The folks at Cortes Campers — the Euclid, Ohio, startup that makes molded fiberglass travel trailers — continue to ramp up operations to meet their goal of shipping 20 trailers a week by the end of the fourth quarter.
The company recently finished two molds used to make the upper and lower inner linings for its first product, a 17-foot travel trailer. The new molds cut the number of inner lining pieces to two from 13, which makes building the interior of the campers more efficient, said Anthony Corpora, CEO of parent company U.S. Lighting Group Inc.
Cortes is making the inner linings for its campers and contracting out the manufacture of the two pieces of fiberglass for the outer shell, he said. Employees put the shells together, sandwiching a foam core between the camper walls and a polypropylene honeycomb core between the floor panels, he said.
The company and its 20 or so employees continue to refine their travel trailer design and manufacturing process — most recently, considering spraying on the foam core rather than hand-laying it.
"We're looking for ways to be efficient," Corpora said. "We could not be happier with how the inside of the camper came out. It's going to be beautiful."
Cortes Campers is building three campers in its first round of "mass production" for RV dealers who will visit the company's headquarters soon, Corpora said.
"We'll actually have a lot of foot traffic in the next few weeks," he said. "We have some big-time dealers coming to the shop. They're dealers in multiple states."
Since February, the camper startup has shipped two dealer models and expects a third dealer to pick up its floor model this week, Corpora said.
"We're going to start shipping out campers on a regular basis in a couple of short weeks," he said.
Strong demand for RVs
Cortes Campers is starting in a strong market for recreational vehicles.
RV wholesale shipments are projected to top 549,000 units by the end of 2022, according to a quarterly forecast by ITR Economics for the RV Industry Association.
That's an 8.4% decline from the record 600,240 RVs shipped in 2021, but "income trends, prior savings and low debt-to-income ratios for consumers are all positives as the RV industry heads into the summer months," according to the report.
Cortes Campers also is catering to a cult-like following for molded fiberglass campers, which usually are stronger, lighter and longer-lasting than aluminum campers, according to RVObsession.com.
The company uses no wood to make its campers but does use innovations such as axle-less independent suspension and marine-quality gel coatings on the exterior and built-in Furrion appliances on the interior.
Fiberglass travel trailers also are more expensive. Cortes Campers' 17-foot trailer has a manufacturer's recommended price of $48,500.
Starting up in the public eye
Unlike many young manufacturing companies that start up in private, the subsidiary of publicly traded U.S. Lighting Group is starting in the public eye.
Corpora and his company's employees are trying to strike a balance between getting their design, marketing and sales staffs — not to mention their materials and production lines — lined up while meeting Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing requirements.
U.S. Lighting has not filed timely annual and quarterly reports or its proxy statement with the SEC since November.
Despite reporting $6.7 million in purchase orders and shipping two dealer floor models since December, the company's thinly traded shares (OTC: USLG), which trade over-the-counter, have suffered, rising 523% to about 40 cents on March 11 before falling more than 60% to less than 16 cents by June 6.
The company's startup is "never as fast as you want, but we're making good, steady progress," Corpora said.
