I think there is a pretty good market out there for a partially built kit type camper, or something you can fit out yourself as time, money, and skills allow. It sure seems to work for FWC, with their shells. I'm not sure, but I think judging from the ones you see everywhere that they sell more shells than they do finished campers. A high end foamcore hard side kit or shell sounds to me like something that might fill a need. Building something like this is a huge project, if you start from a shell. It's even more enormous starting from a pile of plywood or foam. Pre-cut components, done up on a CNC router, could save hundreds of hours of layout and cutting on a project. Might result in more projects actually getting finished.
I tried to do this twice, with sailboats. The first project was a rebuild of a completed boat, a 27' Catalina. It was in terrible shape when I picked it up. I stripped it down to a bare hull, installed all new electrical and plumbing, all new standing and running rigging, new motor (outboard), new upholstery, refinished or replaced all the cabinetry and joinery, etc. This project was a resounding success. I did almost all the work myself, with a little (lot) of help from friends and family. The standing rigging and lifelines I didn't feel confident in my own abilities to make, so I had them proffesionally cut and swaged.
The second project was a bare hull and deck, a 36' oceangoing cruiser. I thought that having done all the systems once on a boat, I could do it again. Ah, not so fast. Installing a whole new electrical harness is a whole lot easier when you have the old junk one as a pattern. Likewise all of the cabinetry and joinery. Plumbing layout and galley locations are a lot easier to fix than they are to do from scratch. Readily available CAD programs have probably changed this somewhat, I was trying to do it all with hand tools and lofting paper on the shop floor. To make a long story short, I ended up scrapping this project and selling the whole mess. Hull, deck, mast, engine, and a couple of pickup loads of interior and deck fittings. I took the money and went and bought my old 27 footer back from the guy I had sold her to and went sailing.
I think saying "we built this" is the coolest thing in the world. That's how I felt about that old sailboat, and how I still am about my house (I built that too, with a bunch of help of course). If I could have found someone to sell me a shell that would have met my needs I think I would have tried building it myself with the new camper as well, see how well my rusty boatbuilding and housebuilding skills transfer over. I just didn't want to start from scratch again. My little brother has an 18' gypsy vardo trailer project sitting in my dad's shop right now that we haven't done any more work on in 8 months since a huge burst of activity early last Summer, he probably doesn't need my half done (half baked?) camper project sitting there next to it! Ha ha!
I tried to do this twice, with sailboats. The first project was a rebuild of a completed boat, a 27' Catalina. It was in terrible shape when I picked it up. I stripped it down to a bare hull, installed all new electrical and plumbing, all new standing and running rigging, new motor (outboard), new upholstery, refinished or replaced all the cabinetry and joinery, etc. This project was a resounding success. I did almost all the work myself, with a little (lot) of help from friends and family. The standing rigging and lifelines I didn't feel confident in my own abilities to make, so I had them proffesionally cut and swaged.
The second project was a bare hull and deck, a 36' oceangoing cruiser. I thought that having done all the systems once on a boat, I could do it again. Ah, not so fast. Installing a whole new electrical harness is a whole lot easier when you have the old junk one as a pattern. Likewise all of the cabinetry and joinery. Plumbing layout and galley locations are a lot easier to fix than they are to do from scratch. Readily available CAD programs have probably changed this somewhat, I was trying to do it all with hand tools and lofting paper on the shop floor. To make a long story short, I ended up scrapping this project and selling the whole mess. Hull, deck, mast, engine, and a couple of pickup loads of interior and deck fittings. I took the money and went and bought my old 27 footer back from the guy I had sold her to and went sailing.
I think saying "we built this" is the coolest thing in the world. That's how I felt about that old sailboat, and how I still am about my house (I built that too, with a bunch of help of course). If I could have found someone to sell me a shell that would have met my needs I think I would have tried building it myself with the new camper as well, see how well my rusty boatbuilding and housebuilding skills transfer over. I just didn't want to start from scratch again. My little brother has an 18' gypsy vardo trailer project sitting in my dad's shop right now that we haven't done any more work on in 8 months since a huge burst of activity early last Summer, he probably doesn't need my half done (half baked?) camper project sitting there next to it! Ha ha!
