(@Snowlark suggested I add this here.) Last year I built a very lightweight teardrop trailer to tow behind my puny Honda Fit. Total empty weight is less than 200 lbs. A big part of the weight savings was achieved by using aluminum honeycomb composite panels for the sides. (Google “Plascore Honeycomb Panels” and you’ll find what I used) I was able to purchase the panels for about $400 plus $100 or so for shipping, then paid another $110 to have them cut to shape at a local waterjet shop per a drawing file that I sketched up. (I could have laid it out by hand and cut it all with a jigsaw, but waterjetting was much easier and cleaner). The base trailer came from Harbor Freight for $240, some assembly required. Aluminum sheet metal and trim from a metal supply place. There was a lot of miscellaneous hardware, along with the windows (from Amazon) but I think that with everything put together it came to somewhere in the neighborhood of $1k. Maybe slightly more. For those unfamiliar with teardrops, they typically sleep 2 and your legs go in the space under the “galley” counter area in the rear of the trailer. I get a lot of people asking me if there’s really room to sleep in there. Someone recently had thought it was meant for my dog.
The base frame was light enough for my kids to pull it around the driveway with their trike.
There is a frame to hold the ice chest of the front. This trailer has a pretty low drag coefficient. My car has an easier time pulling it on the freeway than it does with my stuff on a roof rack.
The area for your feet is filled in with a folded mattress in this photo, but you get the idea. I haven’t added any interior shelves yet, but I should.
I didn’t get too fancy with the galley. No running water or built-in stove. Lights are cheap battery-powered units from the dollar store. My butane camping stove works just fine for cooking, and I get water from a jug.
All the trim is attached with pop rivets. All the trim was bent into shape manually, with a lot of coaxing with a rubber mallet. That was probably the most technically challenging part of the project for me.
This year I added a solar powered vent fan for better air circulation.
Originally I built the shell to hinge on two forward supports, so that I could lift it up in order to fit larger items into the trailer for transport. This turned out to be a bad idea. The weather stripping I used wasn’t enough to fully weatherize the lower edge, so water leaked in an eventually ruined the wood floor, which had to be replaced. I’ve now permanently attached the shell and sealed it better. I also coated exposed portions of the wood with a rubberized truck bed liner product.
