Lovely camper

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By Phillip Torrone
Posted 2010/03/10 @ 1:58 pm
Category Energy

I’ve never seen a trailer like this – perhaps it wasn’t road safe or something, but it would be wonderful to (re)make – via LoL.

BY Phillip Torrone

Editor at large - Make magazine. Creative director - Adafruit Industries, contributing editor - Popular Science. Previously: Founded - Hack-a-Day, how-to editor - Engadget, Director of product development - Fallon Worldwide, Technology Director - Braincraft.

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3 Responses to Lovely camper

Mark on March 10th, 2010 at 11:48 pm said:

The vehicle dynamics would be interesting. That VW bug certainly seems to be struggling under the load.

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Alan on March 11th, 2010 at 9:37 am said:

It’s an extremely clever idea, but probably not a good one. Attaching the hitch to the roof would place the entire force of towing on the car’s body, which isn’t nearly as strong as the lower frame. I suspect that a few hard stops with this rig could cause some misalignments in the panels, and driving any significant distance with it would probably shorten the car’s life quite a bit. Besides, most compact cars aren’t designed to tow any kind of trailer, let alone one attached to a roof rack.

A “fifth wheel” trailer gets some of the same benefits without all of the drawbacks. It does, however, require a pickup truck.

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- craig on March 13th, 2010 at 10:15 am said:
  
  The film does say reinforced roof mount. If the roof is beefed up with an interior roll cage of sorts fastened to the frame, then I see no problem… except for twisting the safety chains and trailer light wires with those 360 degree turns. I think ONE 360 would be a problem with the chains. Longer chains would scrape the roof up and be annoying.
  
  Reply ↓