Sales of used fiberglass campers

[Meadowlark]

Whether Casita still does it or not, I don't know, but they had a program where you submitted your name and phone number to Casita. If someone from you area called adn wanted to 'look' at a Casita, they called you. You'd show it to the person and if they bought a Casita, you got $200. I showed mine several times and never got the bonus, but the idea was that word of mouth sells better than any glossy brochure for a stick built.

That's how we found ours. We were on our morning walk when we saw a Casita parked in a neighbor's driveway. We were immediately intrigued but didn't bother them, just called Casita on the phone number on the spare tire cover. They send us brochures, and the website URL.

THEN we went to a RV show, a BIG one, and there wasn't a single fiberglass camper in it. I went with a checklist of what I wanted in a trailer, and none had them all. But Casita did, because I could order it. For instance, I wanted more than two elecric outlets and got them.

[Mr Lynn]

Escape has an 'Ambassador' program, too. We have shown ours to one couple recently, and another prospect is coming up. We enjoy it.

Oliver does the same; we actually looked at a local Oliver back in 2022.

[Perryb67]

Originally Posted by KatZam

Both Escape and Armadillo have shown a couple of their trailers at the Tradex RV Show in Abbotsford, BC. It's very close for Escape since Chilliwack is only 25 min from Abbotsford. Armadillo is a few hours north of Abbotsford in Armstrong, BC. It was great to be able to talk directly with the owners who manufacture the trailers.

Scamp used to show their campers at the Minneapolis RV Show in February. But once there was a long wait to purchase they quit bringing their campers to the show. That's just smart business. Why spend money if all your production is pre-sold. Scamp, Escape, Casita, Bigfoot, etc. have waiting lines.

OTOH, drove past Lazydays RV the other day and their lot had just about every Airstream made. Airstreams are mass-produced. It's not, can you afford an Airstream, but can you afford to maintain an Airstream.

We've owned a 2000 (?) 16' Scamp with all the options, a stripped down 2007 17' Casita, a 2003 25RQ Bigfoot, 2018 Escape 5.0, and now a 2016 25RQ Bigfoot. Only complaint: didn't like the constant maintenance of Scamp's rivets, but otherwise it was great (owned it for 6 years). The Casita was trouble free (5 years). Only owned the 2003 Bigfoot for a year, but it was solid. Aside from two axles that were replaced by Dexter, including the labor and new tires, our Escape was trouble free (4 years). Now after nearly a year we did bend one of the Bigfoot's 2 3/8", 3500# axles, but are replacing both axles with heavy duty 5,200# axles. Aside from axles on older units I know of no constant repairs.

Our friends, with an Airstream 23RB, that travels down the road 10-12,000 miles a year, seem to have $1-2,000 in repairs every fall, with rivets being the #1 item every year. Also, because of their low ground clearance they can't go the places we've gone with our Escape and Bigfoot(s).

Enjoy,

Perry

[computerspook]

Originally Posted by Perryb67

Scamp used to show their campers at the Minneapolis RV Show in February. But once there was a long wait to purchase they quit bringing their campers to the show. That's just smart business. Why spend money if all your production is pre-sold. Scamp, Escape, Casita, Bigfoot, etc. have waiting lines.

OTOH, drove past Lazydays RV the other day and their lot had just about every Airstream made. Airstreams are mass-produced. It's not, can you afford an Airstream, but can you afford to maintain an Airstream.

We've owned a 2000 (?) 16' Scamp with all the options, a stripped down 2007 17' Casita, a 2003 25RQ Bigfoot, 2018 Escape 5.0, and now a 2016 25RQ Bigfoot. Only complaint: didn't like the constant maintenance of Scamp's rivets, but otherwise it was great (owned it for 6 years). The Casita was trouble free (5 years). Only owned the 2003 Bigfoot for a year, but it was solid. Aside from two axles that were replaced by Dexter, including the labor and new tires, our Escape was trouble free (4 years). Now after nearly a year we did bend one of the Bigfoot's 2 3/8", 3500# axles, but are replacing both axles with heavy duty 5,200# axles. Aside from axles on older units I know of no constant repairs.

Our friends, with an Airstream 23RB, that travels down the road 10-12,000 miles a year, seem to have $1-2,000 in repairs every fall, with rivets being the #1 item every year. Also, because of their low ground clearance they can't go the places we've gone with our Escape and Bigfoot(s).

Enjoy,

Perry

Scamp rivets can be annoying. :-(

Yeah my Scamp surw has been a lot of places. And it's put up pretty well with all of it. I've been a number of places where it took two four-wheel drives to tow it there.

[Meadowlark]

We did an overnight at Cp. Rilea in Oregon once. Calling it a campground is giving it too much credit..it was basically a parking lot for RV's, side by side. BUt it was inexpensive ("cheap") and had water and electricity. A couple backed in their Airstream and took an hour to get it all set up. THe rear left 'quarter' panel had popped rivets from top to bottom. I don't KNOW that they're rivets, they look like them but I know nothing about Airstreams except that you're paying a lot of money for prestige and the aura of elitism. I just found it rather embarassing for the couple who were obviously newbies. DIdn't they notice all those popped rivets? I bet they found out in the next rainstorm.

[Paul O.]

Originally Posted by Meadowlark

We did an overnight at Cp. Rilea in Oregon once. Calling it a campground is giving it too much credit..it was basically a parking lot for RV's, side by side. BUt it was inexpensive ("cheap") and had water and electricity. A couple backed in their Airstream and took an hour to get it all set up. THe rear left 'quarter' panel had popped rivets from top to bottom. I don't KNOW that they're rivets, they look like them but I know nothing about Airstreams except that you're paying a lot of money for prestige and the aura of elitism. I just found it rather embarassing for the couple who were obviously newbies. DIdn't they notice all those popped rivets? I bet they found out in the next rainstorm.

Here it is about the rivets. They have to be recessed on airplanes, and on Airstreams as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE6duD25qSU

[ApothecaryJohn]

Not sure if this is the proper thread, but this is for sale..
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225878724295

[Jon MB]

Originally Posted by KatZam

.... It was great to be able to talk directly with the owners who manufacture the trailers.

I'd rather talk to owner/users of the items, than to the sales team of the manufacturer of the items. Owner/users might be less cagey when discussing the realities of their experiences than a manufacturer's paid employees that are under pressure to sell something, anything.

Originally Posted by Meadowlark

....If someone from you area called and wanted to 'look' at a Casita, they called you. You'd show it to the person and if they bought a Casita, you got $200. I showed mine several times and never got the bonus, but the idea was that word of mouth sells better than any glossy brochure for a stick built.

Originally Posted by Mr Lynn

Escape has an 'Ambassador' program, too. We have shown ours to one couple recently, and another prospect is coming up. We enjoy it.
Oliver does the same; we actually looked at a local Oliver back in 2022.

The owner referral programs aren't ubiquitous? I thought that was almost an expectation of getting X dollars in credit towards manufacturer's retail price on their over-priced accessories in return for getting them sales leads.

[jerrybob]

Over the years....many folks have asked to see our Casita while camping. I will provide a tour. We charge $5 for adults and $3 for children. We give a 50cent discount to seniors....military and people who can spell Casita backwards on one try. Thus far.....we have made $23.25. Not a lot but I do get to wear one of those metal coin changers while camping which is kinda cool.

[Jon in AZ]

I would charge $3 for adults and $25 for children.

[Rzrbrn]

I owned a Casita, sold it and now have a Big Foot. Probably should have kept the Casita, although the BF is much nicer: Much more difficult to maneuver, and of course, it gave me a reason to buy a bigger truck to tow it. Air Stream used to sell the NEST fiberglass trailer, but stopped. I notice a few others selling fiberglass trailers: Escape, Oliver, Cortes, Barefoot Campervans, NuCamp Sol, Outback Trillium, Snoozy II, Armadillo, and Happier Campers. Here is an interesting website which exhibits these and a few European fiberglass trailers:https://rvobsession.com/small-fiberg...ravel-trailers. One big speed bump to producing molded FG trailers is the cost of the mold vs the number of units sold. FG bass boats sell more than FG trailers, overall, and yet seem to come and go like leaves falling from trees in the fall. Most molded trailers are fairly small and confining even the largest BF. The BF has a number of floorpans, but when I bought mine in 2019 only had the larger size with the bedroom in the back; I much prefer to have the dinette in the back. So cost and lack of space are probably the reasons molded fiberglass trailers will probably never be dominant in the industry.

[computerspook]

Originally Posted by Rzrbrn

I owned a Casita, sold it and now have a Big Foot. Probably should have kept the Casita, although the BF is much nicer: Much more difficult to maneuver, and of course, it gave me a reason to buy a bigger truck to tow it. Air Stream used to sell the NEST fiberglass trailer, but stopped. I notice a few others selling fiberglass trailers: Escape, Oliver, Cortes, Barefoot Campervans, NuCamp Sol, Outback Trillium, Snoozy II, Armadillo, and Happier Campers. Here is an interesting website which exhibits these and a few European fiberglass trailers:https://rvobsession.com/small-fiberg...ravel-trailers. One big speed bump to producing molded FG trailers is the cost of the mold vs the number of units sold. FG bass boats sell more than FG trailers, overall, and yet seem to come and go like leaves falling from trees in the fall. Most molded trailers are fairly small and confining even the largest BF. The BF has a number of floorpans, but when I bought mine in 2019 only had the larger size with the bedroom in the back; I much prefer to have the dinette in the back. So cost and lack of space are probably the reasons molded fiberglass trailers will probably never be dominant in the industry.

The molds do seem to be an issue. But I keep wondering if they are needed or not. Have not thought successfully of an alternative. BUT it seems that with modern technology there should be an alternative. But maybe that is wishful thinking. But I have been thinking ;-)

But we are back to the point that the molds are the issue and the cost. And yet are then being used to the fullest. As you kind of pointed out once you have the outside shape you could come up with an infinite number of floor plans. So one thing might be to have a process and molds that can very quickly produce the shell and then have like multiple uses for that shell. And then for the RV use multiple floor plans. Looks like scamp does 2 a day. How about a process that does 20 shells a day. That would require that the shell cure to not needing a mold in say 15-20 minutes. But I have done fiber fiberglass repairs that were pretty hard in that time.



Just some thoughts.

[computerspook]

One additional thought on the shape for the fiberglass shell here. Air stream worked real hard in general to come up with a good external shape design. The stick built people are kind of stuck with the box and can't do the teardrop/egg/cocoon/bubble shape of an airstream/scamp/casita/burro. But I am not sure but what someone could improve on it a bit for purposes of production.


The general shape has great power and produces a great design foundation for some great products. Now the fully circular profile I have seen in some examples that failed reminds be of my grandpa Ray Ondslow Stevens and what he said with "a good idea done badly is still a bad idea." You need to support a somewhat box shaped inside. We are not modifying the design of people. We might do some things like fix the hard bicycle seat problem with special biking shorts. But you have to stick with reality. Ths scamp and casita design with a kind of a half rectangular profile is a good trade off like the bike shorts. The having a more aerodynamic from and back based on this is a good way to go. Their popularity confirms this.


But that leave a lot of room for change. I think having a center section with a profile that is like 50% circle, 50% square but the same profile shape front to back would be good. You could make a mold to make this shape very quickly. Therefore cheaply. Then you would still have the challenge of the front and back sections. But they likely should be the same. It would take many days to make a mold of this shape. But one other thing I have seen is the process at a fiberglass tank factlory. They basically had the design I mentioned. But they did hand build the molds for the ends or for the sides either. They had molds of the ends and sides, but that were about 3/4 of an inch too small. THEN they used these to make shells that they polished and used a bunch of times to make the actual tanks. As I understood it they only got 50-100 tanks out of a set of molds. The master molds they could like use about forever, but the ones that they made did wear out. So they could be quickly made.

The other the tank factory did was have different sized tanks from the same basic mold set. They had the same shape for the ends and then extended the center section to the size needed for the volume needed. I would love to see this applied to fiberglass RVs. A say 13 foot and 16 foot and a 20 foot would all have the same ends and just a longer or shorter center section. And yes I said 20 foot.

A 20 foot is like my idea as most of you here know. Not a 5th wheel like the scamp 19. Just a normal trailer with a fiberglass egg style shell. But 20 foot long so it can have a real bed and some other things. But in my idea it would have the same profile as a 13 or 16 or etc unit.

This would make for a much more mass(ish) production suppporting design. Now getting the money to make this happen would be a challenge. But I see like 5-10 RVs a day with 2-3 other purpose trailers on the same general design. So maybe 12-15 shells a day with the molding system of molds of molds. That would help serve the current demand, expand into some other areas, and if you could then deliver in a reasonable time frame a lot larger market.

[Rzrbrn]

Ray, This fiberglass trailer is sort of in line with your thoughts regarding an alternative to strictly molded FG: www.freedomcaravans.com. I am wondering when trailers will be made of a material that will allow it to be built using 3D printing technology. I read somewhere that somebody is building 3D printed houses. The Nautilus, an ancient pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae, secretes material to build a very strong shell...sort of a natural 3D printing.

[computerspook]

Originally Posted by Rzrbrn

Ray, This fiberglass trailer is sort of in line with your thoughts regarding an alternative to strictly molded FG: www.freedomcaravans.com. I am wondering when trailers will be made of a material that will allow it to be built using 3D printing technology. I read somewhere that somebody is building 3D printed houses. The Nautilus, an ancient pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae, secretes material to build a very strong shell...sort of a natural 3D printing.

Really not even close on what I see. I am talking about production of the outside shell. One that could be mass produced and could be expanded (or contracted) easily.


I have heard talk of someone trying a 3d printed house but have not heard of it being done. And I doubt it. A couple of years ago they had a 2 week car show and one of the car makers, mostly to make headlines, did a 3d printed car. It was a very very simple one and not sure if it ran when they got done. But they had to show up before the show and had to have the printer like running for a week before the show and then it finished just at the end of the show. And that was with fast bleeding edge technology. We are years from mass production of large things with a 3d printer. Maybe you could make the molds of the molds with one. If I was setting what I talked about up, I would have looked into doing that for the ends. But you are not close on 3d printing.

[Jon Vermilye]

Originally Posted by computerspook

Really not even close on what I see. I am talking about production of the outside shell. One that could be mass produced and could be expanded (or contracted) easily.


I have heard talk of someone trying a 3d printed house but have not heard of it being done. And I doubt it. A couple of years ago they had a 2 week car show and one of the car makers, mostly to make headlines, did a 3d printed car. It was a very very simple one and not sure if it ran when they got done. But they had to show up before the show and had to have the printer like running for a week before the show and then it finished just at the end of the show. And that was with fast bleeding edge technology. We are years from mass production of large things with a 3d printer. Maybe you could make the molds of the molds with one. If I was setting what I talked about up, I would have looked into doing that for the ends. But you are not close on 3d printing.

There was a sample 16' or so 3D printed trailer at the boler 50th reunion in Winnipeg. Haven's seen one since...

[Donna D.]

Originally Posted by Jon Vermilye

There was a sample 16' or so 3D printed trailer at the boler 50th reunion in Winnipeg. Haven's seen one since...

It was pretty cool. Not on a TT frame, just sitting on a flat bed trailer

[computerspook]

Originally Posted by Jon Vermilye

There was a sample 16' or so 3D printed trailer at the boler 50th reunion in Winnipeg. Haven's seen one since...

Would have to see more data on what they really did. But interesting.

[Meadowlark]

Back in the 70's, when Japanese cars were blamed for everything from the gas embargo to the recession, the then CEO of GM had a meeting with shareholders. His name is right on the tip of my tongue but I'll be darned if I can remember it.

He said, "THe problem with our bottom line is that we've been building cars that last ten years. The way to make money is to build a car that lasts two years, then we can sell three cars in ten years instead of one." (think of a 1960 impala..they're still on the road)And the rest is history...all three of the Big 3 began churning out cars that fell apart after only a few years. They were absolute junk, and don't slam me. I was born and raised in Motown, everyone in my neighborhood worked for the Big 3, and the stories the line doggies could tell about what they did..or didn't do to the cars that raced past them on the production line are legion.

Which is why I bought a Japanese car, and despite being threatened and my windows busted because of it, why I still will only buy Japanese vehicles. My current truck is a 99 Toyota Tacoma, she has 250 K on her and I fully expect to get another 250K.
That is what the Stick trailer manufacturers do. You can get a geewhiz bang stickbuilt with manly names, and in two years it will be leaking and falling apart. Whereas my 2011 Casita is still warm and dry in the Carwash State (WA).

As long as I camp, it will be in a fiberglass trailer.

[ShelbyM]

It's getting hard to buy a Japanese vehicle actually built in Japan.