Louisville 2011 Part 3: Adventurer, Palomino RV, Travel Lite, and Roadmaster

How can you write an exciting Louisville 2011 show report about three truck camper manufacturers who didn’t bring new campers?  Let’s find out. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...... ... ... ... ...

In Part 2 of our Louisville 2011 coverage I had some fun poking at Lance Campers for not bringing any new truck camper models to Louisville this year.  In all fairness, neither did Adventurer (the brand), Palomino RV, or Travel LIte.

The general consensus from these manufacturers can be summed up in a six word Louisville 2011 quote from Gene Cronin, National Sales Manager for Palomino RV.  With a devilish grin he said, “We have it all dialed in”.

Of course Gene was just pulling our turnbuckle when he said that.  Behind the scenes, Palomino RV is working on at least one new truck camper.  They just didn’t bring it to Louisville.  As you’re about to read, this is a story we heard quite a lot this year.


Adventurer Manufacturing

Above: The Adventurer Manufacturing team at Louisville

There was a very tangible sense of excitement in the Adventurer booth.  Greg Tucknies, National Sales Manager for Adventurer Manufacturing, was positively beaming with reports about how Adventurer had grown its dealer base, camper sales, and was making huge strides with camper design and quality control.  Based on the 2012 Adventurer 86FB we saw back in October, I can confirm the last two points. 

Above: One of the changes on Adventurer truck campers for 2012 is the addition of camper guides

At Louisville, Greg explained that the largest contributing factor to the improvements in design and quality control came from a shift in focus at Adventurer from a company that mainly built rental campers to a company that now mainly builds retail campers.  We visited the Adventurer factory in Canada in 2007 and then again in 2010 after Adventurer’s move to Yakima, Washington and there was no mistaking the change.

Above: The 2012 Adventurer 80GS in the Adventurer booth

Adventurer brought three of their existing models to Louisville; the 86FB, 910FBS, and 80GS.  The 80GS started as a manual slide short bed model in 2009 but was converted to an electric slide in mid-2010.  Personally, I welcome the addition of an electric slide as the manual slide took a serious amount of umph to operate.  Now the kitchen slide goes out with the push of a button, no umph required.

Off the record, the Adventurer team hinted that there would be some exciting new developments for 2012, but didn’t elaborate.  That’s when we use the old, “Come on guys.  We won’t print it.  I won’t even tell Harley.  Honest!”.  It didn’t work.  I’ll have to come up with a new line for next year.


Palomino RV

Above: The Palomino RV team at Louisville

Making my writing job even more difficult was Palomino RV who has made the decision to debut new product at their annual September open-house.  In fact, there’s a red hot debate brewing within the entire RV industry about the relevance of the annual Louisville show and whether or not it should change or fade away.

Above: The 2012 Bronco 1251, 2012 Maverick 8801, and 2012 Maverick 2902

Getting back to Palomino RV, they brought their two best sellers; the Maverick 8801 hard side and Bronco 1251 pop-up.  They also brought the Maverick Max 2902 that we reviewed in detail last summer.  Unfortunately for me, the 8801 and 1251 are the same campers they brought to Louisville for the past few years.  As a writer looking for something new, this list about as exciting as a box of rocks.  Why do they do this to me?  Seriously.

Thankfully, Angela went in to the Palomino booth on day three and photographed the 8801.  Have we shown this camper in TCM before?  Yes, but it’s not our fault they didn’t bring something new.  On balance, the 8801 must be a long time Palomino RV best seller for a reason.  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because it’s a lot of truck camper for the money.  Looking for a good first hard-side truck camper?  Something you can use to discover if you like the truck camping lifestyle?  Check out the 8801.  Need the same in a pop-up camper?  Check out the 1251.

After a few rounds of brow beating, Gene did tip us on a new camper in development for the new year.  Yes, this is the same story Adventurer told us.  Maybe the industry is having a good laugh at us behind the scenes saying, “Let’s all tell Gordon and Angela we’re coming out with something really cool, and then not tell them what.”  It’s like the old joke, “How do you keep some in suspense?  I’ll tell you later...”


Travel Lite

Above: The Travel Lite team at Louisville

If anyone in the truck camper marketplace had an off-the-charts successful Louisville this year, it was Travel Lite.  For the first two days of the show, their booth was packed solid with dealers crawling all over their... travel trailers!  Oh no, not again.  It’s bad enough that I had to utter those two double t-words for Lance in Part 2, but now Travel Lite is getting into the game.  I just don’t know if I can handle this.

I kid, but it is good to see companies like Lance and Travel Lite diversify their product offerings and gain strength as manufacturers in the process.  Just don’t expect us to start covering your travel trailers (drat, they got me to write it again) in this magazine.  Just being that close to those things makes me want to say four hail truck campers and pray the Rieco-Titan.  Again, I kid.

All was soon forgiven when we saw what Travel Lite had done with their 2012 Travel Lite 1000 SLRX Ultra.  You may recall that this is the same camper Travel Lite loaned to us for the 2011/2012 season.  We brought the 1000 SLRX Ultra to the Ohio-Michigan North-East Jamboree in Carlisle back in September and allowed the entire rally to review the camper for TCM.  The result was a very balanced and very honest review of the hard side, full-wall slide truck camper.

Guess what?  Travel Lite carefully read every letter of every word of every sentence of that rally review and immediately got to work.  How do we know this?  Take one look at the 2012 Travel Lite 1000 SLRX Ultra they brought to Louisville a little over a month after we published the review. 

Above: The Travel Lite 1000SLRX exterior

What Travel Lite did with the revised 1000 SLRX Ultra impresses me to no end.  Here’s a company that read their review and immediately made as many changes as they could to meet that feedback.  Larry Johns, President of Travel Lite, said that they’re working on all of the requested changes but some of them require further design and engineering work.  What more could we ask for?

I’m also elated to see the industry embrace critical reviews and take them as they are intended; constructive criticism that will allow their products to improve.  The companies who respond the way Travel Lite has are going to not only improve their products, but they’re going to sell more truck campers too.  Could this be the beginning of a new era in truck camper design and quality control?  You bet.


Roadmaster, Inc.

Above: The Roadmaster, Inc. team at Louisville

Roadmaster had a simple but clever new product at Louisville 2011; the Quiet Hitch.  The Roadmaster Quiet Hitch is designed to eliminate slack and play between your hitch and stinger.  In doing so Roadmaster claims the the Quiet Hitch will reduce or eliminate rattle and reduce wear to your towing system.

David Robinson, Director of Marketing for Roadmaster, told us that the Quiet Hitch had been quietly released with little fanfare a few months prior but surprised him with strong initial sales.  This didn’t surprise us for two reasons.  For one, Angela put the Quiet Hitch into the TCM Gear Guide which we all know is the best place to find truck camper accessories, and two, products that rattle are really annoying.  Unless you’re manufacturing rock tumblers or rattle snakes, rattling is to be avoided.

The other new product Roadmaster was announcing was a tow bar cleaner specially formulated to remove road dirt and grime from tow bars.  I wonder if this stuff would work on camper jacks after a rain soaked off-road trek on the Alaskan Highway.  Now we have one more reason to take a camper to Alaska.  Note to self; ask David for a fifty gallon jug of tow bar cleaner.


Next up are some behind the scenes moments and photographs that I probably shouldn’t publish, but will anyway.  Let’s just say the truck camper industry can be a lot of fun and they were in rare form at Louisville this year.