Quote:
Originally Posted by SummitPond
I'm no gearhead, but it seems to me that Detroit forced the move to manufacture lightweight trailers as their vehicles could no longer haul something substantial.
From the late mid-60s up through the early 70s my folks had a 31 foot (?) Holiday Rambler. No slides. I think it had a mid-ship kitchen; the back had twin beds that could be made into one large bed with a board and using the back cushions to fill. The dinette (as always) made into a bed, as did the up-front couch. I know the trailer was heavy, maybe not built like a tank but it had a metal roof and I suspect a solid wood subfloor. Somehow six of us and a large dog managed to travel around the country, pulled by (at first) a 1964 Ford convertible (don't recall the model); yes - some of us rode in the trailer while it was being pulled. Eventually my folks got a 1970 Plymouth Suburban wagon (no longer needed to ride in the trailer), and in 1972 they traded to a 28 foot Winnebago motorhome (but by then I was gone).
I suspect the trailer industry was adapting so they could continue to sell product to match the predominant (underpowered) tow vehicle most people had at that time.
Does anyone have any statistics on the TV population, meaning % of trucks (heavy duty vs mid-weight), SUVs and whatever else is out there that is up to the job as a function of time? It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the TVs and the GVWR of the TTs.
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I think it's probably a "circular finger pointing series of events" that caused the evolution to lighter RV's.
The "energy crisis of the '70's" followed by smaller cars that ran on unleaded gas and got better fuel mileage, consumers buying these "smaller, lighter cars and trucks" and demanding a trailer they could pull, the RV industry offering "3 more inches of width" to beat the competition, then the competition offering "1 additional foot of bathroom space" to "one up the wider trailer" and the automobile industry changing to V-6 to replace the V-8, followed by the RV industry switching to rubber roofs to replace the galvanized steel roof, followed by the I-4 engine followed by the "sandwich floor" followed by the smaller I-4 engine coupled to an electric motor followed by the "helium technology" followed by .......
As the "green crowd" grows, the demand for smaller, lighter, fuel efficient cars will continue. If the RV industry is going to remain profitable, they are going to be forced to build smaller, lighter more easily towed RV's.
The question, at least to me, is will we continue to see the "square footage of today's lightweight trailers" or will the size start to shrink because there's just no way to make them lighter with thinner floors as people eat more McDonalds and grow heavier with the same size shoes..... (more pounds per square inch on that thin floor)...
I really don't think anyone in the RV industry (builder, supplier, seller or consumer) has any idea what the RV's will look like in the year 2040...... Certainly it won't be 8,000 pounds, 11'6" tall and 32' long. It may "fold out to that size, but it won't occupy that much space on the highway behind an electric (or nuclear powered) family transport vehicle (assuming we will even be allowed to own a private vehicle because of population overgrowth and lack of funds to build/maintain a highway system.....
