Bowlus has produced a number of campers over the past couple of years, the Road Chief 26 and Road Chief Endless Highways among them. Even before the health crisis that marked 2020, and threatens to extend through this year, the company was something of an instant success. But the manner in which they’ve navigated—the word is particularly apropos—their success has been very interesting, and we always looks forward to taking a gander at their newest model.
The company’s appearance around the middle of the last decade was, in a way, a long time coming; the original campers were the work of a U.S. designer named W.H. Bowlus who, in the 1930s, had enough free time to design a means to better employ it. W.H. made his living in fuselage designs, so it isn’t surprising that the Bowlus style riffs on aero.
That wasn’t unusual in the 1930s, an era still reeling from Lindy’s flight. Airliner travel was on the cusp of an explosion, and the idea of travel itself sat at the intersection of contemporary romanticism, globalism and a technological new age. Automotive design was inspired by planes, early modern architecture employed ocean liner-like flourishes, and even home furnishings and design—which represented the immoveable stability of the domestic—came infected with the cosmopolitanism of art deco.
Bowlus packs all that stuff into their glistening metallic campers, managing to conjure and condense the ubiquity of the era’s fascination with travel, and sneak it into the contemporary world. An escapist vehicle should have a sense of escape, and Bowlus, having artfully invented a niche, is as interested in atmospherics as life-on-the-road pragmatics. The new Terra Firma trailer from the firm incorporates both; in the latter camp resides a pet-ready design and a HEPA air filter.
Another Bowlus model, the Endless Highways Wave, brings nautical design into the picture, neatly completing the travel triumvirate in a single trailer. The company’s newest model also features a little ocean-going inspiration inside—a deck-like floor—indicating that Bowlus’ contemporary leadership is absolutely outfitting their trailers with a deliriously romantic subtext, a sharp marketing ploy that works very well on the literate professional who can be tempted by a $200K travel trailer. And, for those who plan to be gone for a while, the Endless Highways Performance and its two-week power reserve should do the trick.
The Terra Firma’s shell doesn’t deviate from Bowlus’ previous models, and the folded or stitched look of the back of the camper, the blunt front end, and the prop-plane cabin windows have at this point accumulated into a signature which makes the little company something of an enfant terrible in the camper world. Inside, the company’s favorite materials are used, with plentiful birch adding a little naturalistic texture and confirming the authentic feel of the interiors.
