Triple T: Trophy Travel Trailer; The Introduction

So, we bought a travel trailer in the summer of 2019. And not any old trailer, this was a Trophy! What, you’ve never heard of a Trophy travel trailer? Yeah, neither had we. But the guy we bought it from said it was the “Cadillac” of travel trailers in its day! We weren’t sure what he meant, but if he was referencing to how she rides, he was right! This trailer is the smoothest thing we’ve ever towed! So yeah, there’s that one thing the guy was right honest about.

TIME FOR ANOTHER RENO

It was about time for us to dig into another project. After 4 years, The renovation of our home in Colorado was pretty much done. Unbeknownst to us, the house wasn’t really done, but who knew? That’s another story you can read here. Anyhow, we had begun to talk about travelling a bit more. We’ve always wanted to explore more of the country and we love road trips.

Since Warren owns his own consulting business, he can work from anywhere. To save money on travel expenses, we wanted a trailer big enough to provide a mini office for Warren and room for our 2 dogs to come along. We had already, years before, completed the renovation of a 1991 Lance truck camper. The camper was great but it was far too small for longer trips. We sold the camper in early 2019 for more than we had originally purchased it for. The family who bought the camper was excited to find one that looked so good and was affordable. Take a look out there at what older campers go for and take note of their typical condition; you’ll soon see why this family was excited to find our camper!

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PIECE OF CAKE

Given our experience with renovations, we felt confident we could find something to fix up in the world of used travel trailers. And true to our nature, we wanted something old, with character. We had once purchased a brand new toy hauler trailer; long before we figured out buying new stuff didn’t work for us anymore. While we got a lot of use out of that trailer, we were disappointed with the quality of its finishes. When we tried to sell the trailer, we were even more disappointed. We were barely able to sell it for what we still owed on it. So this time around, finding something older that we could fix up, made the most sense to us.

THE “CADILLAC” OF TRAVEL TRAILERS

Warren found the Trophy on Craigslist. He was pretty excited about it because he loved the shape of the trailer. Not the shape it was in (cause that was nothing to get excited about), but the shape or profile of the trailer. It looks distinctively vintage. The Trophy is a 1979 and the trailer itself is a total of 31 feet long.

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Once we saw the trailer in person, I was not a fan. It was big and while not horrible inside, not so great inside either. The guy we bought it from talked about how much he and wife loved this trailer, yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course they had to begrudgingly sell it because they were moving, otherwise they would never be letting go of their “baby”. You know the line. Say anything to make these people think they are getting a steal of a deal on the best thing ever! And the guy said there was only one water leak. Yep, got it, one leak!

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! BE THE FIRST TO BUY THIS TRAILER AND WE’LL INCLUDE…

While I was not a fan, Warren was all about it. And I was playing hardball on the sale. I really didn’t want this trailer. And while I was throwing out all the reasons I didn’t want it, the guy said “What if I throw in that truck over there too?” Seems the guy was trying to off-load anything and everything he could before their “big move”. One mention of a free truck in the deal and I knew I had lost this war. Warren’s face lit up as he walked over to the truck to give it a looksee.

We then bought the trailer along with a truck that couldn’t get out of 2nd gear, thrown in to sweeten the deal! Yay! The good news is that we found someone later to buy the truck which lowered the overall cost of the trailer, so I have to give that one to Warren!

STALKING THE RARE TROPHY TRAVEL TRAILER

As soon as we purchased the Trophy, we tried to do some research on the Trophy brand. The interior had obviously been modified and we were curious about what it may have looked like originally. If we could find some images of it, we may be able to bring back some its original character. No. Such. Luck. We found only one old set of pictures of another Trophy the same age that was once for sale. The inside was in even worse shape than ours and the layout was different, so it was a bit of a bust. It may have been the “Cadillac” of travel trailers, but the brand was obviously not so memorable or it is truly a rare bird. I’d like to think that it’s really, really, rare; makes for a better story!

ONE THING ALWAYS LEADS TO ANOTHER, ALWAYS

Shortly after we brought the trailer (and the truck that could only go about 40 mph) home, we started to contemplate what all we would need to do with the thing. There was that ONE water leak we knew we needed to address but we weren’t sure how much we wanted to tear-out and how much we wanted to keep. We knew that the ugly commercial grade carpet had to go so that was the first thing we pulled up. And what do you know, there was now clear evidence on the subfloor that there was most definitely more than one water leak. The thing was leaking like a sieve everywhere! So that was that, a gut job it is!

Well that’s the introduction to our Trophy Travel Trailer. Stay tuned for more tales of our latest renovation project and if it’s anything like our house, there will be plenty of surprises and flip-flop decisions along the way! Thanks for reading, see you soon and God bless!

{Shelley}