A home-made foamie trailer - towed by a Vespa!
Hanging out with Thomas Burick and his foamie trailer and Vespa
Have you ever heard of a “foamie”? I hadn’t but it’s a term I was introduced to by Thomas Burick who built one and tows it with, of all things, a 1962 Vespa.
What a foamie is is a trailer made of foam and often coated with “poor man’s fiberglass.” That was another term I had never heard of. But the result is a small, 170 pound teardrop-style trailer that Burick tows around with his Vespa. Yes, I’m talking the Italian motor bike Vespa.
Thomas Burick is a self-described aficionado of motor bikes including Vespas but also shares my enthusiasm for RVs, particularly the towable kind. As such he built a trailer a few years ago that he refers to as a scooter cargo trailer. As proof of concept, he towed that trailer over 7,000 miles from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to Mexico and on to San Jose, California.
Thomas Burick and his foamie trailer and Vespa.
With a Honda Ruckus scooter.
It’s important to note that the Ruckus is a 50cc scooter that Burick describes as having “absolutely no torque.” So that ride was interesting in the least with even the slightest incline slowing the bike, rider and trailer down to about 8-10 miles an hour at which point balancing becomes tricky.
“As soon as you hit an incline you’d feel like a guy on a tight rope hoping not to fall off.”
This newer set-up is a whole different animal starting with the fact that the Vespa sports a two-stroke engine which Burick describes as being rather torquey. I mean, not like Hummer H1 1,000 ft-lbs of torque torquey but certainly better than the Ruckus.
The trailer build
Building the trailer started with the design and Burick searched for what he would classify as the perfect design. His search stopped when he came across a 1947 Cabin Car trailer. That was an all-wood design that was crafted by one of the many companies who found the need for their product changed after World War II so they shifted to making things for civilians and Cabin Car was a small teardrop trailer for civilians.
But lots and lots of civvies preferred much larger trailers at the time and the fact that the manufacturer recommended an annual re-varnishing of the wood used in the Cabin Car was not so appealing.
But its design is so Burick took that and scaled it down by about 25 percent. A friend of Burick’s took a side view of the Cabin Car and digitized it such that a CNC machine could very precisely cut the foam that is used to build the trailer.
Foamies
In fact the trailer’s light weight is a product of how it’s built. Like all RVs the foundation is the place to start and the one under this trailer is all aluminum. The welded aluminum chassis was put together by another friend and incorporates 13” tires on a solid axle. These are significantly larger than the eight inch tires that the Vespa is shod with.
From there the sidewalls and roof are all cut from one inch thick block foam which is a material many RVers may already be familiar with. Many smooth-sided RVs are a product of a welded “cage” with block foam between the ribs.
But this trailer is just block foam, no ribs. Well, not many. More on that later.
The sidewalls and roof are mounted in place and then a layer of canvas is literally glued on top of the foam with “tight bond” glue. At this point you use a warm iron to seal and help dry the layer.
Once the glue dries the canvas layer becomes rigid and is then painted with waterproof latex paint.
This glue and canvas layer is referred to as “poor man’s fiberglass” and was around before actual fiberglass, but isn’t tremendously different. In fact many early trailers used processes similar to this for their skins.
“You would be surprised how much structural rigidity canvas and paint add to the build.”
It’s a trailer
Despite the diminutive size and extraordinarily light weight it’s still a teardrop trailer and fully functional as such. In fact Thomas Burick shot a video on his new YouTube channel where he actually prepared an entire Thanksgiving dinner complete with a bird, stuffing, mashed potatoes and peas and enjoyed it with a friend in the trailer.
Rather than give away all the details I encourage you to visit his YouTube channel and check out the diminutive scooter-powered rig.
Out back there’s a spot for a kitchen that features drawers and a prep surface. Heat for the cooking comes courtesy of a single-burner portable stove.
Unlike many smaller rigs this one also has the ability to prepare coffee and such inside should the weather ever cause the need for such.
The trailer has already been camping once in the three weeks since it’s been finished and there’s already a second trip on the calendar.
But why?
There are a lot of reasons for doing something like this but who needs an actual logical reason when it’s just something you enjoy?
Okay, there was a reason and that started with Burick’s profession as a teacher where he works with children with special needs. There is a camp component to his teaching and he got the idea to build a throwaway trailer that the kids could have fun with. But as more and more people started pitching in and the trailer got better and better, he realized it was no longer a throwaway project.
“This little trailer is a conduit of joy and human connection.”
That’s fully understandable. Just like when you go to a car show and there are all the big, fancy flashy cars but if someone shows-up with a BMW Isetta, that’s going to be the star of the show.
Thomas Burick has always wanted to build a travel trailer and now he has which he enjoys pulling around at speeds up to 40 miles per hour with the collectible 1962 Vespa scooter.
And now we all have learned a couple of things too. Foamies and poor man’s fiberglass. See what you can learn here?
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