Lance Widens Field

Lance Camper owners seem to be a fairly happy lot with their rigs. Now the company is looking to move into another segment of the RV market: The company has announced it's moving into the travel trailer arena. According to trade digest, RV Business, the new launch is called the 1880 series of travel trailers.

Entering the 18 to 26 foot marketplace, Lance is taking aim at the new wave of lighter RVs. These new trailers will scale in at less than 3,200 pounds, build from fiberglass based on an aluminum frame. Taking a page out of their camper design notebook, the company is using block foam insulation.

Outside the company touts its "no plastic insert" trim style, giving the rig sleekness; inside one-piece solid wood cabinets are said to be, "easy to replace." How many of us have changed the cabinets in our campers lately, or even wanted to? Entry prices are in the mid $16,000 range.

Photo: rvbusiness

Lance Lighter 825 Aims for Shortbed Crowd

Lance Camper rolls out a far more "light weight" truck camper, their model 825. With an 8 1/2' "box" length, it shoots for short bed, half-ton trucks, scaling in at 1,600 pounds. Wow! That's about half the weight of our current behemoth.

Said to be designed for "general use," (whatever that means), it features "European" style cabinetry. Fully self-contained, you have two options for dealing with black water: A built in 14-gallon holding tank served by a typical "marine" style toilet, or a 4 1/2 gallon "cassette" style toilet.

With a base price of $12,000 it may be an "entry level" truck camper for the Toyota crowd. Learn more about it on the Truck Camper Magazine web site.

New Truck Camper Owner Discusses $40,000 Purchase

Thinking about buying a brand new truck camper? If you've been looking around at all, you may have had to take the smelling salts with you. New truck campers can run even more money than a comparably equipped "wheeled" RV.

Still, there is something about the "factory new" smell, I guess. Of course, we've never bought a "new" rig, so it's interesting to read about somebody else's experiences. Including the good, the bad, and the ugly--like getting to take your brand new rig back to the factory after "copious amounts" of rain water wash down on your brand new innerspring mattress.

All in all, this discussion forum entry is worth visiting if you're in the market for a new rig, or just want to reassure yourself that you really do LOVE your good old truck camper! Stuffed with text and plenty of photos (including a daring picture of this owner's "weight ticket" with the new camper loaded up) it's an eye opener. Take a look here.

'I would not buy another Lance Camper,' RVer writes

An RVer who traveled extensively throughout the East in a Lance Camper felt compelled to blog afterwards about his feelings toward his RV. "Although in many ways we're pretty happy with our Lance, we've concluded that we probably wouldn't buy another one," he wrote.

"The real problem is that Lance's quality leaves a lot to be desired," wrote Sterling Udell on his website, where he chronicled three years of RV travels with his partner Teresa Petrykowski.

His comments were about his 2003 Lance 1121 camper. So keep in mind that a few years have passed since then.

"We've also heard enough from other Lance owners . . . many [who] have much more serious issues than we do. To me, it shows how a company with a majority of the market share has become complacent and lost sight of what gave them that share in the first place."