Casita body style

[Laura Lundgren]

Howdy fellow egg lovers, I have a question about Casita trailers. We saw a 16 or 17 footer recently that had (to me anyway) an unusual feature. The rear portion of the camper had a higher ground clearance than the front portion. Is this a feature of an older Casita floor plan? It looked like a 5th wheel in reverse, on a very small scale. Anybody know what's up with that?

[Bret Tresidder]

Laura,

That is one of the identifying features of a 16 foot Casita (regardless of year). The floor steps up a few inches at the rear dinette.

Bret.

[Jim Hovind]

I've thought about building an aluminum box down there to store lawn chairs , pie irons, and such.

[Frederick L. Simson]

Originally Posted by Laura Lundgren

The rear portion of the camper had a higher ground clearance than the front portion... Anybody know what's up with that?

It is a vestige of the earlier design that Casita inherited from it's predecessors, Scamp and Boler, that no longer makes sense but would be not be cost effective for Casita to change for the lower production numbers of their 13' and 16' trailers at this late date.

In the beginning, Boler used a design trick that allowed at least partial stand-up headroom in a trailer short enough to fit in a standard garage. The small 1960's Scotty Sportsman trailers of the aluminum variety pioneered it; a drop floor in front of the axle. What many mistake for a step up to the rear dinette is in fact a step down from the dinette to the center of the kitchen. This is more visible when a frame-off restoration is done, since the bottom of the shell hides this on the outside.
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First Boler, and Later Scamp used this feature with an exposed wood floor. Casita came along and decided that their improvement would be to enclose the floor in fiberglass, molded into the lower half of the body. Casita did away with the drop floor, and made their frames all on one level raising the kitchen floor, but kept what is now an unnecessary step up to the rear dinette.

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They changed this for the totally redesigned 17' Spirit/Freedom/Liberty but didn't think it was necessary to change the 13' Patriot or the 16' Spirit/Freedom/Liberty that was basically just lengthened.

[Mike Magee]

When I first read the thread title, it made me think of people who might be said to have a "Casita body style".... nicely rounded... like maybe Burl Ives.

[BARNEYCONE]

The step up at the rear area is 6" on my '89 casita
barney cone ii