Beginning of a teardrop camper build

That's exactly what I'd started out on last weekend. The idea began out six months ago with the discovery of a company by the name of Little Guy, that commercially produces these things, and proceeded to a forum dedicated to the homegrown building of these campers. Understandably, some description is in order of what, exactly, a teardrop camper or trailer is.

These small trailers were devised in the 1940s as a cheap, easily built travel trailer, with plans showing up in Popular Mechanics, to name one magazine as an example. That's right, they weren't a commercially produced item in the beginning. In fact, the motivation behind some of the layouts was that people struggling through the depression could live in it temporarily while looking for work. The economy may be bad, but I'm not at that point yet.

The teardrop name is derived from the side profile resembling that of a teardrop. The example photo just above is that of the "Benroy" style, which has the essence of the teardrop shape, but slightly more square. This happens to be the style I'm building, with plans from the aforementioned forum, but I'm looking to do a stainless steel or aluminum skin. Think old school Airstream. As I've said, magazines in the 1940's began publishing plans for tiny trailers of teardrop-shaped and also other geometries - but it's the teardrop trailers that are making a renaissance of sorts. These trailers typically have a floor dimension of 4' by 8' to 5' by 10' and even bigger in some custom designs.

These are certainly not rolling hotels, which is just fine by me. Frankly, I'm scared to hell of those 50-foot motorhomes careening down the highway while being piloted by a long-time member of AARP. No, these are simplistic designs that mean you get more mileage for your gas buck and you get to spend more time thinking about your trip and less about whether the next gas station is within 40 miles away and if that was a subcompact you just ran over.

The gas mileage is attractive because I want to use this thing on a cross-country road trip for my honeymoon next spring. We don't want luxury, we want to really feel the continent, with just a little more comfort and convenience than a tent. OK, I'll admit - it has more to do with bear protection.

The small form-factor and simplicity is also good because this will be the largest thing I've built up besides a whopping case of self-defeatism. Which leads me to the next thing: I'll never be able to do this.

No, those thoughts have been, so far, drowned out by some unknown-til-now source of enthusiasm, confidence and bravado. It's surprising me, since work is still grinding me, I've begun officially working on my graduate thesis that's due next spring, I'm getting married in less than six months and winter is sneaking up, taking away all the good outdoor work with it. In any case, it's good to get your hands dirty, and I'll post of the wee progress so far in another post.

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