Way back in late 2019, in the waning months of Life as We Once Knew It, Colorado's Boreas Campers teased a larger version of its rugged off-road squaredrop trailer. It took longer than planned, and the upsized off-roader has legally changed its name to EOS-12, but the pop-top model has finally arrived as a bigger, badder tow-everywhere Boreas micro-home that can sleep a family of five, cook a gourmet meal for the whole campground, and eliminate the dreaded blind wee-hour pee walk by way of its indoor bathroom.
Back when we saw the first 2019 teaser, Boreas was still named Into the Wild Overland, its pop-up family trailer project was the XT-12, and the average person would have guessed that "COVID" was some type of collaborative video, probably porn. Some things have changed since then.
Boreas has renamed and reconfigured the production version of its family trailer ahead of an official launch at this week's Overland Expo West. And with RVs enjoying historic popularity, a step-up family-size trailer makes a lot of sense for any brand limited to smaller teardrop-size trailers.
The EOS-12 follows Boreas itself in a name change based on Greek mythology, Eos being the goddess of dawn and mother of Boreas. The parent/child relationship might be reversed in this case, but "Eos" is a fitting name for an important new product that marks a proverbial "new dawn."
Boreas' new dawn equates to a larger, more family-friendly breed of rugged trailer that should appeal to off-road trailer-camping couples who have grown into families and new family customers looking for something relatively light, easy to tow and ready for the roughest terrain between home and ... there.
That latter group will probably include some converts to overlanding and dispersed camping disillusioned by overcrowded campgrounds and waitlists who desire a means of escaping the masses and staking a claim to their very own slice of dirt. The EOS-12 fits the bill with five-person sleeping capacity and a design that finds a functional medium between Boreas' two-person XT and the roomy, hard-nosed off-road caravans common in Australia (e.g. the Lotus Tremor).
The EOS-12 still looks like a small off-road squaredrop from afar, but at 19.3 ft (5.9 m) in overall length, it's sized more like a roomier caravan than it is the 16-ft (4.9-m) Boreas XT. It gains a foot of length over the original XT-12 design, and Boreas puts the extra space to good use by expanding the floor plan to include a five-person dinette, rather than a four-person. That dinette is set up behind the fixed front queen bed and converts over into a double bed to create four standard sleeping berths. An optional fold-down bunk bed provides the fifth.
The EOS-12's angled roof design concentrates the maximum 6.5-ft (198-cm) standing height at the rear of the floor plan, benefitting the corner wet bathroom in clearing enough overhead space to stand in the shower. The bathroom also includes a cassette toilet.
On the other side of its metal-framed, wood-free composite walls, the EOS-12 outdoor kitchen stretches nearly the full length of the passenger sidewall. It includes a Furrion triple-burner stove/sink slide-out to the left of a central fold-down worktop and a 96-L Truma dual-zone or 105-L single-zone fridge/freezer slide to the right. The roomy galley is ready to churn out food in good weather or bad thanks to the standard 270-degree 23Zero awning overhead and available enclosure walls.
The four-season-ready EOS-12 features list aims to keep even finicky family members comfortable and happy, packing in a Truma Combi air/water heater; an electrical system with 200-Ah lithium battery, 300-W solar array and Victron Multiplus inverter; a Bluetooth speaker system; a 30-A shore connection; and available A/C. A Garmin Fusion Control tablet serves as the portable command center, offering one-screen control of interior temperature, fan, lighting, inverter and speaker system, as well as monitoring of tank and battery levels.
Serious American off-road trailer builders have been gradually switching from long-popular torsion-axle suspension systems to Aussie-inspired or sourced independent arm systems, and Boreas claimed to be the first North American camper manufacturer to make the leap to Australia's highly popular Cruisemaster brand when it switched its entire lineup over in the 2021 model year. The EOS-12 relies on the Cruisemaster XT setup to deliver the forgiving cushion between the heavy duty powder-coated steel-tube frame and the all-terrain tire-rolled wheels. The airbag-based system also includes auto-leveling capability. The trailer has 20 inches of ground clearance.
There's no debating that Boreas has found a compelling combination of full-fledged off-roadability, family-size accommodations and amenity-loaded comfort, but the US$74,990 EOS-12 base price is still a bit hard to swallow. That's well more than the $40,000 to $50,000 Boreas estimated when it first previewed the XT-12 and more than double the $36K base of the smaller Boreas XT. And it puts the EOS-12 up against some stiff competition.
A steady surge of those aforementioned Australian-brand off-road caravans have been flooding into the US in recent years, offering another alternative for off-road family camping. Examples include the 22-ft (6.7-m) four-person MDC AUSRV X15 currently marked down to $55,990 (from $64,990) and the expandable 15-ft (4.6-m) $59,000 Opus OP15 family trailer.
Even closer to home for Boreas, some other boutique off-road camper builders currently offer highly rugged, lightweight pop-up trailers for four+ campers. Examples include the $43,900 Mission Overland Summit pop-up squaredrop ($49K for "well-equipped" model) and the $31K TetonX Hybrid pop-top ($50K fully loaded).
All of those options have individual pros and cons, of course. The Aussie caravans are more than a thousand pounds heavier than the 3,700-lb (1,678-kg) EOS-12 but also tend to have nicer interiors, while the pop-up squaredrops are less-equipped and use outdoor showers in place of indoor bathrooms but are also smaller, lighter and easier to tow. So perhaps Boreas will find its niche right between those other categories, but we can't help but think it would be better off optioning off some of the standard equipment to bring the base price closer to the $50K for which it was originally aiming.
On the other hand, in a world in which Australian brands can find success by selling US$41K+ fold-out tent trailers or complementing six-figure hardcore towable dream machines with even bigger, more expensive models, it's not unreasonable to believe a well-designed $75K off-road family trailer will find its audience. Boreas has also made itself more of a name brand thanks to its involvement in the early days of Ford Bronco fever. We'll see where the EOS-12 goes from here.
Source: Boreas Campers
