California startup Ecno Evil takes a big swing at the hardcore off-road trailer market but from different angle ... or at least a seemingly forgotten angle. Instead of weighing down its trailer with all the comforts of home, it strips it down to the barest of minimums and focuses on building a squaredrop that exudes the motto "rugged is not a look; it's a test." And even more exciting than the hardwearing build is a low base price that brings back attainability.
When you get down to it, the small, teardrop-size camping trailer should be a very simple tool. It needs to provide reliable shelter and space for the necessities of surviving a few days in nature. It needs to dependably follow the tow vehicle through thick and thin to base camp. A set of hard walls and a comfortable mattress separate it from a basic tent, and a sturdy construction allows it to outlast that same tent long enough to make it well worth the investment.
That's really it. Everything else is bells and whistles. You can bring your own stove, water, portable toilet, power station and miscellaneous gear, and a tiny, basic trailer certainly doesn't need to promote a lifestyle as or beyond as luxurious as home – save all that for larger, more expensive travel trailers.
Most of all, such a trailer should cost less than the vehicle towing it – way less, like a fractional amount.
Sadly, the teardrop market has drifted away from those dead-simple roots, loading in extraneous features and prices that match. It's become rare to see a new teardrop or squaredrop trailer that starts below $20,000 and not so rare to see one that's over $50K.
Sure, some buyers are happy to pay that and drive away with a miniaturized McMansion, but there should still be something for those who aren't, those who have spent years amassing all kinds of camping gear and just want something to carry it to camp and provide a comfy night of sleep once there.
With the 12.4-foot (3.8-m) Unit-1, Ecno Evil aims to deliver just that something, and it does so with a wood-free construction meant to outlast traditional aluminum-skinned wood teardrops by eliminating the rot, mold and degradation to which they're susceptible. The Unit-1 build hinges around a brutalist, marine-grade welded high-density polyethylene (HDPE) squaredrop box bolted atop an aluminum tube chassis. Ecno compares the frameless body to the type of white HDPE tank that RVs use to carry water around and reinforces it with structural screws to boost toughness. There's no interior paneling or exterior skin, just one rugged hunk of HDPE.
To help drive home the vision of toughness, Ecno skips the usual idyllic, drone-captured camping promo footage to instead zero in on company staff beating the hell out of the Unit-1 body with 2x4s, mallets and fast-sprinting vehicles full-throttling through open desert and water.
You can see the edge trim get a little smooshed up in the gif below, so we wouldn't recommend clubbing your brand-new trailer in quite that way, but beyond that, the body absorbs the blows as it taunts the viewer to bring forth more punishment ... which quickly comes by way of mallet.
Two out of two videos on the young startup's YouTube channel are just throwing the trailer through a regimen of pure torture.
As much as we like to list interesting features, what we really love about the Unit-1 is its lack thereof. Ecno Evil keeps the spec as simple as possible, which, of course, helps it keep base price (and weight) as low as possible. The trailer comes equipped with a single lockable entry door with window, a wide, openable window on the opposite wall, a 6-in (15-cm) trifold mattress inside, a roof fan, a shore power hookup, interior storage shelves and cubbies, and a series of interior and exterior lights.
Ecno does a nice job in separating the Unit-1 from other inexpensive wood-free tear/squaredrop trailers by carving out some dedicated external-access storage. The upper compartment isn't as generously sized as a full-on tailgate galley, but it offers a shelf placed at a convenient height for using a camping stove and/or water jug. And it's augmented by a lower compartment where users can store additional gear.
While other composite trailer builders have hit similar ~$15K price points, the ones we've looked at previously have done so in part by eliminating external-access storage. The Boreas UB is a very nice-looking rugged squaredrop, but its tailgate opens directly into the cabin, meaning you'll be storing your filthy, dusty camping gear directly where you sleep ... or in the tow vehicle. The Bean Stock 2.0, which started at $16K two years ago but has quickly spiked to $20K, doesn't have a tailgate at all.
We're not disparaging those others, which seem like high-quality options, but we do like the idea of storage space separate from the cabin. One of the big advantages of a camping trailer in general is being able to keep it loaded with all (or at least most) of the gear you need for a camping trip. This way, camping is less about spending hours of time packing up and more about simply hitching up and hitting the road.
The Unit-1 may not be able to load all your gear (the cooler will probably have to find home in the tow vehicle), but it can at least save you a few trips back and forth by serving as a permanent storage cabinet for the stove, cookware, chairs and other essential items. Less time packing equals more time relaxing and enjoying the trip.
I've actually been looking for an affordable, minimalist zero-wood trailer just like this, and a galley/external storage area is one of the features I've found lacking in other products. I already own loads of camping gear, including multiple stoves, portable grills, water containers, electric faucets and shower systems, power stations and folding solar panels, cookware and portable toilets. So a trailer hard-wired with all those types of features becomes unnecessarily redundant and pricy. I just want trailer space to store my gear, preferably separated from the mattress-lined sleeping cabin.
The Unit-1 has a base weight of 780 lb (354 kg) and a GVWR of 2,000 lb (907 kg) delivered by a Timbren Axle-Less suspension. That leaves plenty of payload for carrying gear. A 2-in rear hitch receiver comes standard for bike racks and the like, and rooftop crossbars are available as a $900 option.
Ecno Evil has launched the Unit-1 in two sizes: a 4 x 8-foot floor plan that starts at US$13,990 and a 5 x 8-foot version that starts at $16,490. It currently lists lead time at a crazy-fast two weeks. The trailer runs 205/75/R15 tires on 15-in aluminum alloy wheels, and Ecno Evil offers off-road tires as an optional upgrade. Other options include a tongue box, 100-W solar panel (trailer is prewired as standard), and Ecoflow power station.
Source: Ecno Evil
