A Rift in the Market

From carving waves to cruising highways, the founder of Rift Carbon Campers, Chris Durham, isn’t one to become complacent.

In fact, his company’s flagship product — a teardrop trailer weighing nearly half the industry’s standard weight — was the result of more than 40 years of producing sporting, automotive and aerospace goods with composite materials similar to those that make up Rift’s campers today.

Starting in the water ski industry, Durham worked with a company that made high-end slalom, trick and jump skis, and he saw an opportunity with a new product called a ski board, a recreational product primarily rotomolded or hand-shaped like a surfboard. With this product, Durham took advantage of the opportunity to advance the sport by updating the manufacturing process to compression molding. He says knew the process would elevate the product from a toy to a performance board. With that, the first wakeboard company, Wake Tech, was born and changed the water ski industry.

As a consultant for the composite industry, Durham was approached by one of the largest RV manufacturers in the world, which was seeking a solution to an ongoing construction issue.

“Long story short, the biggest problem that the trailer industry has is every time you sell a trailer, you usually have to upsell them to another vehicle,” he says. “I’ve talked to a lot of manufacturers and dealers, and a very prevalent problem is trailers being too heavy for the vehicles out there in the market.”

That issue turned profitable for Durham, who says he was tasked with an RV engineering project to build a “truly lightweight” camper. His first prototype was a teardrop trailer.

“I picked teardrops because they were small, so it was easy for me to make some tooling with, and I had baselines of weights to compare it to,” he says.

That was almost seven years ago, and although Durham’s prototype was successful, the all-fiberglass goal of the manufacturer didn’t align with his visions.

“Fiberglass trailers are not what I do. I do carbon fiber and fiberglass composite materials. I put those together to make the product react a certain way. It was very light and very strong,” he says of the build.

Durham says the common usage of what he refers to as “garbage glass” — a sprayed-on fiberglass that’s resin-rich — is heavier on the trailer. Making RVs from fiberglass was a big step for the industry, he adds, as the material takes away the risk of mold and mildew found within wood builds. However, fiberglass trailers are expensive to make and not necessarily lighter weight — a big priority for today’s travel trailer segment.

Staying true to his origins, Durham took his teardrop prototype and tagged in his family, including his son, Matt, who worked on his dad’s wakeboards at 11 years old and now holds a degree in manufacturing technology alongside managing design and CAD engineering at Rift, and his wife, Nancy, as a bookkeeper, to establish a trailer company that utilized composite materials and molding techniques — resulting in the family’s brainchild, Rift Carbon Campers.

“With imagination, innovation and adventure, anything is possible,” the company’s website says, which couldn’t ring truer — while the average weight of a standard teardrop is 1,200 to 2,000 pounds, Durham’s base product with just the essentials weighs in at 480 pounds. The company recently shared a video online of the rig being towed by a tricycle.

“I’ve proved what I said I could do — you can make a lightweight, strong product. And I believe, coming from what people have told me is important [with travel trailers], that this would be a really hot thing the industry is looking for,” he says.

Even for how shockingly light the Rift teardrop is, the roof and fenders are tough enough to stand on. The trailer is rebounded as one piece, with no seams or areas where water can seep through.

What’s in a Name

The name “Rift” was also the result of Durham’s cross-industry experiences. Transitioning from his original Carbon Lite moniker, the wakeboard maker at one point produced his own snowboards and skateboards under the name.

“They were all about making a ‘rift’ in the industry,” he says. “I made some of the first carbon fiber skateboards, and some freestyle decks, which were the ones used on half pipes.”

He sent the designs to a company called Santa Cruz Skateboards, where they were tested and proved surprisingly unbreakable, but the company had other plans for its manufacturing process.

“They said, ‘We build wood decks for $5 and sell them for $50. Kids break them and have to replace them.’ That’s a common story I’ve gone through in my life. But making products for people, I know engineered products can be better,” he says.

Today, Rift trailers is operating in ongoing research and development (R&D), having outgrown its original facility and moved to a new location that houses its R&D efforts, design, administrative and patent-pending manufacturing process to support a growing business. Durham says the company is currently building three teardrops at a time as a custom manufacturer. Its two main products include the Utility Camper, a “casual” trailer that weighs less than 500 pounds. The unit offers radial tires, interior storage, a queen-size bed, roof vent fan and a Yakima roof rack — and with a tongue weight of 61 pounds, can be towed by a motorcycle or small vehicle. The camper’s base price is $29,000.

“The inside [galley] wall is removable and only 20 pounds. I have two screws, so you can pull it out and pull the bed out to use it as a utility trailer — it’s very versatile that way,” he says.

Rift’s other offering is an all-terrain trailer — dubbed the Adventure Wagon — weighing 660 pounds with a Timbren axleless 2,000-pound suspension. Geared toward off-grid travelers, the rig features off-road radial tires, a galley wall with pass-through storage, rounded tail for increased overlanding clearance, a queen-size bed, roof vent fan and Yakima roof rack. Base price for the rig is $39,000.

Both trailers are currently being sold customer-direct to avoid traditionally high markups. When compared to other manufacturer’s teardrop trailers, Durham says Rift units are price-conscious in the segment.

“The trailers aren’t cheap,” he adds. “They’re expensive to build. But I want to get them into the market. I want people to know there’s something out there that’s really working. I mean, the top 10 selling cars in the U.S. can’t tow trailers except for ours.”

Durham notes markets that show the most potential for his trailers are foreign, including Australia and New Zealand. One company told him they could sell 200-plus in the first year — likely due to the country’s smaller roads. However, he says Rift is seeking bigger factories and OEM partnerships to bring the volume up and prices down. In the future, the company hopes to introduce larger travel trailers to the market using Durham’s technology — including a potential 25-foot unit that could weigh between 2,500 and 3,500 pounds for towing capability by a small SUV.

“Our customers love them, and we haven’t had any bad feedback come from them. People love what we’re doing and why we’re doing this,” he says of his teardrops. “We don’t use the normal framework of a trailer, and that’s one of the reasons why my costs could go down, because my process is more efficient.

“I want people to know this product and technology is here. It’s the type of knowledge that could change the industry,” Durham says. “I love doing what I’m doing. I really would like to find other like thinkers who want to move the industry ahead and use technology to build different [rigs].”

Rift Carbon Campers is currently located at 9425 Lakeview Ave. SW in Lakewood, Washington.