I was only a bit more average in height it would have been a keeper