US motorhome design tweaked for NZ use

Automotive engineer Steve Rumore, of Lake Hawea, displays the plastic material he will use to...
Automotive engineer Steve Rumore, of Lake Hawea, displays the plastic material he will use to build a prototype slide-on pop-top camper. Photo by Catherine Pattison.
Hawea's Steve Rumore has plans to compact the campers he used to build on a grand scale in the United States into smaller, slide-on versions that can fit on either a ute deck or trailer.

He has a passion for bespoke building work and with a background in automotive design and engineering, it is easy to see how this idea - now in prototype phase - might be a winner with Kiwi families.

Rumore spent 22 years in Colorado building motorhomes predominantly for race teams.

When he says they were ''really big'', he's talking 12m-long transport trucks, complete with living quarters, which were towing trailers of up to 10m.

Although he worked with different configurations the ''stacker'' trailer option, in which the race car was driven on to a ramp and lifted up on to a mezzanine floor above the workshop below, was a popular choice for the ''off-road Baja racers'', who made up the majority of his clients.

The Baja 1000 is an off-road race that takes place annually on Mexico's Baja California Peninsula.

He described the construction of the motorhomes as ''sort of like building a house,'' and generators and solar power were major requirements.

''A lot of the time they are parked up in the desert for a week, so they needed to be self-sufficient.''

It was low-volume, specialised work and each build took between six months and a year but Rumore enjoyed the ''out of the box'' creativity the design process allowed.

When he and his wife Jen arrived in Wanaka in 2010, he did what many inhabitants of this small but talent-filled town do and spread himself across several trades.

Father of two Rumore is now a part-time excavator and part-time motorhome and caravan repair or restoration man.

In his spare time he is fashioning a hard-sided, pop-up slide-on camper, employing a similar design philosophy and composite materials that he used on his mega-motorhomes in the US.

''It will be very lightweight but of high quality construction. It is downscaled so people can have a small unit which is affordable but rugged for hunting, fishing or a day at the beach,'' Rumore said.

The key to its success, he believes, is the ready-made sheet composite material, that has a plastic core and aluminium bonded to each side of it.

At 4mm thick ''it is its own insulation,'' can not delaminate and doubles as both an interior and exterior wall.

''This material makes the build time much shorter and makes the overall cost much less.''

Rumore estimated the standard base model, which would sleep three, will sell for just under $10,000.

Although he will have general specifications for the camper, it could be tailored to suit the size of the client's trailer or ute deck.

It will sit on steel framework, which will act like skids, and a hand winch will mean only one person is required to lever the camper up a wooden ramp and into position.

Rumore hopes to have the prototype ready by December and will build one for himself, do a bit of marketing ''and see what sort of response I get''.

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