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“The thing was ugly,” recalls KeithHulsey, TrailManor’s vice president ofmarketing. “It looked like a squaremetal box with cables and pulleys.”

“I’ll admit, our first model was still alittle rough,” says inventor and com-pany founder Bill Hulsey. Of course,you can’t blame Bill for seeing only thevery best in his creation, built over thecourse of 1973 in his basement andbackyard.

Bill says he’d grown weary of thelimitations of his family’s fold-downcamper. There was the constant choreof set-up and take-down, a drill thattook more than half an hour by himselfor 15 minutes when camping with hiswife and four children, all of whomwere usually fast asleep upon arrival atthe campground. And then there wasthe issue of the soft canvas top, whichalways let in moisture from rain andhumidity.

Finally—and most compellingly—his wife wanted a bathroom on board, ararity in the pop-up offerings of thetime. Since no one wantedto tow a big trailer, Bill puthis doctorate degree inmetallurgical engineeringto work and set aboutbuilding the perfect light-weight family towable.

What he came up was,well, different. “This wasn’tyour typical pop-up,” saysBill.

D u b b e d t h eNokomis, fromthe Longfellowpoem “The Songo f H i a w a t h a , ”Bill’s trailer ex-ceeded the fam-ily’s wish list int e rms o f s i z e ,a m e n i t i e s a n dtowability. Whilethe boxy windowsand bare aluminum exterior drew somelooks, the hard-sided unit over-achieved. Just over 19 feet in transit but26 feet fully deployed, the Nokomismanaged to deliver a bathroom andshower, a small galley and a place forthe kids to sleep.

Where it truly excelled, however,was in its patented lift system, utilizingspring-loaded torsion bars attached totwo top sections that could easily beput into place. Set-up time was lessthan a minute.

“There were always people comingup to us saying, ‘We’venever seen that before,’”says son Keith, who alsorecalls total strangers ask-ing his Dad if they couldbuy it.

After receiving an offerf r o m a b r a n d n e wAirstream owner to tradetrailers, Bill sought to li-cense his creation to an

RV manufacturer. The closest he gotwas with Jayco, who helped him refinehis design into a couple of new proto-types over a two-year product court-ship that ultimately didn’t go beyondthat.

Years of travel had convinced Billthat the market for his unique foldingtrailer was real and that his productwas superior to conventional pop-ups,offering greater towability than tradi-tional travel trailers. It was a hybridthat turned as many heads for its curi-ous looks as its innovative engineering.

Although a little apprehensive aboutlaunching a new business, Bill estab-lished TrailManor in 1983 to showcasethe towable that had been such a hitwith fellow campers on all those familytrips.

“I saw it at a trade show, and Iwalked by it about a half-dozen times,”says Johnny Carter, owner of Trail-Manor’s first dealership. “It was engi-neered beautifully.”

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R e a r v i e w M i r r o r

B Y B R E N T P E T E R S O N

The Tale of TrailManorThir ty years a f ter B i l l Hulsey p ieced together h is f i rs t fo ld ing camper

for h is fami ly ’s vacat ions , h is innovat ive t ra i lers s t i l l r i se to the occas ion

TrailManor’s 26-foot trailer can be towed by aminivan or an suv and stowed in the garage.

THEY SAY BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. HOWEVER, IN THE

case of TrailManor’s early prototypes, everyone pretty muchagreed.

“It was about the ugliest thing I ever saw,” jokes Johnny Carter,owner of Carter’s Camping Center.

It was a hybrid that

turned as many

heads for its

curious looks as

its innovative

engineering.

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C O A S T T O C O A S T102

Carter believed the industry neededsuch a towable, since Apache (a pio-neer in hard-sided pop-ups) went outof business. He initially featured twoTrailManor trailers at his West Mon-roe, Louisiana, dealership, sold fiveand went on to become one of thecompany’s greatest advocates.

Convinced they had a winner, Carterand other dealers began lobbying foraesthetic changes to help refine the unit.Bill convened what he called his Na-tional Advisory Board, made up of deal-ers to help him fine-tune the TrailManorinto a more marketable unit.

“Bill’s a brilliant engineer,” saysCarter, “but we tore that thing apartand told him everything he needed.”

A n o t h e r w a v e o fchanges resulted in exteriorchanges, including radiusedwindows. Meanwhile, theinterior received a few well-conceived cosmetic tweaks.As usual, no one had anycomplaints with the patentedlift system, which has remained virtu-ally unchanged for 30 years.

“It started looking like a camper in-stead of a machine,” says Keith. Even-tually, less attention was paid to thetrailer’s unusual appearance and moreto what it could do, meaning light-weight towing, quick set-up and year-round camping in an insulated, hard-sided shell.

Arriving at a new dealership pullingthe TrailManor behind his V-6 Chevro-let Celebrity clearly illustrated the unit’s

towabilty. (“That re-ally helped sign updealers,” says Keith.)And over the years,TrailManor trailershave kept their modestweight, now rangingbetween 2,500 and3,300 pounds, idealfor towing behindminivans and smallSUVs.

“We still weigh halfas much as everyoneelse,” says Bill, who in-

corporates vacuum-bonded sandwichpanels flanked by aluminum on bothsides for the walls and roof. “It’s astrong, tough kind of construction.”

According to Bill, ease of towing isthe number one reason customers buyTrailManor trailers, although Keithadds that the novel lift mechanism stilldraws them in.

“You pull into a campground in oneof these,” says Keith. “and you see peo-ple peeking out from behind trees,slowly working their way over. Cus-tomers tell us they end up putting theunit up and down to show off how easyit is.”

The folks at TrailManor haven’t

stopped working on new features. Forinstance, the space saved by the com-pany’s new Swing-Around Tongue,which debuted last year, might meanthe difference between keeping yourtrailer in the garage or being forced tostore it elsewhere. The design, anotherBill Hulsey original, features a pinnedpoint on the A-frame that acts as ahinge, so the tongue can simply swingaround to the side when not in the tow-ing mode.

While the early days were spentsmoothing out the product’s roughedges, the goal now is to get the wordout about what a TrailManor can do.Keith says he gives out a quarter to hiskids every time they spot a TrailManoron the highway. The good news is, he’sgiving out a lot more quarters thesedays. 7

TrailManor(865) 426-7426

www.trailmanor.com

Slogan: “The travel trailer that tows like a pop-up.”

Established: 1983

Headquarters: Lake City, Tennessee

Employees: 70

Products: Bifold towables ranging in length

from 26 to 33 feet

U.S. MSRP: $18,000 to $32,000

C O A S T T O C O A S T

Founder Bill Hulsey shows off the original plant in 1983. Today’s

facility (above) sits on a 90-acre plot in Lake City, Tennessee.

Fellow campers couldn’t take their eyes off

Bill Hulsey’s 1973 creation, the Nokomis.

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