Australia’s first wheelchair friendly camper?

Mountain Trail Campers

is already leading the way in ‘convenience camping’ with the recent introduction of electro-fold assist on both its soft- and hard-floor models.

But now the Albury, NSW-based manufacturer of premium off-road camper trailers has built what could be another Aussie ‘first’: a wheelchair-friendly hard-floor camper trailer.

Mountain Trail’s Nick Edwards said he was approached at this year’s Sydney Supershow by Tamworth couple David and Nicky, who were looking for an off-road camper trailer that could accommodate the wheelchair-bound Nicky.

“He’s big into his four-wheel driving and outdoors, but wants to go on more trips. She said I’ll go if you can find something that suits me,” explained Edwards. “But they couldn’t find anything that suited them in the whole market. We were the closest, and we then made some modifications.”

Based on the company’s latest EDX (Electric Design Extreme) hard floor camper, the modifications included lowering the tent entry door to fit a lightweight wheelchair ramp, that slots on the roof-mounted pack rack in transit.

There’s a new wheelchair platform for the tent ensuite, while the external, slide-out kitchen and swing-over benchtop have been lowered, and the under-kitchen drawers removed, to provide a better working height and legroom for Nicky.

Inside, there's an actuator-driven, swing arm lift chair mounted at the foot of the double bed that runs off the camper’s 12V system.

Mountain Trail also colour-coded the camper to match the couple’s white Toyota LandCruiser.

Edwards said the couple were “wrapped” with the final result, with the EDX’s one-touch fold-up roof/floor a particular bonus for Nicky as she can help with set-up and pack-up.

“She feels she can do something, by controlling the opening and closing,” he said.

All the modifications were designed in-house by a mechanical engineer using the same 3D computer-design modelling software Mountain Trail now uses to design all its campers.

However, despite the extra cost of parts and labour, Mountain Trail didn’t charge any more for the extra work, and would do the modifications again for other interested buyers.

“We’ve done all the design work now so it’s easy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mountain Trail is looking to diversify its product range next year with the introduction of a new type of commercial-style trailer.

“It’s a trailer but it will have nothing to do with camping. It’s more to do with utilising our engineering know-how to make a modern product,” he said.