California startup Ecno Evil takes a giant swing on the hardcore off-road trailer market however from totally different angle … or not less than a seemingly forgotten angle. As a substitute of weighing down its trailer with all of the comforts of house, it strips it all the way down to the barest of minimums and focuses on constructing a squaredrop that exudes the motto “rugged is just not a glance; it is a check.” And much more thrilling than the hardwearing construct is a low base value that brings again attainability.
Once you get all the way down to it, the small, teardrop-size tenting trailer must be a quite simple device. It wants to offer dependable shelter and area for the requirements of surviving a couple of days in nature. It must dependably comply with the tow car by thick and skinny to base camp. A set of arduous partitions and a cushty mattress separate it from a fundamental tent, and a sturdy building permits it to outlast that very same tent lengthy sufficient to make it effectively definitely worth the funding.
That is actually it. The whole lot else is bells and whistles. You possibly can deliver your personal range, water, moveable bathroom, energy station and miscellaneous gear, and a tiny, fundamental trailer actually does not want to advertise a way of life as or past as luxurious as house – save all that for bigger, costlier journey trailers.
Most of all, such a trailer ought to value lower than the car towing it – approach much less, like a fractional quantity.
Sadly, the teardrop market has drifted away from these dead-simple roots, loading in extraneous options and costs that match. It is grow to be uncommon to see a brand new teardrop or squaredrop trailer that begins beneath $20,000 and never so uncommon to see one which’s over $50K.
Certain, some patrons are completely happy to pay that and drive away with a miniaturized McMansion, however there ought to nonetheless be one thing for individuals who aren’t, those that have spent years amassing every kind of tenting gear and simply need one thing to hold it to camp and supply a snug evening of sleep as soon as there.
Ecno Evil
With the 12.4-foot (3.8-m) Unit-1, Ecno Evil goals to ship simply that one thing, and it does so with a wood-free building meant to outlast conventional aluminum-skinned wooden teardrops by eliminating the rot, mould and degradation to which they’re vulnerable. The Unit-1 construct hinges round a brutalist, marine-grade welded high-density polyethylene (HDPE) squaredrop field bolted atop an aluminum tube chassis. Ecno compares the frameless physique to the kind of white HDPE tank that RVs use to hold water round and reinforces it with structural screws to spice up toughness. There is no inside paneling or exterior pores and skin, only one rugged hunk of HDPE.
To assist drive house the imaginative and prescient of toughness, Ecno skips the standard idyllic, drone-captured tenting promo footage to as an alternative zero in on firm employees beating the hell out of the Unit-1 physique with 2x4s, mallets and fast-sprinting automobiles full-throttling by open desert and water.
You possibly can see the sting trim get a bit smooshed up within the gif beneath, so we would not suggest clubbing your brand-new trailer in fairly that approach, however past that, the physique absorbs the blows because it taunts the viewer to deliver forth extra punishment … which shortly comes by the use of mallet.
Ecno Evil
Two out of two movies on the younger startup’s YouTube channel are simply throwing the trailer by a routine of pure torture.
As a lot as we prefer to checklist attention-grabbing options, what we actually love concerning the Unit-1 is its lack thereof. Ecno Evil retains the spec so simple as attainable, which, after all, helps it maintain base value (and weight) as little as attainable. The trailer comes geared up with a single lockable entry door with window, a large, openable window on the other wall, a 6-in (15-cm) trifold mattress inside, a roof fan, a shore energy hookup, inside storage cabinets and cubbies, and a collection of inside and exterior lights.
Ecno does a pleasant job in separating the Unit-1 from different cheap wood-free tear/squaredrop trailers by carving out some devoted external-access storage. The higher compartment is not as generously sized as a full-on tailgate galley, nevertheless it presents a shelf positioned at a handy top for utilizing a tenting range and/or water jug. And it is augmented by a decrease compartment the place customers can retailer further gear.
Ecno Evil
Whereas different composite trailer builders have hit comparable ~$15K value factors, those we have checked out beforehand have carried out so partially by eliminating external-access storage. The Boreas UB is a really nice-looking rugged squaredrop, however its tailgate opens instantly into the cabin, which means you may be storing your filthy, dusty tenting gear instantly the place you sleep … or within the tow car. The Bean Stock 2.0, which began at $16K two years in the past however has shortly spiked to $20K, does not have a tailgate in any respect.
We’re not disparaging these others, which appear to be high-quality choices, however we do like the thought of cupboard space separate from the cabin. One of many large benefits of a tenting trailer typically is having the ability to maintain it loaded with all (or not less than most) of the gear you want for a tenting journey. This manner, tenting is much less about spending hours of time packing up and extra about merely hitching up and hitting the highway.
The Unit-1 might not be capable of load all of your gear (the cooler will in all probability have to search out house within the tow car), however it may possibly not less than prevent a couple of journeys backwards and forwards by serving as a everlasting storage cupboard for the range, cookware, chairs and different important objects. Much less time packing equals extra time stress-free and having fun with the journey.
Ecno Evil
I’ve truly been on the lookout for an inexpensive, minimalist zero-wood trailer identical to this, and a galley/exterior storage space is among the options I’ve discovered missing in different merchandise. I already personal a great deal of tenting gear, together with a number of stoves, moveable grills, water containers, electrical taps and bathe programs, energy stations and folding photo voltaic panels, cookware and moveable bathrooms. So a trailer hard-wired with all these kinds of options turns into unnecessarily redundant and pricy. I simply need trailer area to retailer my gear, ideally separated from the mattress-lined sleeping cabin.
The Unit-1 has a base weight of 780 lb (354 kg) and a GVWR of two,000 lb (907 kg) delivered by a Timbren Axle-Much less suspension. That leaves loads of payload for carrying gear. A 2-in rear hitch receiver comes commonplace for bike racks and the like, and rooftop crossbars can be found as a $900 possibility.
Ecno Evil
Ecno Evil has launched the Unit-1 in two sizes: a 4 x 8-foot ground plan that begins at US$13,990 and a 5 x 8-foot model that begins at $16,490. It presently lists lead time at a crazy-fast two weeks. The trailer runs 205/75/R15 tires on 15-in aluminum alloy wheels, and Ecno Evil presents off-road tires as an optionally available improve. Different choices embody a tongue field, 100-W photo voltaic panel (trailer is prewired as commonplace), and Ecoflow energy station.
Supply: Ecno Evil
