Lightweight travel trailers are increasingly popular. "RV manufacturers are innovating to give consumers an array of product choices. Manufacturers are producing lightweight towables and smaller, fuel-efficient motorhomes,” notes the GoRVing website. “Green technologies such as solar panels and energy-efficient components are appearing on an increasing number of RVs.”
What is a Lightweight Travel Trailer?
The definition is a bit elastic, depending on the manufacturer. For present purposes, a lightweight travel trailer may be defined as a towable hard-side conventional or fifth-wheel trailer capable of being pulled by a mid-sized vehicle, SUV, or small truck (half-ton or sport) without overloading the tow vehicle.
- This definition excludes pop-ups, folding trailers and hybrid or expandable trailers, even though they are all lightweight towables. The exclusion is simply because they are not always classed as “travel trailers”.
- Although length is not a particular consideration (lightweight travel trailers generally range from 16 to 30 ft), trailers 16 ft and under, such as teardrop trailers and small fiberglass Boler-type trailers, are often considered "ultralight" and also excluded.
- Since slides add weight, the lightweight trailer will likely have none at present (as manufacturing methods improve, lightweight travel trailers may soon include at least one slide).
Light Weight Travel Trailers Top RV Sales
In 2010, according to figures released by the RVIA, travel trailers outsold all other types of RV, accounting for roughly 60 per cent of overall sales, and fifth wheels added another 27 per cent. While these figures do not distinguish between lightweight and standard models, they do indicate the popularity of towable trailers.
However, the trend is clearly to lightweight trailers.
GoRVing, the RV industry marketing website, says that lightweight fifth-wheel trailer models "have been designed specifically to allow the use of smaller trucks with less towing capacity."
For conventional travel trailers, says GoRVing,
- "Smaller models can be towed by mid-size vehicles, including the family car, SUV or pickup truck equipped with a hitch.
- Lightweight composite models are designed specifically for towing behind many six-cylinder family vehicles."
Top 10 Lightweight Travel Trailers
So which are the top 10 lightweight travel trailers, whether conventional or fifth wheel? A site called TopTenLinks.com claims to offer lists of the “top 10” fifth wheel travel trailers and conventional travel trailers. The site gives no indication of how the lists were compiled (Sales figures for the last month? Whoever paid most for top billing?) and the lists seem to change frequently.
Top 10 Conventional Travel Trailer Manufactures
The 10 top makers of conventional travel trailers (including lightweight travel trailers), according to TopTenLinks.com, as sampled at the date this article was published, are:
- Dutchman
- Komfort
- Keystone RV
- CrossRoads
- Gulf Stream
- McKenzie Towables (Monaco)
- Jayco
- Airstream
- Coachmen RV
Top 10 Fifth Wheel Travel Trailer Manufacturers
According to the same source, the top ten fifth-wheel makers at this date is:
- Komfort
- Keystone RV
- CrossRoads RV
- Dutchman
- Fleetwood
- Gulf Stream
- Jayco
- NuWa Industries
- Holiday Rambler
- McKenzie Towables
GoRVing Canada has a list of top RV manufacturers that sell into Canada - of these, only Triple E is Canadian, though.
Thomas Alan Gray - Tom has been writing for over 30 years; curiosity leads him to dig into a wide variety of topics.
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