I found these aluminum trailers to be very affordable (for aluminum), and they are a sub-brand of Forest River. I know nothing of FR other than I see them on the interstate a bit and assume they have enough market share to be considered a name brand. Base MSRP on an 18'+2' V-nose is under $11k, and my use case is very light - a few karts for the family (600lb of karts and stands) or an Elise (1,900lb) for track days.
My main goals of this thread are 1) learn if there are any totally un-ignorable red flags about the brand and 2) get a feel for must-have initial options.
For #2, I am leaning towards skimping up front on things like insulation, wiring, air plumbing, and lighting and then going the DIY route later on when I get a better feel for my exact needs. Wife loves the idea of insulation and AC, but preschoolers are involved (in other words, open doors all day as they run in and out). I currently charge up a 5gal air tank with dry air at home and that's been fine, so I'm not in generator territory yet, and I am comfortable with that. Still, I'd like to add device charging stations, folding workbench, cabinets, etc, eventually but I also have to be very weight conscious. Karting is actually worse for payload capacity since I'll have the full family, snacks, food, waters, and gear in the truck, so I only have about 500lbs of "stuff" I can add to the trailer. Insulation, lighting, wiring, generator, AC, tools, spares, cabinets, plumbing, etc would have to come out of that weight budget. I figure that wiring and air plumbing would be easy to run with unfinished walls and then add insulation/panels after. Another option is torsion suspension. I don't have a price yet for how much that will be over the quoted leaf spring setup.
