The half-ton pickup truck is an American marvel. Hundreds of thousands of Americans drive these machines day in and day out as workhorses, family cars, luxury cars, and as the vehicle to haul something fun like a boat or camper. But a half-ton has its limits, and one of them is towing a big fifth-wheel camper. But I have a sweet option if you want to maximize your Ford F-150. This 1986 Roll-A-Long fifth-wheel camper is an obscure fiberglass oddity that almost any truck can tow. That means smaller trucks like the Ford Ranger, too.
I don’t often write about fifth-wheel campers. Usually, these things are huge and come with price tags to match. They also tend to require a capable truck to safely carry them. However, there are a few notable advantages to fifth-wheel camper trailers. These RVs, which connect into a hitch bolted to your truck just above its rear axle (in the bed), tend to offer better towing stability than a trailer connected to a ball under your rear bumper and feet away from the rear axle. These trailers also tend to cram a lot of room, features, and comfort into their footprints. In theory, a 35-foot fifth-wheel and truck is a smaller, more maneuverable rig than that same truck towing a 35-foot travel trailer.
Yet, as I said in that same paragraph above, the typical fifth wheel tends to require a properly beefy truck to tow. Forget about a Ford Ranger or a Ram 1500, you’re going to want something big and capable. RV dealer Camping World has a whole list of new fifth-wheels that you can tow with a half-ton truck, and the lightest camper on the list starts at 6,720 pounds dry with a pin weight of 1,175 pounds. Consider that, depending on the equipment in your half-ton truck, you might have a payload under 2,000 pounds. That payload then has to carry the pin weight, your gear, your pets, and your family. You can easily overload a half-ton truck trying to pull a typical fifth-wheel camper.
Thankfully, various companies throughout RV history have thought about this and have built fifth-wheels with lower weights. If you have a less-capable truck, maybe the 1986 Roll-A-Long fifth-wheel shown above might be your pick.
Who Built This?
One of the more fascinating parts about RV history is that countless brands have come and gone without much in the way of surviving documentation about them. Obscure brands are lucky if they even had word of mouth spread. Often, this results in looking at a vintage rig and not having any idea of what it even is. That’s sort of what’s going on here, but I think I have a good idea.
The seller of this fifth-wheel trailer in Galesburg, Michigan says it’s a “Roll-A-Long Express” by “Aero Craft.” A deep scan of the photos provided does show Roll-A-Long badging, but nothing about Aero Craft. I fell deep into a rabbit hole and could find no information about any RV producer called “Aero Craft.” However, I did find a boat manufacturer going by Aero-Craft. This company was formed in 1946 in St. Charles, Michigan, about two hours away from where this camper is parked.
Aero-Craft was known for its aluminum boats and for some fiberglass boats, too. But I haven’t been able to find a single thing about Aero-Craft building travel trailers.
A potential clue to the builder of this camper might be in plain sight. The Roll-A-Long badges on this trailer and on another I found are the same badges that you’ll find on some really awesome Ford Ranger dually trucks with fiberglass camper bodies on them. Here’s some information I’ve written about this company:
In 1962, El Monte, California-based Roll-A-Long built the Sportster, a camper the state classified as a House Car. The Sportster was available as a 10-foot Standard Sportster for $1,495 ($15,204 today), $1,985 ($20,188 today) for the Deluxe Sportster with a toilet, and the 12-foot Custom Sportster for $2,750 ($27,968 today). Those were the prices for just the campers themselves, you still had to provide the truck for the coach. The Custom Sportster required the truck to be lengthened, which was included in that aforementioned price.
At some point, Roll-A-Long moved from El Monte to Long Beach, where it created the Ford Courier-based Mini Sportster. This was a fiberglass camper riding on a stretched Ford Courier. Prominent selling points of the Mini Sportster was 19 mpg from the 110 cubic inch four-cylinder and stability from its dual rear wheel setup. Roll-A-Long also advertised a 3,530-pound base weight and a 4,100-pound Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, up 185 pounds from the standard Courier.
There was also an apparent subsidiary company doing business in the 1970s as Roll-A-Long Engineering in Placentia, California. This company converted rear-wheel-drive trucks and vans into 4x4s using Dana and Spicer components. Roll-A-Long Engineering was known for taking Ford Couriers and turned them into 4x4s. My retrospective continues:
I found another article, this one from 1978, showing the 4wd Roll-A-Long Mini Motorhome. It started off as a Ford E-350 chassis cab before Roll-A-Long fitted a Dana 60 axle and built a camper around the cab. This beast of a camping unit was about $19,000 in 1978 dollars, or $92,753 today. While I could not find a direct connection between Roll-A-Long Manufacturing and Roll-A-Long Engineering, the two companies were just 30 minutes apart in California.
Roll-A-Long died sometime before 1988. We know this because in 1988, Ford enthusiast, Ford dealer, and off-road racer Dick Landfield bought up the Roll-A-Long manufacturing plant in Placentia that year. The Roll-A-Long plant, under Landfield control, built the AL Unser Signature Series of souped-up pickup trucks. The revived Roll-A-Long survived into the modern day building custom vans. Sadly, the site has gone offline again.
This 1986 Roll-A-Way Fifth Wheel
So, this fiberglass camper is either a skunkworks project of a Michigan-based boat builder or a skunkworks project of a California-based motorhome builder. Either way, it’s a pretty awesome trailer.
Fiberglass RV enthusiasts seem to think that this RV was made by Roll-A-Long, the RV builder. Those same enthusiasts seem to believe that there are just two of these fifth wheels in the world. I know there are at least two of these out there. One was found in Florida in December 2024, while another was in California in 2014. It’s possible that this trailer for sale today is the one from California, but restored and renovated. Or, it’s possible that we’re looking at three of these things.
The seller notes that this Roll-A-Way has a full fiberglass body from top to bottom and stretches 21’ 6”. That makes this Roll-A-Way slightly longer than the most popular compact fifth wheel out there, the Scamp 19. Other great notes are a 3,900-pound dry weight and a pin weight of just 580 pounds. This trailer is so light that you can easily haul this thing with any half-ton truck on the market and have capacity to spare.
This trailer is also so light that you can hitch it up to the back of a Ford Ranger or other medium-size pickup and still have a safe tow. Scamp advertises its 19-foot fifth wheel as being able to be towed by a smaller pickup. Though this thing has two feet, an extra axle, and about a thousand extra pounds on a Scamp.
Something that’s neat about this trailer is that while it’s a fiberglass unit, it’s just trying its best to look like a typical travel trailer. It has lots of sizable windows and a wide, squarish body. Yet you can still tell it’s a fiberglass unit. Check out the seam in the middle, which came from the upper and lower halves being joined together.
Things get interesting inside, where this trailer was renovated at some point in its past. Up front, you’ll find a nice bed in the trailer’s loft. The central area contains a bathroom and a kitchen, while the rear has a big dinette that turns into another bed. The seller fires off this list of features:
Trailer brakes
Electric/gas fridge
Working heat and A/C
Newer tires under 3k miles
Camper queen size bed
Always stored in a barn or under a cover
From what I’ve been able to find based on the other two Roll-A-Way fifth wheel listings I’ve found, the stove is likely a factory piece, as is the sink. But a lot of the rest has been refreshed.
Another part that’s really cool here is the bathroom. Usually, compact trailers have wet baths, where the toilet and the shower share the same space. However, this has a dry bath like your house or a large camper. Not even the Scamp 19 has enough room to have a dry bath. So that’s pretty awesome.
Of course, I’ll also note that there will be some challenges in owning a super rare vintage RV. If any part in this trailer is special and breaks, you or your RV repair indy might be left figuring things out on your own. Don’t expect to find any replacement body parts, either. But that comes with the territory of owning any classic piece, regardless if it’s a car, computer, or an RV.
If you can live with that, I think the seller’s asking price of $9,500 seems reasonable. It’s a roomy, seemingly well-built trailer with modern amenities and can likely be towed by the pickup truck you have parked outside right now. I love all of that. If you know anything about the Roll-A-Way fifth wheel, please send me a message at mercedes@theautopian.com. I have to know more about it!
Throw some camping supplies in there and it’s still too heavy for many trucks…older ones (especially with manuals) or other light duty ones where the manufacturers specifically recommend not towing a fifth wheel.
Cool vintage RV!
Thanks for identifying the Ford Ranger motorhome I see in the Bend Oregon area. It’s a similar color although the local has been covered in bedliner and lost most of its interior.
The internet needs more Ford Ranger Dually content
Sad to see it will be separated from that equally gorgeous F-series with the complementing colors.
Great article. Must have spent some serious time sleuthing to figure out what it is.
The truck is for sale as well, and they say they’d prefer to sell them as a set.
Oh didn’t see that as Marketplace is blocked at my workplace.
Looks like the inspiration for the Escape 5.0!
Why don’t the good ideas last?
Like this camper, the GMC, and campers with seamless roofs. Gone too soon
Scamp and Escape both offer models with a fifth wheel style setup (actually an Anderson hitch) around this size.
I remember seeing one of these in person. Very cool.
This actually seems like a great price for a blank canvas interior redo.
So in theory you could use a 1990 Al Unser F-150 to tow this thing and have the strangest tangential connection of anything at the state park. Interesting.
I also wonder how it has a pin weight of less than seven hundred and fifty. That’s some strange engineering. You put the weight too far back, the pin weight goes up because it’s pulling on the goose neck. You put put the weight too far forward and it goes up because it’s pressing down on the collar. They must’ve perfectly balanced things and done some serious math for the axle spacing and position, which has doubtless been lost with the modifications of the years.
Two things.
First – Wow. This is one the more interesting RV posts. Downright rad, in fact. Being able to tow with any truck because of the low weight is awesome, and even though it’s going on 40 years old, that looks like a farily modern design to my inexperienced eyes. Nice find and thanks for sharing.
Second – Oy, 1986 is vintage? *sigh* I could have done without hearing that today.
A while ago I was listening to Filter in the car and the cashier in the drive-through called it “dad rock.” At that moment half my hair turned grey and my knees disintegrated to dust.
When the music of your youth is playing at the supermarket, you’re officially old.
Would you prefer we reference 1986 as ‘The late 1900s’?
Last century. The turn of the century was 25 years ago! Holy heck
Aye, I would. A mite less personal that way.
Nah, still too heavy, and I dislike pickup trucks in general. This is much better:
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-vw-beetle-gooseneck-trailer-el-chico-remains-el-unicornio-totally-awesome-165947.html#agal_5
Call it the Torchinsky Special.
Facebook is starting to plant links in regular searches, but I am baffled so many people would only list sales in a restricted format like Facebook, since so many of us can’t ever look up the information or contact sellers.
Facebook is wasting their time since half the country will never accept a forced sign in and sell our information.
I have a heavy truck, but I would prefer a shorter lighter trailer.
There are many places that restrict longer rigs anyway due to physical limits or parking space.
When I was looking for a small enclosed trailer I found an interesting fiberglass trailer from California with a tube frame inside.
Standup height with small windows, it seemed to have been used as an improvised camping trailer.
I think it had been built with that option in mind too.
I’ve seen a number of these since then of various sizes.
They all have rounded edges except at the rear.
Facebook is self-filtering at this point. They’ve got a captive userbase they can use for free training data and ad sales. Meanwhile the people who would likely interrupt that by being security conscious no longer use it, meaning that Facebook doesn’t have to spend resources violating privacy and device safety even more.
They expressed shock some years ago when new enrollment ground to a halt, and they couldn’t grasp why.
Turns out I’m not alone in refusing to sign in to even see a site.
Time only reinforced that.
Seems the owner is “low performing” at his job.
I love everything about this. great article!
Since my wife is away at a conference, I can honestly say that this is the most attractive thing I’ve seen today.
Smooth! Now you have to make sure that she sees that comment!
One look at that back with the “Stand for the flag, kneel for the cross” tells me this guy is a trump supportin’ piece of shit and so I would rather not contribute anything financial to this asshole. Sorry. Camper is cool though…
Trump could have never won, twice, without bigots like you making him look better than the intolerant options.
Thank you for your service!
Every single one of you trumpers need to have your asses kicked across all 2800 miles of the nation. I hope you all die of horrible diseases in the end. Go fuck yourself with a rusty prybar.
This is precisely why liberals like me left the democratic party.
Oh so you really showed us huh? Yeah- you are so smart voting for a clown who leaked war plans to the press. You aren’t special. Just another useless pawn.
Only The Best!
Drain the swamp!
SAD
Gop remains the better option to the anti human rights and anti democracy democratic party.
You amply demonstrate why I would be ashamed to be confused with you.
I can’t wait to see who you get elected next.
ORLY? Can I ask a simple question? Exactly how much crack cocaine have you had today?
Last time I looked my party didn’t let an UNELECTED person ( Musk ) come in and bring a wrecking ball to USAID. Without that, close to 20 million people from around the world who receive life-saving drugs to prevent their aids from killing them. Without those drugs, they WILL die. That’s all on you bud. You chose that, you own it, and their deaths are your fault for making your decision.
Because last time I looked the Democratic party isn’t out there- right now- canceling SNAP benefits, which means a lot of young children will go hungry. Last time I looked they also wern’t cutting close to 100,000 people at the VA, where my Dad- who unlike that fat slob you chose- didn’t lie and cheat to get out of having to serve. My Dad has health problems due to his service and relies on the VA. Your party is trying to cancel that. Keep in mind that my number didn’t include the further 500,000 who will die within the next 10 years from the medical help they had been receiving that have been canceled.
Last time I looked the democrats wern’t trying to fuck with social security. They also wern’t kidnapping LEGAL US citizens and sending them on planes to who knows where.
Last time I looked my party didn’t let an UNELECTED person ( Musk ) come in and bring a wrecking ball to USAID. Without that, close to 20 million people from around the world who receive life-saving drugs to prevent their aids from killing them. Without those drugs, they WILL die. That’s all on you bud. You chose that, you own it, and their deaths are your fault for making your decision.
At the end of the day you and the others are absolutely no different from the everyday Germans who supported Hitler all the way to their doom.
So have you got anything else?
The Democrats arrogantly elected Trump.
Then, did it again.
I have never understood that kind of response.
Its like: ” Yeah- we know he’s awful but since you were mean to me, I’ll vote for em’ anyway.”
And then you guys have the gall to try and play the victim. Like I said. You are not special or unique. Just one of hundreds of millions in various countries over the millennia who eagerly chose for their own destruction. And right now your “kind” is in control. And its fucking awful. With many of my friends scared to death because they are trans, gay, a person of color, a recent immigrant, an immigrant with US-born children, or people who do not at all fit the conservative narrow world-view of middle-American,white, christian, conservative nuclear families.
This comment is incredibly inappropriate on this site. Wishing harm on anyone, no matter which side of the aisle they are on, is not cool.
He never, ever, got more than 50% of the vote. So there’s that. Most of the country does not support him
It’s far worse than people think.
Trump won before most people voted.
Don’t underestimate how disgusted ex lifelong Democrats like myself remain.
Democratic party quit trying years ago because “everybody supports us”.
So you’re getting “revenge” on us then huh? How does it feel to admit that you eagerly voted for a washed up clown who’s policies and executives orders is hurting and killing people. You- as I mentioned- are no different than those who supported Hitler in Germany. And none of the rest of us will ever forget or forgive what you and the others have done. Traitors to both flag and country.
Funny thing is I saw this listed the other day and it reminded me of all your articles on RV’s/campers on here. This also seems like a decent deal for this size trailer which is also is really interesting looking.