You can tow it with a car

As one of the members here and also on Hybrid Explorer has said, "I can tow my 23SS with my garden tractor, but it doesn't mean I should".

I can watch "The Long, Long Trailer" with Luci and Desi and get sweaty palms. I know "back in the day", but we also didn't have seat belts then or air bags or lots of other things that have proven themselves. Think we'll stick with the F-150 with the factory tow and our 26' TT that comes in with appropriate numbers, just for the heck of it.

I just back from Scotland and there were lots of small/medium sized cars towing 20+ foot trailers.

You can tow it with a car, but then you get this.

My parents moved from Indiana to California in 1949 pulling a trailer all the way. It was large enough for them to live in for a few months, so not too small. I am fairly certain my father had a Dodge at the time, probably a straight 6. It was no big deal.

In my opinion, comparing Australian/European trailers to those built here is apples-to-oranges. Design-and-build-wise, about the only thing they have in common is that they all have tires.

PenMan wrote:

RobertRyan wrote:

A case of a very good set up. European caravans are very lightweight(well at least to us) and do well on paved roads(not so happy unpaved ones}

Photoshop?

Google bicycle towing an airstream and click on the images link

RobertRyan wrote:

A case of a very good set up. European caravans are very lightweight(well at least to us) and do well on paved roads(not so happy unpaved ones}

Photoshop?

Terryallan wrote:

"Thing is. Many on the forum are either too young, or too new at towing to remember how it was done BEFORE trucks were both popular, and as comfortable as today. My FIL towed 26' TTs with a 67 Chevelle. We didn't think we had to have a truck to tow a trailer. We just did it with what we had. We thought nothing of piling the family in the car hooking up and going anywhere we wanted. The big V8 under the hood would get us there. Also remember those cars were RWD...

...So folks used their cars, station wagons and such to tow their boats, and RVs. AND the brake controllers were manually operated. His had a big lever sticking out the front so that he could activate the TT brakes with his knee."

Some years prior to this scenario (1963, I believe), my father pulled my grandparents 23' 1960 Terry travel trailer (I don't think they made "Lite" models back then) from southern New Mexico to California and back with my grandparents 1963 Studebaker Lark station wagon with a tiny little 232 cubic inch V-8. Granted, the same engine in a Golden Hawk would top 120 MPH and the combo was the official pace car at Indianapolis for a number of years, but this was a small car and engine for those days. With a WD hitch (pretty high-tech back then), a manual brake controller, and six of us in the car, we made it to CA and back without any problems. The biggest issue was the tension between my mother and her MIL. (Oh - and my sisters and I were mortified that the station wagon was "Salmon" colored - popular at that time.)

This being said, I wouldn't dream of doing something like that nowadays (and my grandparents got a 3/4 pickup sometime after that to pull the trailer) - but it wasn't seen as all that unusual in those days.

Meh. This is how we roll. The little diesels pull like a champ. It's all weight relative.

This our downsized rig we use for local camping. Both our smart cars are set up for towing. Sometimes we take the Kayak and other times not. It has added a whole new dimension to our full time RV lifestyle. With the Kayak it comes in around 540 pounds plus or minus. Fridge/Freezer, porta potti, solar panel. Lotsa fun. Very solid on the road and the little diesel pulls it well. Around low 50s for mileage when towing.

Not sure I'd want to tow a 4500# single axle trailer especially with a light car no matter how strong of engine it may have. My prior trailer was a dual axle 4500# and towed far better than my single axle 2000# popup. Much more stable especially on dirt roads with wash board.

gates59 wrote:
A mid sized truck would have a hard time with this. So no a car can not tow these.

I tow a trailer of similar size to the one that Robert from Australia posted the photo of. My trailer is a 4000 pound funfinder, that I tow with a Nissan Frontier. Set up with a BlueOx swaypro, this trailer pulls very nicely with this midsize truck. I am within all stated limits of both the truck and the trailer, and have pulled it from sea level to over 11,000 feet numerous times.

Here in the US in the Frontier we get the gas 4.0 V6, which does very well as I said. Those lucky folks down under, in this same truck ( Navarra there ) get the 3.0 V6 turbo diesel, with 400 ft-lbs of torque. Oh man....if Nissan had that here, with my excellent six speed manual gearbox, I would be all over it.

thanks for posting the pics Robert.... I always enjoy looking at your "caravans".