The Truck Camper Conundrum

The North American truck camper could be called the “Rodney Dangerfield of the RV industry” – because it receives so little respect or media attention.

Part of the issue may have to do with the fact that no one seems to have a handle on the size of the truck camper market. Only the RV Industry Association, which tracks wholesale RV shipments, monitors the ebb and flow of this niche product nationally. However, even RVIA’s counting is suspect, given that it represents less than a third of the truck camper manufacturers (six of 22 manufacturers are RVIA members), so its monthly shipment reports based on seal sales to members are incomplete.

According to RVIA data, truck campers hit their golden era in 1995, when RVIA-member shipments reached 12,086 units. Shipments have rebounded somewhat since bottoming out at 1,900 in 2009, but remain nowhere near the 1995 tally. Based on research by University of Michigan economist Richard Curtin, RVIA projects year-end 2015 RVIA-member shipments will reach 3,100 units, with a slight decline to 3,000 units in 2016.

Still, no matter its size, the truck camper niche has a dedicated following.

“People who buy a truck camper have something specific in mind. They’re not buying a truck camper to go RVing, per se,” says Gordon White, publisher of Truck Camper Magazine, an online publication with a readership of more than 30,000.

“We know that 70 percent of our reader- ship tows something, such as a boat, an ATV, or a trailer.”

White – an unabashed supporter and passionate champion of the truck camper business – stresses the special appeal of truck campers because they facilitate camping “off-road” in relative comfort.

“You have a rig that is, generally speaking, on a four-wheel drive truck that has the ability to go further off-road and off-the- grid than your typical motorhome or tow- able. You also find larger holding tanks than some RVs and many (truck campers) come with solar. We build truck camper rigs that can boondock anywhere,” he says. “That’s why our magazine’s slogan is ‘go anywhere, camp anywhere, tow anything.’ These are

the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 reasons people buy truck campers. We know that because we survey our readership every year.”

Just a few hundred dealers stock new truck campers, underscoring it as a niche market.

“Based on what we know, probably about 400 RV dealers stock new truck campers at various times during the year, but this is an estimate,” says Phil Ingrassia, president of the RV Dealers Association. “The issue is that it is a more varied dealer list, with some truck cap retailers versus traditional RV dealers taking new truck camper stock.”

That works to the advantage of the dealer body, according to White, who notes that with the relative scarcity of truck

camper dealers, there is less competition in many markets.

“The most successful dealers for truck campers are the ones who specialize,” he says. “The dealers who do well tend to have multiple lines and a deep inventory. The customer coming in from the Internet will come a long way to see a lot of units on display.”

About Those Numbers

While RVIA’s numbers provide a reckoning of the wholesale side of the business, Tom Walworth, president of market data firm Statistical Surveys, is frustrated by the dilemma of tracking truck camper retail sales.

“We’ve always tracked them, but got more aggressive in the early 2000s because people wanted to know how they’re doing,” he recalls. He reached out to states that the manufacturers were interested in measuring. Yet few states agreed to provide data.

“We track truck campers in eight states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Michigan, Utah, Ohio and Indiana. The rest don’t register them because they say it’s not a ‘vehicle,’” Walworth explains.

Convincing a state to require truck campers to be a registered (licensed) vehicle is like pulling teeth. Walworth recalled his “battle” with Indiana – the most recent state to recognize truck campers as vehicles – in pointing out the potential revenue the state was losing out on because it did not license the product.

The flipside of the argument is that many in the truck camper industry and community do not want truck campers registered.

Based on his sample, Walworth senses the biggest market for truck campers is in the West and Northwest, but he and others say sales are thriving elsewhere. Nevertheless, there are just four truck camper OEMs based in the eastern U.S. and none on the East Coast.

White – the foremost expert on all facets of the truck camper industry – contends that the major number crunchers under- state the breadth of the industry, and he shares some of Walworth’s frustration.

As for Statistical Surveys’ limited sample, the most popular selling truck camper price point appears to be in the $30,000 to $35,000 range, as this segment represents 43 percent of the market, according to Walworth. As for the entry-level segment, just 3 percent of the retail market is in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.

For this article, RV PRO spoke with

Travel Lite, Little Guy Worldwide and Forest River’s Palomino RV about market trends and developments in their respective company’s product offerings.

Travel Lite

Travel Lite entered the truck camper market during the product’s heyday, in 1998, and has risen to stand No. 3 in sales, according to its own reckoning of the retail market. Although it launched its travel trailer line in 2011, truck campers remain a healthy 65 percent of company sales, according to Dustin Johns, president of the New Paris, Ind.-based rm.

“My main focus is to get the most customers possible,” Johns says.

Travel Lite is successful in part because it appeals to the diverse demographics within the truck camper market. Johns touts on the company’s website, “Travel Lite is the most versatile truck camper manufacturer. We offer over 30 floorplans, including hard-wall, slide-out and the all-new Rayzr campers for every truck from a mid-size to a 1-ton dually.”

Travel Lite’s Rayzr “appeals strongly to hunters and shermen, maybe someone in their mid-30s to 50 years old who is pretty active,” Johns says. “That transitions to our Super Lite line and bigger campers such as our Illusion brand. These buyers tend to be older, maybe 40 to 65. They are lifetime campers who maybe had a big fifth wheel or travel trailer and are now downsizing because they don’t need the space.”

Meanwhile, the 1100RX Illusion is designed to t in the beds of most 3/4-ton heavy-duty trucks with 8-foot beds. In all, the Illusion is available in six different floorplans, including two models with slide-outs, with MSRPs starting at $25,900.

Johns says the Illusion compares favor- ably with brands such as Lance, Arctic Fox and Host. Illusion’s standard features include gel-coat sidewalls, wire- less infrared backup camera with 7-inch color monitor, keypad entry, Thermal- foil insulation, heated water tanks, dual pane frameless windows, standard pillow top mattress, 24-inch TV and 80-watt portable solar panel.

“If people want luxury in the truck camper, the Illusion is perfect and lower priced than some competitors,” he says.

Based on his interpretation of RVIA shipments and extrapolation of retail sales nationwide, Johns says Travel Lite gained significant market share from his competitors in 2014 and throughout this year. He studies trends in pickup truck sales and consults monthly with his contacts with Ford and Chevy. Armed with these insights, he says he accurately forecasts buying trends for

truck campers and has been able to have the right product mix on dealers’ lots for the past several years.

“By doing those kinds of preparations, we’re able to be ahead of the curve instead of behind it,” he says.

Johns credits Travel Lite’s expanding reach in part to a unique shipping trailer built by Lippert Components that accommodates as many as seven truck campers per load, thus reducing the overall freight bill to dealers in the West by as much as $1,300 per unit.

“That’s helped spur unit shipments to the West, Travel Lite’s fastest-growing market. “Anything west of the Mississippi River is growing like gangbusters,” he adds.

Travel Lite is competitive beyond the U.S. border as well. The Canadian market traditionally accounts for as much as 35 percent of Travel Lite’s business, but a poor Canadian dollar this year has sent that share of the business down to about 12 percent, Johns says. But the non-North American business remains strong with its share at about 10 percent. Travel Lite has found sales in faraway places such as Iceland, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and South Korea.

“All withstanding, we’ve had by far our biggest year by big margins. I predict we’ll be the No. 1 builder within two years,” Johns declares.

Little Guy Worldwide

The newest entry in the truck camper business comes from Little Guy World- wide of Massillon, Ohio. In 2014, the decision was made to design a high- end truck camper for short-bed trucks to complement the company’s existing travel trailer line. The result is the Cirrus Truck Camper, which Truck Camper Magazine calls “a truly fresh design, mate- rial and manufacturing approach to the truck camper marketplace.” A prototype debuted at the 2014 National RV Show in Louisville, and the first units hit the retail market in September.

“We took a different approach to this market than a lot of other manufacturers,” says Dylan DeHoff, Little Guy vice president of sales. “We’re trying to capture a segment of the current truck camper market, but also trying to branch out with a modern design that will appeal to the customer who isn’t sure what kind of RV they want. We hope they’ll see the Cirrus, with its modern, European interior and amenities and go, ‘Wow!’”

The interior floor length of the hard-side, non-slide Cirrus is 8 foot, 3 inches, and the interior height is 6 foot, 5 inches. Dry weights range from 1,955 to 2,490 pounds.

It’s the European features that Little Guy is counting on to separate it from the rest of the field. Unlike most U.S. truck camper builders, Little Guy relies on many European suppliers and thinks consumers will appreciate the difference. These features include an Alde hot water and central heating system, whose holding tanks and convectors are housed in the wheel well-height basement. The convectors keep the fresh, grey and black tanks warm and heat the interior floor, helping to make the Cirrus a four-season camper.

Another European feature is a fold- down sink. Also unique to the Cirrus are the insulated front window system, seamless aluminum roof, pullout entertainment system cabinet, 8-foot Fiamma awning and access ladder, Horax window screen and shade system, Froli sleep system and Plastoform duel-paned insulated windows.

Little Guy offers the Cirrus in a “basic package” and a “max package.” DeHoff explains, “We’re trying to make the pro- cess as simple for dealers and customers as possible.” Like its travel trailer line, the RV maker hopes to realize 95 percent of its sales in the higher-end max package, DeHoff says. “We try to package it out so the max will be most popular.”

The MSRP for the max package fully loaded will be $33,900, but DeHoff hopes the actual retail price will be closer to $30,000.

“We try to push everybody with the max package, but even in the basic package, you’ll get electric jacks, an 8-foot awning and a lot of standard features you don’t get on other competitors’ models,” DeHoff says.

Little Guy positioned the Cirrus to be a high-end unit.

“We know we will lose some poten- tial sales because it’s too high-end, but that’s the only way we would market it,” DeHoff says.

Little Guy brought in some prominent truck camper dealers during the R&D stage and asked them what they wanted to see in a truck camper. They were instrumental in the development stage, according to DeHoff.

“Rather than do what a lot of manufacturers do and just build something and say to their dealers, ‘Here it is. Sell it,’ we thought we would build something they truly wanted to sell,” he says. “We think the result is pretty cool.”

Little Guy will be showing Cirrus this month at the 2015 National RV Trade Show in Louisville, Ky.

Forest River Palomino

Palomino RV entered the truck camper business in 1978 with the Bronco B-190. Now a division of Forest River, the Colon, Mich.-based RV maker reportedly has a 50 percent market share in the U.S. truck camper retail market.

For his part, Nate Nickell, Palomino division manager, says simply, “We believe through our internal production and retail sales reports that Palomino RV is the leader in the truck camper retail sales. Through our nationwide presence and dealer net- work in both the United States and Canada along with our production capabilities, we’re con dent that Palomino RV is the market leader.”

Palomino RV offers three models within the $30,000 to $35,000 price point: the HS-2902, HS-2910 and HS-2911.

“All three of these models are in the hard-side max series offering industry leading features and benefits which we feel give the Palomino truck campers the best bang for your buck in the industry,” Nickell says.

Pat Hines, the product manager for Palomino truck campers, cites the fol- lowing features of the popular HS 2902: aluminum cage construction, vacuum- bonded lamination, line-X coated under- carriage (a spray-on bed-liner material), high-gloss gel-coated exterior pearl or

grey exterior, gel-coated front cap with windshield, Torklift landing pad bumper, crowned interior and exterior laminated roof (full walk-on) and thermopane frameless windows.

Nickell echoes White’s contention that truck camper customers are unique.

“The typical truck camper customer certainly isn’t your ‘average’ RV shopper,” he says. “They tend to be very well-educated on the product they’re interested in – if not the industry as a whole. The typical truck camper customer tends to know what they’re looking for in a camper and is very hard to ‘sell’ otherwise. Seventy percent of the truck camper customers range in age between 50 to 70 years old and are predominantly male.”

A vast dealer body supports Palomino.

“Palomino RV has by far the largest dealer body of any truck camper manufacturer out there with locations worldwide,” Nickell says, but they’re not exclusive. “I’d say about 50 percent of those dealers do carry another brand of truck camper – if not multiple brands.”

So, how does Palomino make its products stand out from the crowd?

“We consider ourselves the market leader in the truck camper production and we didn’t earn that title by not working hard,” Nickell says. “We are continually improving our product, offering innovations that continue to set the bar for

campers. On top of those innovations, we are continually improving our processes and procedures to keep putting out product that speaks for itself and keeps us on top.”

As for the future, Nickell says, “Here at Palomino we’ve seen nice steady growth over the past few years with all signs pointing toward that continuing into next year.”