Thursday, January 6, 2011

Boler #1



























































































































In the mid-summer of 2009 I found a basket case 1970's Boler Camping trailer on Kijiji out of London, Ontario. I was looking in the London classifieds as I had a meeting there for work, so it was convenient to look at the Boler. I had been looking for a Boler for a long time, but their usual $5000 price tag was a little steep for my budget.
Unfortunately I have no "before" pictures, but suffice it to say this thing was ROUGH! The fibreglass shell had a good number of dings and gouges, worse yet there were some large holes on the far side from equipment that had been installed. The tongue was also extended considerably to mount a generator, and the whole interior was removed.
I wound up doing some research online and recreating an interior using lumber and MDF, then I completely painted the inside walls, ceiling, and new cabinets in a gloss white. I repurposed some surplus IKEA cabinet doors and painted them as well. A laminate floor was installed and I sewed new cushions in a wacky fabric.
The exterior saw its share of work as well. I hacked off the extended tongue and reused the steel to bring it back to a near-stock appearance. I rewired the unit, fixed the fibreglass, and ultimately painted it to match our Westfalia.

After the first outing in the trailer (Da Caves, 2009), I listed the trailer and there was a bidding war between two individuals. The successful buyer also planned to tow his behind a VW bus. In fact he ultimately had it repainted to match his bus.