Maintenance & Restoration

morgynm · 07-02-2017, 09:56 PM

We were shopping in Dartmouth Crossing, here in Nova Scotia late this afternoon. I spotted in the distant Walmart lot what I thought was a Trillium, due to its boxy shape but something seemed "off" about it being a Trillium so I made my husband drive up to it. Turns out that it was a SideKick or at least that's what was on the side of it. My web search turned up regular trailers and horse trailers called sidekicks but nothing else. Is there another name I should be looking up? It's normal to see Bolers, Trilliums, and the odd Scamp around here and I recognize the names of a lot of other fibreglass trailers. This one is fascinating me as I've never heard of it. 😄

rbryan · 07-02-2017, 10:05 PM

The only fiberglass trailer I've heard of called "sidekick" is a Trillium Sidekick. I think its the result of a partnership between Trillium and Great West Vans. Don't know much about them, other than it's based on a Trillium 1500.

morgynm · 07-02-2017, 10:24 PM

Ah! It being based off of a trillium 1500 makes sense to me. That's what seemed odd about it... it being bigger than what I thought was the only size of a Trillium but not as big as a 17' Boler. I've only ever seen the 13' Boler-sized Trilliums around here.

rbryan · 07-02-2017, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by morgynm

Ah! It being based off of a trillium 1500 makes sense to me. That's what seemed odd about it... it being bigger than what I thought was the only size of a Trillium but not as big as a 17' Boler. I've only ever seen the 13' Boler-sized Trilliums around here.

Yes, they do have larger ones. I found a photo of a Sidekick Legend model. This is probably similar to what you saw.

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By the way, the Trillium 1500 and the Escape 15 (no longer produced) shells are very similar.

Raz · 07-03-2017, 04:10 AM

The 1300 was made in California for a while using original molds. That's what I have. The 15' version sometimes called the 4500, sometimes called 1500 was made from molds made from a 4500 purchased and disassembled. A fellow named Tom Young was the company president and owner. He contracted out the manufacturing to various companies. Escape made them for a brief time. In 2014 Tom sold the operation to Great West Vans in Winnipeg. Great West made trailers there under the names Trillium sidekick and later just Sidekick until the pipes froze in the factory. They decided to relocate to Alabama where apparently things didn't go well. My understanding is that everything was sold off. The molds are out there somewhere......

Jon in AZ · 07-03-2017, 06:51 AM

Don't forget Arizona. Sidekick tried to set up manufacturing in Florence, AZ sometime in its convoluted history. A couple of partially completed shells appeared on local Craigslist after they shut down.

Trillium Sidekick sold both 13' and 15' models, and the best part was they retained the all-around jalousie windows from the original design. High price (they sold through dealers) combined with sloppy build quality contributed to its downfall. Legal wrangling with (Trillium) Outback over rights to the Trillium name probably didn't help, either. It appears Sidekick won, because they have the Trillium logo molded into the door.

A pity. I'd love to see those molds back in production. Outback is still cranking out a few units, minus the Trillium name, but they lack all-around jalousie windows and don't offer a 15' model.

Jon in AZ · 07-03-2017, 08:13 AM

Here's a link to an old PDF brochure for the 2014 Sidekick:
http://www.chilhoweerv.com/brochures...el-Trailer.pdf

Raz · 07-03-2017, 09:08 AM

When I bought you could order ala carte. When they went to dealers you had to take what the dealer had. To the best of my knowledge they made only two trailers with a 3 way fridge, the one I have and the replacement they promised me.