Maintenance & Restoration

Riverbud · 05-30-2014, 11:57 AM

I stopped at the Oliver Factory last week to take a look at the 2009 Oliver Sport 17 they had for sale. I fell in love with it and really didn't need to think about it, called my wife and told her we have a new trailer. We left it in their good hands while it has some upgrades done, but we're looking forward to getting it on the road. Everyone at Oliver has been awesome to deal with.

Once we decided to buy a trailer, we researched Airstreams and then R-pods, but once we discovered fiberglass trailers there was no going back. After lots more research we discovered Oliver and loved their design philosophy, but they are so hard to find on the used market. We were really fortunate that they still had the Sport 17, and since they are only 90 minutes from us everything seems to have lined up in just the right way.

blodn1 · 05-30-2014, 02:28 PM

Congratulations! I saw it a couple of weeks ago. You're so lucky, and I'm sure you'll love it.

Boomer · 05-31-2014, 08:14 AM

Scott, Great, I heard from Robert that you got a great deal. We just left the factory and put a deposit down on a new unit. Enjoy your Oliver!!! Jerry

SherryNPaul · 06-03-2014, 06:10 PM

Congrats to both of you, Scott! And, happy camping.
Sherry

kootenaigirl · 06-03-2014, 07:06 PM

I love the look of Oliver's, congratulations!

carlkeigley · 06-03-2014, 07:35 PM

to the Forum Scott.
And congratulations on your new Oliver.
You will find you did not go wrong on your decision.
You will have many many good memories in the making.

papa-t · 06-03-2014, 08:38 PM

Congrats and welcome.

Riverbud · 06-03-2014, 09:40 PM

Can't wait to pick up the trailer and hit the road. We didn't plan on getting anything until the fall, but now that we found it we are anxious to hook up and head out to nowhere in particular. In the meantime we are putting a brake controller on the van, gathering up supplies, and getting ready for our new addition to the family.

We started out tent camping, struggled putting up a tent and in the next site saw someone pull up in a Westy, pop the top and settle in. Shortly after that, we were the proud owners of an '83 Vanagon Westfalia. We had her for about ten years, it had its share of problems but always got us home.

After we sold the Westy, I wound up with a 1 ton diesel pickup and a 28 foot 5th wheel. We had no where to put it, so we had to rent space in a storage lot. We hated everything about it, worse purchase we ever made. After we unloaded that, we really went in the other direction and bought a Land Cruiser, which we used to explore Texas, Utah, Colorado, and the Southwest.

That was sold when we found a sweet deal on a Class B Sprinter.

We put almost 50K miles in three years travelling all over from a trip from Texas up to the Grand Canyon and then down through Arizona and New Mexico, and then all over the East Coast and Southeast. We realized we loved the Sprinter but we didn't like lugging all the RV stuff around all the time as we used it for a second car. So we sold that, and bought a cargo Sprinter which we built up into a car camper. I installed a bed, Engel refrigerator, and a 12v house electrical system with a converter and outlets. Everything is removable so we can reconfigure it as our needs change.

We generally go point to point, driving through the day and stopping at places along the way and finding somewhere to stay for the night, so the new van was perfect for that.

A funny thing happened on our west coast trip this spring. We wound up in Napa valley and decided to stay in one place for a week. We found out that we really liked having a base to explore from, a place to go back to at the end of the day, or just a place to relax if you don't feel like doing anything. With two of us and two dogs the van wasn't really equipped for that, so we started researching trailers and wound up with the Oliver. We'll tow it with the Sprinter, it really is a pleasure to drive and the dogs love it.

carlkeigley · 06-03-2014, 10:19 PM

That will make a nice combo.

Thanks for the vehicle adventure.........

Pete · 06-04-2014, 09:42 AM

Scott,

It was great meeting and talking to you both as our paths crossed briefly at the Ollie factory last week. Congratulations on your ownership of the "one of a kind" Oliver Sport! Welcome to the Ollie clan, a subset of the Fiberglass RV tribe. The Sprinter-Sport combo going down the road will be a real head turner. Have fun in your wanderings. Hope our paths cross again.

Pete & Oscar the Smiley Dog

Donna D. · 06-04-2014, 08:17 PM

OMG, you are so LUCKY. You have the perfect combo for you and will make great memories every single time you head out. How many other people can say that because they're towing something that isn't perfect for THEM?

Pictures, post LOTS of pictures

Riverbud · 06-05-2014, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete

Scott,

It was great meeting and talking to you both as our paths crossed briefly at the Ollie factory last week. Congratulations on your ownership of the "one of a kind" Oliver Sport! Welcome to the Ollie clan, a subset of the Fiberglass RV tribe. The Sprinter-Sport combo going down the road will be a real head turner. Have fun in your wanderings. Hope our paths cross again.

Pete & Oscar the Smiley Dog

Thanks Pete, we were very fortunate to be there at the same time, you really gave us some invaluable first hand information.

This really has been such a positive experience, at the end of the tour we finally saw our little Oliver sitting off to the side of the assembly line waiting for the a/c installation. Jim noticed that the interior lights were still the old incandescent type and the next thing we know one of the staff is replacing them all with LEDs. Pete mentioned that one nice thing to have is an interior grab handle near the door, and my wife talked to Robert and that's now being added.

Everyone at Oliver has been such a pleasure to work with, they asked us as customers what we want to see in future designs and it's nice to see a company take a proactive interest.

Riverbud · 12-18-2014, 12:41 PM

Things have been crazy for my wife at work so we didn't have many free weekends this summer. We took a short shakedown trip to Fall Creek Falls for the Egg Rally.

With lessons learned, we started getting ready for a 10 day fall trip. The Oliver Sport was a concept developed by Oliver to offer a stripped down version that still had the quality of all their trailers but came in at a more affordable price point. As such, it did't have an entertainment system, so I installed a DVD player and flat screen TV. The double hull design made it easy to run wires between the hulls from the terminal block under the rear dinette seat to the upper cabinets where the DVD player and the TV would be mounted. There was also a reinforcing plate for the TV swivel mount in the right rear corner, and the external antenna was also pre-wired to an outlet plate on the bottom of the rear upper cabinet.

We also wanted to brighten up the interior a little, the Oliver came with dark brown fabric on the cushions so we had them recovered in something a little more colorful. I used Sunbrella for the fabric. You can also see the DVD/Radio player mounted above in this picture.

When we picked up our Oliver, the aluminum double step was still in the design stage. Our two dogs aren't the most coordinated creatures on earth, and we worried that they wouldn't be able to handle the single step, so I went ahead and bought a regular stamped steel double step. My wife is also on the short side and likes it much better.

We also bought several suction cup hooks, and a small microwave. For our clothing, we picked up two Rolo Traveling Bags, which allowed us to hang all of our clothes in the forward closet.

After that, it was simply a matter of loading up and heading out.