How This Brilliant Vintage Fiberglass Camper Inspired U-Haul’s Short Venture Into RV Production

A reader has sent in a real piece of fiberglass RV history. At the top of your screen is not a U-Haul CT13 or a Scamp, despite appearances. Instead, it’s a camper so brilliant that it was one of the inspirations for the U-Haul camper. This is the Burro, and it’s a fiberglass camper that you could even camp in today.

Last summer, I got pretty darn sloshed at my parents’ house [Ed Note: Damn that’s a way to open up a blog! -DT]. While I swam in their pool with my phone–an activity that probably zero out of five doctors recommend–I looked at a 1985 U-Haul CT13 nearly 400 miles north in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’m not entirely sure if it was the Malort, a drink that Illinois residents give to their enemies, or my insatiable lust for weird campers, but I told the seller to hold it because I was going to drive from Illinois and through the entire state of Wisconsin to buy it. Since then, I haven’t quite gotten around to restoring the thing. It desperately needs its lights fixed, and wasps decided to take up residence in the thing. Oh, and the VIN plate fell off and then disappeared. That’s very bad; absolutely not good. [Ed Note: That’s horrible luck! -DT]

With some luck, we’ll be able to get started on it soon. I found some companies that are willing to do the metalwork, the electrical, and the fiberglass work, leaving my wife and I to the fun stuff. While U-Haul has lost its records on its camper production, the company tells me that it’s likely that fewer than 2,000 of these were built. Of those, who knows how many are left? So, we want to preserve as much as we can of this piece of camping history. Perhaps we’ll go to EAA AirVenture 2023 with the U-Haul in tow.

Readers have been sending in the weird campers that they’re finding out there and each of them are lovely. During the weekend, a reader named Hugh dropped this beauty into our tips line (tips@autopian.com)!

And upon first glance, you’ll probably look up at my U-Haul and start to get some questions. Which came first? Did one copy the other? Were the molds shared? I have the answers to all of these questions and more!

What Is A Burro?

It appears that a lot of Burro’s history has been lost to time. I’ve combed a number of forums and while there are a lot of stories passed down from owner to owner, it’s hard to find an exact timeline. Unlike U-Haul, Burro isn’t around anymore, so there is no direct contact to chat with. Thankfully, not everything has been lost, and information can be gathered from brochures and even Burro’s dead, but archived website.

According to information gathered by the Tin Can Tourists vintage camper club and the RV enthusiasts of Fiberglass RV, Burro got its start in the late 1970s. I did some digging of my own and found that Burro Inc. was incorporated in Plymouth, Minnesota in 1977. The company then began producing a fiberglass travel trailer. This camper–the Burro–was similar in design to the Cloud, a fiberglass camper that was built in nearby St. Cloud, Minnesota in the years prior. The two campers have a similar design and interior layout, but the Burro is noted to use a double-wall fiberglass construction while the Cloud had a single fiberglass wall.

In this type of construction, the camper has an outer shell wall and an inner interior wall. Check it out in this Burro brochure from the 1970s:

And here’s an explanation from Burro in 1999 for why you’d want your fiberglass camper to be double-walled:

Double Shell construction is a feature unique to the Burro. Cupboards, counter tops, seats, and storage areas are molded right into the shell.The smooth gel coat finish inside and outside may be wiped clean with a damp cloth. All fiberglass parts are specially formulated or a fire retardant resin. Commercial grade, foil-backed fiberglass insulation between the inner and outer shells adds comfort and protection from moisture condensation when the inside and outside temperatures vary. The unified interior features eliminate the need to rivet individual components to the outside shell. Burro’s rivetless construction eliminates leaks caused by rivet shanks wearing on the fiberglass which leads to unsightly streaking and expensive repairs.

These campers are tiny, but they have just enough features for a weekend getaway. Inside, a Burro is outfitted like a U-Haul. Pop open the door and you’ll see a bench to your right and a dinette to your left. In the center sits a small kitchenette featuring a two-burner stove, an ice box, and a sink. That bench up front transforms into a bunk bed and the dinette could also be used as a bed. Burro even went a little further than U-Haul, and the brochure advertised the option for an air-conditioner and a portable toilet.

Combined with the 12-gallon water tank and 110V shore power connection, a Burro was almost everything you needed for a camping getaway, and it could be towed by just about any car. A Burro weighed around 1,100 pounds before options. According to that aforementioned brochure, the company was even considering an even lighter Burro Ultra-Lite, which would have brought the 13-foot camper down to 740 pounds using an aluminum frame, aluminum propane tank, magnesium wheels, and other lightweight materials.

It’s unclear how many (if any) of these were made. I can say that in my nearly six years of researching fiberglass campers, I’ve yet to see a single one in that configuration.

According to that brochure, you had a few options in buying a Burro. You could buy the base trailer as a kit that started at $2,596 before adding in electrical, appliances, and more. Burro advertised the build process as being so easy that you could do it in a day or two with basic tools. Or, you could give Burro $4,650 and have a complete trailer built by the company. Burro initially built its campers out of that Plymouth, Minnesota location before moving to Sac City, Iowa. Some think this happened in the mid-1980s. Apparently, some of these campers were built in Iowa in 1980, so the move likely happened sooner.

U-Haul Buys Its Own Burro

Along the way came U-Haul. The rental giant was expanding into renting anything that you were willing to fork over some cash for, including VHS tapes, personal watercraft, ATVs, and yep, RVs!

As U-Haul’s representatives have told me, the company didn’t find any existing camper on the market that it felt would do the job. After all, a rental needs to survive abuse for a long time. So, U-Haul decided to build its own camper.

To do it, U-Haul would buy popular fiberglass campers and wheel them into a warehouse for its engineers to look over. Those engineers would take their favorite elements from each camper and bake them into U-Haul’s own design, baked by U-Haul’s own frame. One of the campers that the engineers got to take a look through? A Burro.

The company tells me that while the U-Haul CT13 and a 13-foot Burro look very similar, U-Haul did not use Burro molds. Engineers simply loved the design enough to do their own take on it. Thus, no Burro molds were used for U-Hauls.

Sadly, U-Hauls were built for just two short years between 1984 and 1985. They were rented until about 1992. Then, in a rare departure from U-Haul’s norm, the trailers weren’t destroyed but sold to the public. The trailers had “Property Of U-Haul” etched and stickered on them in places, and some of the ones that were sold to the public have the word “Not” added so people don’t think you’ve stolen a camper.

A Difficult Existence

The end of Burro production is estimated to have occurred around 1990. Normally, that would be the end of a company’s story, but Burro wasn’t willing to go out without a fight. In 1998 Burro Travel Trailers LLC appeared in California, and in 1999 trademarked the Burro graphic found on the sides of the campers.

Over Burro’s short existence, the company managed to produce campers in a variety of lengths. There was the original 13-footer, but there was also a 14, a 17 (above), and even a proposed 21-foot version. If you opted for a larger Burro, you not only got more space, but more features. The company advertised options like a gray water tank and a wet bath that includes a shower. Other goodies included a power range hood and insulation. It seems that the 21-footer never saw reality, but the campers did get wide in their later years. While an older Burro is about as wide as my U-Haul, the company began selling wide body versions of the 17 and the 14, which gave them a 7 foot, 6 inch-wide girth. Yet, they were still light, as a 14-footer weighed in at 1,400 pounds with the 17 coming in at 1,800 pounds.

In 1999 dollars, Burro wanted you to pay $7,900 for an assembled 14-foot trailer and $9,900 for an assembled 17-footer. Building it as a kit dropped the price down to $4,995 and $5,495, respectively. The new California-based Burro did produce some new campers using the old Burro molds, but it lasted for just a few years before it went under. Online records show a dissolution date in 2003. As a bizarre twist, while the company was gone, the website was still up and running until 2013. It’s accessible today through the Wayback Machine.

Today, these campers remain collectible and a number of the campers that I featured in this post are for sale. Click on the links under each picture to check them out. As I do when my research hits a dead end, I want to know if any of you know anything about Burro’s wonderful campers. If you do, please email me at mercedes@theautopian.com.