Robby Rowe: Phoenix and Coyote Pop-Up Artist

Robby in front of his twelve models	Robby’s truck campers use aluminum frames	Robby’s mom often comes in to handle office work
Robby signs every truck camper he builds	Robby’s signature includes the serial number and date	Robby applies the graphics on a Phoenix truck camper
Robby’s father, Dave Rowe, originally started Four Wheel Campers	Robby makes his truck campers in a large garage he bought in a new industrial park	When we visited, Robby was working on a Coyote and a Phoenix truck camper
Classic rock is often Robby’s only companion	Coyote RV’s camper diagrams and blueprints	Coyote RV uses a unique and patented lift mechanism

Denver, Colorado - It can’t be!  Another family-owned factory-direct pop-up truck camper manufacturer just outside of Denver, Colorado?  Well, not exactly.  This is really the story of Robby Rowe and his (almost) one-man pop-up truck camper manufacturing company, Coyote RV.

On the day that we visited, Robby was completing a Phoenix truck camper for delivery the following morning.  Although he had at least a full-day of work ahead of him, he took the time to sit down and tell us about his company.

Robby’s father, Dave Rowe, started Four Wheel Campers in 1973 and for fifteen years the company sold pop-up truck campers under that name.  Robby proudly shows a picture of one of his father’s original Four Wheel pop-up campers in his office.

At their peak in the mid 1980’s, Four Wheel Campers was building five truck campers a week with twenty employees.  When Robby’s father sold the name Four Wheel Campers in 1988, the company became Phoenix Campers.  Ten years later, Phoenix Campers changed its name again to Coyote RV.  Now under the umbrella name Coyote RV, Robby sells Phoenix and Coyote pop-up truck campers.  Confused yet?

In the end, the name has changed several times, but the basic design and principals behind the Rowe family’s truck camper have remained the same.  Of course some things have changed.  Robby continues to make improvements with the building process, materials, and design.  And Dave Rowe has moved on to run Tiger Motorhomes in South Carolina.

After getting us up to speed on Coyote RV’s history, he walked us through his production process.  As it turns out, Robby often works alone on one Phoenix or Coyote pop-up truck camper at a time.  He does get help from one other builder, Jeff Olson, who comes in and helps part-time.  And he gets help from his mother, Peggy Rowe, and his sister Bonnie Rowe. 

Robby builds a total of twelve models of truck campers.  Each is custom built to an owner’s specifications.  The largest and most fully featured truck camper Robby builds is the ten-foot Phoenix Tomahawk, which sells for about $22,000.  The smallest and most basic is a pop-up shell called the Coyote Mountain Man, which sells for $5,995.  In total, Robby builds about thirty truck campers a year.

Robby started our walk through his production facility where he cuts the .060 aircraft grade aluminum tubing for his camper frames.  He uses a well-worn set of hand-drawn diagrams and blueprints when cutting the 200 pieces of aluminum for each camper.  The diagrams and blueprints look like truck camper treasure maps passed down from one generation to the next.  And in a way, that’s exactly what they are.

Robby explained how he welds both sides of his aluminum joints so that the aluminum flexes, not the welds.  He called this double welding.  To assure his customers, Robby has a five-year structural warranty on every truck camper he sells.

After he welds all four walls, Robby cuts four panels to match the welded wall size.  He uses a special adhesive to then attach the welded aluminum walls to the panels and stacks them together.  To compress the aluminum, adhesive, and panels together, Robby places buckets of water on top of the stacked materials for twenty-four hours.  In short, the areas where Robby uses wood are glued and screwed and the areas where he uses aluminum are double welded and bonded with adhesive.

It was fun watching Robby jumping from place to place, doing this and that, and checking off a long memorized list in his head.  When the list gets down to about the final 100 things, he’ll write them down and begin physically begin crossing them off.  Until then, he explained, “What’s the point?”

With two other manufacturers turning out up to three pop-up campers a week within a few miles of Coyote RV, you may wonder how he competes.  The truth is that he’s going after a very different market.  Robby sells to people who want just about everything on their pop-up truck camper to be custom fit and built to their individual needs.

For example, Robby has built three custom pop-up truck campers for the Ford Explorer Sport Trac.  In other words, if you can bring him a truck of almost any description and he’ll build you a camper.  Want a feature in your pop-up that you don’t see anywhere?  He’ll build that for you too.  Robby compared his custom pop-up truck camper company to the custom motorcycle shops that are popular on TV these days, only with less swearing and broken stuff.

In the end, Robby is truly a truck camper artist.  As an artist, he’s commissioned to build one-of-a-kind custom pop-up truck campers for people who admire his work.  He even signs and dates every truck camper he builds, just like an artist.  When you order a Phoenix or Coyote truck camper you get truck camper design that’s proven by years of experience, tested by time, and honed by a family that’s serious about truck campers.  And you get a very personal work of art to hang on your truck.

For more information about Phoenix or Coyote Campers at Coyote RV, please visit www.phoenixcampers.com.