Camping in that old Dodge van was fun, but by the mid-1980’s we were ready for a camper with stand up room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Still, I loved the Dodge camper van I built and I wanted to continue to use it for our camping trips. So, we started to talk about upgrading to a small lightweight camper trailer that the our van could tow with its 318 engine.

I had some family camping experience with a pop-up tent camper trailer in the 1960’s. Pop-ups are OK, but after 10 years of travel with our van camper, we were in the mood for something a little more plush, with a bathroom, that I wouldn’t have to set up and take down at each camping stop. So that lightweight camper option was quickly dismissed. Few other seriously lightweight options available in the mid-1980’s were appealing to us.

Dorrie heard about an ultra lightweight fiberglass camper manufacturer called Casita that had recently started operations in Kerens, Texas in 1983. Kerens is less than a one hour drive south from our home just north of Dallas, so Dorrie called Casita and made an appointment for us to go check out the factory and their camper model. The original Kerens Casita production line was modest.

We liked the Casita 16’ Liberty model, but we decided to research Casita and fiberglass campers in general before committing. There was no commercial Internet, websites or Google back then, so it took some time for us to do the old fashioned research to establish that the company was reputable and that their fiberglass shell trailers were safe and serviceable.

The boler (purposely not capitalized by its creator) trailer was invented by Ray Olecko and the master fiberglass moulds were created by Sandor Dusa. Ray Olecko was born in Lamont, Alberta in 1930. After finishing the 8th grade he ran away to join the circus where one of his jobs was as a carnival barker, for which he wore a bowler hat. After Ray spent three years in the Canadian Air Force in Ontario, Quebec and Labrador between 1954 and 1957, he move his family to Winnipeg in 1962. It was in Winnipeg that Ray began to work in the fibreglass industry and began learning how to work the fiberglass material.

While Ray was camping with his family, after he had gain experience working with fiberglass, the idea of a light-weight camper trailer made from fiberglass struck him. The family used to go camping in an old canvas tent. Many nights they were rained or snowed out.

Olecko was seemingly aware of the existence of similar looking lightweight fiberglass egg shaped camper trailers already being built in Europe, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, and even Minnesota as early as 1961. The early bolers are strikingly similar to the 1961 Karosa W4 Dingo manufactured in Czechoslovakia, the U.S. Cloud camper trailer built in Minnesota from 1961 and the Willerby Caravan manufactured in the UK in the 1950’s.

Ray spent countless hours working out a small fiberglass camper design, planning sizes for the table conversion to bed, bunk beds, countertop for icebox/fridge, propane heater, storage under bunks and a closet. He knew that building the shell and interior out of fiberglass would yield a lightweight and affordable camper that could be towed behind a car. Plexiglass was used on the front and rear of the trailer to withstand gravel roads as well as being lighter than glass. He meticulously labored over graph paper designs with measurements for fitting everything into the camper’s interior space. The bed-and-two bunks configuration was specifically designed for Ray’s family of four. With Dusa’s help, they made wooden mock-ups for the trailer, from which they then created their fiberglass molds.

The Winnipeg Free Press published an article at the time about Ray’s new fiberglass camper trailer invention writing it “is practically unbreakable, leak-proof and, because it’s fabricated as a single unit, will not loosen up. … Layers of fibreglass are molded together with plastic resin in a large bathtub-shaped mold. During this process the trailer’s exterior paint job is built into the fibreglass. Fibreglass, says Ray Olecko, has four times the strength of steel of the same weight. After about four hours the fibreglass is lifted from the mold to form the top half of the trailer. A similarly-shaped mold, with the addition of wheel wells, is made for the bottom half. The two halves are bonded together and the door and window areas cut out. The cabin of the trailer is placed on a steel chassis and the interior fitted out.”

Olecko told the Winnipeg Free Press, “When we’d completed the first trailer, I saw that we had a unique unit which would appeal to the small family. At this point we decided to go into production.” Ray and Dusa scraped together some startup capital and began producing the first boler trailers in an old Winnipeg warehouse in 1968.

About about 100 Bolers were built in 1968 as they worked out their manufacturing process. During the second year of operations 150 boler trailers were produced in 1969, and another 400-500 were manufactured in 1970.

In 1971, Olecko sold boler Canadian production franchises with his fiberglass mold designs to Glass-Fab Industries Ltd., located in Peace River, Alberta, and to Earlton Manufacturing, located in Earlton, Ontario. Earlton Manufacturing then started its boler trailer production under the business name of Advanced Fiberglass, located in Midhurst Ontario, where production continued until 1988 when it ceased boler trailer production.

Trillium campers are very similar in design and styling to Olecko’s fiberglass boler campers, but do not seem to be one of Oleck’s franchises. Trillium Industries started operations in 1969 in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada to manufacture 13 and 15 gelcoat fiberglass camper trailers. In 1973 Trillium expanded operations with a new 40,000 sq.ft. factory and showroom in Markham, Ontario. Trillium added another 20,000 sq. ft. to the Markham factory in 1976. Trillium did not survive long into the 1980’s.

Olecko also sold boler production franchises with the fiberglass molds to U.S. companies in 1971. Those U.S. franchises would eventually give rise to several companies that used boler fiberglass molds to found their camper trailer production lines. Those companies include Scamp, located in Backus, Minnisota; Casita, now located in Rice, Texas; ECO Featherlite by Century Mfg., located in Aurora, Nebraska (ECO is derived from the first names of the three brothers who founded the company, Eugene, Cal, and Owen); and Perris Pacer, located in San Jacito, California. Eco Featherlite trailers were produced during the 1970’s and Perris Pacer camper trailers were produced from 1974 to 1990.

In 1973, Ray Olecko sold his Manitoba-base company to Jim Pattison (Neonex), and his involvement with the camper industry mostly came to an end. Pattison continued to manufacture Bolers in Canada at least into the late 1970’s, and other Canadian companies that obtained their franchises from Olecko continued to manufacture Bolers into the 1980’s with the last franchised production line ending in about 1988.

Neither Canadian nor American patent databases contain a patent for the boler trailer concept or design. It appears that Olecko and Dusa did not file patent papers. Ray Olecko’s fiberglass mold designs of that time, which do not appear to have been protected by a patent, seeded the fiberglass camper industry that today includes multiple companies, including Casita.

It is probable Olecko never patented Boler trailer because too many of its design elements and manufacturing practices were already widely used by other fiberglass shell camper trailer manufacturers around the world. The fiberglass camper trailer manufacturing process of making two fibreglass shell halves, top and bottom, and placing them together to form a trailer body was already widely used by manufacturers around the world from the very early sixties, long before Olecko designed and built the first boler in 1968.

Casita was realized as an inspiration of the original boler trailer mold designs. In July of 1971, in Minnesota, Duane Eveland operated Eveland’s Inc. Duane’s business was remodeling damaged mobile homes. A factory representative from “boler American” stopped by his shop to ask Duane if he would like to manufacture trailers for boler American under a franchise agreement. In the early 1970’s, boler American was a company attempting to develop the U.S. market for the boler camper.

Duane was interested and together with his brother Gerald Eveland and sister Gladys Coffland, they negotiated a contract with the U.S. franchise holder Elenor International, to which boler had sold all U.S. manufacturing rights, and Elenor International’s subsidiary, boler American, to have Eveland’s Inc. manufacture trailers using boler’s fiberglass mold designs. Boler American would market the boler campers manufactured by Eveland. Unfortunately, boler American, which seems to have not been well capitalized or well managed, went out of business late by 1972, and Elenor International apparently lost interest in the camper venture.

This left Eveland’s Inc. with the boler fiberglass mold designs, but no company to market their product. By 1978, Duane, Gerald and Gladys managed to establish a company to build and market a trailer derived from the boler fiberglass mold designs. They first named their camper the Acorn, but by their second year of operations in 1979, they adopted the name Scamp, which survives as the camper trailer’s name today.

The story is a bit murky on how it happened, and why, but by 1980-81 Duane’s, Gerald’s and Gladys’ brother Don Eveland had left the family fold to manufacture his own travel trailer he named Casita in Backus, Minnesota. Don’s Casita camper was also based on the Boler mold designs, whether acquired from his brother’s franchise deal, or other franchise source. After the first Casitas were built and sold in Minnesota in 1980-81, the manufacturing business was moved to Texas.

As the Casita folklore goes, Don Eveland wasn’t able to establish his Texas transplant Casita manufacturing business and he filed for bankruptcy. The primary assets of the bankrupt business were presumably the fiberglass molds that trace back to the original Boler fiberglass mold designs.

In 1983, John and Connie Lang acquired the original Casita company’s assets and started Casita Enterprises manufacturing plant in Kerens, Texas, a little town of less than 500 people. The new Casita Enterprises company initially produced a few trailers a week with less than 30 employees.

• Business View Magazine article about Casita Enterprises with quotes from Timothy Lang, son of John and Connie Lang, who took over company management from his parents.

It was shortly after the Casita Travel Trailers company began manufacturing operations in Kerens that Dorrie and I discovered Casita and started to contemplate a Casita might become our next home on the road.

We did finally place our order for a new Casita and we had to wait, it seemed, a very long time for delivery. We finally took delivery of our 16’ Liberty in 1991. The campsite photo (right) is one of our first camping trip stops in Ouray, Colorado in our new 1991 Casita. That’s one of the few 35mm slides from that era I’ve digitized.

We traveled in our 1991 Casita Liberty until the early 2000’s. The one thing we liked about the Liberty was the king size bed configuration, which provided plenty of room for us and our dogs to sleep. The one negative thing about the Liberty was there was no comfortable place to sit inside and no table space without reconfiguring the bed space into table and sitting space. That negative finally persuaded us to sell our Casita and up-size to a 30’ stick-frame camper trailer with a big slide-out.

While the big stick frame camper gave us – and our dogs and two cats – all the space we wanted, which was enjoyable, we found the overall “big trailer” experience wasn’t for us. Among the negatives, the towing road hours of the big rig were more tiring to drive; our rig was too long to fit into many of our favorite park and forest campground sites; and the roof and wall panel seams had constant rain leaks no RV service shop could manage to permanently stop. Finally, after some years of those rain leaks, during a week of particularly strong North Texas storms – that included tornadoes, heavy downpour rains, hail, and gale force winds – that blew through our RV storage lot, so much rainwater was forced into the roof and walls of the stick frame camper that our insurance company declared the camper a total loss. The insurance company cashed out the loss for almost the same money we paid for it new.

After visiting many – many – RV shows and giving long consideration on our next RV purchase, we realized our old 1991 Casita gave us our most enjoyable travel and camping experiences – and it never had a single rain leak. So, we visited the Casita factory — which had relocated from Kerens, Texas, to Rice, Texas, since we picked up our 1991 Casita — and quickly decided on a 17’ Freedom Deluxe model to order.

The Freedom model would give us the comfortable inside sitting space our ‘91 Liberty lacked, and several other positives. While our 1991 Casita was nice, we were pleased to find the company had made so many improvements and upgrades to their basic design and options over the 17 years since we placed the order for our first Casita in 1990. (I compiled Casita’s product evolution after talking with a long time Casita employee during our factory visits and formalizing the file of research and Casita product information we collected over the years from 1985 – see list below.)

We found that as Casita sales steadily grew through the 1990’s, Casita Enterprises relocated from Kerens, Texas — where we picked up our 1991 Liberty — to a larger production facility in the nearby larger town of Rice, Texas. The company today operates with over 100 employees and produces 14 to 19 units a week, averaging 700 units per year. John and Connie Lang’s son, Timothy, manages the business today.

• Read an interview with Timothy Lang published in Busines View Magazine.

Old marketing flyers for early bolers and Casitas manufactured in Backus, MN, in 1980-81 show the shells were cast from identical molds. The old 13’ Casita photos below, taken in March 2018, show one of the first three Casitas built in Backus, MN, in 1980-81, still on the road.

By Bruce McGee –  “Here is one of the original Casitas (photo right) made in Backus, MN. I saw it at an auction in Mason City, IA in the summer of 2012.”

Read more here, About Molded-Fiberglass Camper Travel Trailers.

From the early to mid 1990’s the Casita factory began to evolve their shell designs and product feature set beyond founding boler camper trailer concepts. Here is a scrolling table with some of the more recent Casita upgrades and changes.

The Cult of the Casita Trailer

The word “casita” means literally “little house” in Spanish. The Casita Trailer is that and a whole lot more. Similar to other famous names in recreational vehicles like Airstream and Winnebago, these small, sleek, and perpetually stylish camper trailers also enjoy an enthusiastic following in the mobile home community. Interested in learning more about these tiny but mighty trailers? Read on to discover more about their history and unique design.

The History of Casita

The gasoline shortages of the 1970s hit the RV world hard. Some companies never recovered. It’s during this time of adversity for the mobile home community that the Boler trailer from Canada first appeared. Boler was the first to break into the fiberglass trailer space, paving the way for other companies for years to come.

In 1981, one of the members of the original Boler crew left to start Casita. The first Casita was inspired by the Boler mold. Since the early 80s, the Casita has filled a market need for recreational vehicles that are light, fuel efficient, and spacious. Today, Casita Travel Trailers remains a family owned business based out of Texas. Here’s what models offer today!

Video source: RV & Travel Adventures

We’ve discussed the beauty and wonder of the fiberglass teardrop trailer and it’s trendy vintage design in previous posts. Even though the Casita trailer is part of the same family, it is distinctly different. These classic lightweight “egg” style trailers are made with a molding and can be found oval-shaped, tear-shaped, or square with rounded edges. Their retro-inspired designs range from 13 to 17 feet and can feel huge inside for the clever interior designer.

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Advantages of the Casita Travel Trailer

What can a Casita owner expect when they purchase their traveling egg? Here are a few of the advantages and standard features that come with the trailer.

• Marine grade fiberglass shell
• Heavy-duty steel frame with insulated interior
• Aerodynamic design, which is great for gas mileage
• Air conditioner
• Over a dozen sleeping arrangement choices
• 50 cubic feet of storage space
• Functional galley kitchen
• Private shower and toilet (in deluxe models)
• Top-name components
• Potable on-board and water hook-up with water heater

These are just a few of the basic features you’ll find in a Casita. They pack a ton of functionality into a small space, meaning you’ll never have to go without your necessities. However, where owners really start to have fun is with the customization.

Fun with Fiberglass

The fact that these fiberglass trailers are very lightweight yet extremely durable make working with them so much fun. However, Casita trailers are all made on the same assembly line. Although the options and add-ons can make each trailer different, the models and colors are the same. It’s up to each individual Casita owner to customize their own home on wheels.

The customization process goes well beyond furniture selections and whirligigs, although that’s a good place to start. The trappings of the Casita cult also include trying different colors and wildly elaborate paint jobs. Those in the mood for a more intense DIY project can also winterize their trailer make it energy efficient with solar panels.

Traveling light gives you freedom. You can do nearly anything when your trailer is only 13 feet long and made of fiberglass. Adherents to the cult of the sacred and beautiful Casita Trailer understand that concept, and they take their faith seriously. Be proud and give lots of love to your light little house.

CASITA ENTERPRISES, INC. – AMERICA’S FAVORITE LIGHTWEIGHT TRAVEL TRAILER

June 4, 2019

Casita Enterprises, Inc.

America’s favorite lightweight travel trailer

 

Business View Magazine interviews Timothy Lang, VP of Casita Enterprises, Inc., as part of our focus on best practices in the recreational vehicle sector.

Casita Enterprises is proof positive of the old adage that quality and customer service matter. This family-owned travel trailer manufacturer was built on the premise that they could do it better, make it better, and if they stuck to what they believed in, it would work.

“Casita Enterprises was established in 1983 by my parents John and Connie Lang,” explains Timothy Lang, the company’s second-generation Vice President. “When they started it, it was a much smaller operation. It was based out of a little town that had less than 500 people in it. When they started out, they were producing a few trailers a week with quite a compact crew – less than 30 employees. My parents wanted to challenge the overall idea of RV camping. In the 1980’s, the idea of RV camping, in general, was that it was a headache, high cost, high maintenance – a low experience all around just because you had to spend so much time and money, every year, bringing out your camper and doing maintenance and repairs and all kinds of different things that made it more work than fun. And with that idea in mind, they took every Casita model and they specifically designed it to make it as user-friendly and high quality as possible in order to give each and every customer the best experience that they could have.”

It was that ethos that became the foundation of the Casita business and quickly garnered the company a reputation for high quality and friendliness. Soon enough, the demand skyrocketed and the company relocated to another small town, Rice, which was a lot closer to Dallas. Today, Casita Enterprises produces anywhere from 14 to 19 units a week, averaging 700 a year, and has just under a hundred employees. During peak seasons, like the months leading up to summer, the demand becomes so high that there is a six month waiting period.

“It really is a lot of word of mouth,” explains Lang. “There is one licensed dealership, Casita Travel Trailers, conveniently located in Rice, that is the only dealership that is authorized to sell new Casita units in the world. But, we are nationally known and we do business in Canada and up north. 40-45 percent of our sales are not in Texas. We do a lot of sales in Montana and Washington, areas that are popular for hiking and camping.”

Utilizing a very different sales model, Casita has created a program called the Casita Companion Program, where they have customers all over the United States who are willing to showcase their own trailer if someone is interested. Once you call the dealer, you are put in touch with an owner in your own area and you can go tour an RV – one that is already in use. Casita believes that their customers are so loyal that they will make good representatives for displaying their product.

“After that, you phone us up and we will manufacture a trailer specifically for you,” says Lang. “Some of the customizations you can do, for example, people up north often do not want the air conditioner. If there is something else that you want to be installed you can ask, and we will run it by the research division and figure out how to incorporate it in production. We really want to ensure you are getting a model you like, so we walk you through every step of the process. Then you can come to pick it up, or we will deliver it anywhere for $1.25 a mile. With that knowledge, you are getting a trailer with ultra-high quality, one of the best in the industry.”

It is this customer appreciation, and perhaps simplicity, in only offering one type of trailer with four variations and two lengths, that has held the company in good stead, even when the recession, a few years ago, was forcing other manufacturers out of business. “I can tell you,” Lang insists, “that the future definitely holds great, great promise for the RV industry as a whole, and it especially holds extreme opportunity for Casita. Our goal is to stay the same in terms of delivering the same high-quality product, while always looking to increase the quality of the customer experience.”

So what makes a Casita so popular? For one thing, they are light, having been created, entirely, out of a fibreglass resin shell, with a steel towing frame and fibreglass sealed, wood floor supports. Another thing is their usability. They are easy to tow, easy to set up, and worry-free. The trailers are built to last, as their steel frame affords heavy-duty protection from rough roads and terrain. They have an aerodynamic design, making them wind resistant. Overall, they are easy to clean, strong, rust proof, and durable. There is also an insulated interior which reduces outside noise and keeps occupants cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The units have a spacious feel, even though they include a private shower and toilet combination, comfortable sleeping accommodations, sitting features that easily convert, quality storage space, and large screened windows that give them an airy feeling.

“Let me give you an example of how we ensure you are getting better quality,” Lang interjects. “If you go online and look at how RV manufacturers do rain tests, you will see that they perform a light drizzle test for 20 minutes to ensure that there are no leaks. At Casita, we simulate a severe rainstorm with high-pressure rain nozzles and we leave the trailer under them for anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. We want you to be rest assured that your trailer is not going to leak. The fact is that we go above and beyond to ensure we provide the best quality. Going through production, we like to have as many checks and inspection points for each and every item as many times as possible before it is in the hands of the customer. We check that everything is fully operational and up to Casita standards; we have a very high-quality threshold.”

“We also promote that we are one of the lightest travel trailers in the industry,” he continues, “Our biggest model is a 17-foot travel trailer which comes in four different models; that is the biggest size you can get right now. And that, fully loaded, usually runs 2,500 pounds, so they are a very, very light trailer and we pride ourselves for keeping such amazing quality and keeping it as light as possible. We really pride ourselves on the fact that a lot of people will see little change in their fuel mileage while hauling our trailer – the increase will be somewhere from 1/2 mile per gallon to 2 miles per gallon. A lot of our customers come in and tell us they even forgot they were towing the trailer because it is so light and smooth on the road. These are the fibreglass versions of an Airstream trailer but without the big price tag.”

There have been a lot of improvements this year, as well. The research department, headed by Timothy’s brother David, has worked hard to upgrade the interiors both in functionality and aesthetics. This was necessary, as the inside of the trailers really had not changed since the 1980s.

“We really took a step out and ahead and we upgraded a lot of things in order to make life easier for every person who uses our trailer,” Lang explains. “We’ve added things such as the battery cut off switch; we have upgraded our plumbing; we have added 12 volt USB outlets because we have come to realize that everyone loves to charge their phone but always forgets to bring the little cube. We have also added things like digital battery monitors and a digital thermostat and several other things like more user-friendly jacks. We have added scissor jacks with a socket connection so that people can use a drill to easily raise and lower the jacks – just things to make it, overall, a faster and more enjoyable experience, so you don’t have to focus so much on set up and maintenance – you can focus on pulling out every weekend and having fun, exploring, and experiencing life.”

Lately, there has been a huge spike in sales to younger families, as the trailers’ updated interiors are aimed at the modern market. In fact, this year the company introduced what Casita is calling the Heritage Model that has a layout that includes bunk beds. People in the 27-36-year-old range have actually been shown to be willing to buy an RV instead of a house, so that they can spend more time exploring.

“And again, our quality and affordability make it the perfect purchase for anyone,” concludes Lang. “We are unique in so many ways, even within our competition; our biggest competition is our own used units! It shows that Casitas are one of the very few RVs in the industry that hold their value. We have even had customers come in and buy a new unit, and use it for a year or two, and then sell it because there is a waiting list and people want it right then and there. They can sell it for more than the original price because the demand is so high.”