Inspiration struck Britton Purser out of nowhere, at the exact moment he happened to be standing in his workshop. His canvas was a piece of plywood. His tool was the regular old marker in his hand.

“I drew a teardrop on that plywood, and then it turned into a caravan,” Purser said.

His creation was born from weeks of hard work in his shop. But when it was done, Purser had fashioned his very first teardrop trailer, a tow-behind caravan reminiscent of vintage trailers made in the mid-20^th century. It was everything he wanted out of camping: A vehicle that he could take to the middle of a rugged desert, one that had the classic lines of a bygone era, and one that was simple and durable.

As he took the teardrop out on trips with his family, he realized that his camper was something special, that it fit a niche that was sparsely populated in the overall industry. With an education in design and experience in carpentry, Purser launched Vintage Overland and began producing the teardrops for customers. Models range from $11,500 to $16,500 and each one is hand made by Purser and his brothers “like a piece of furniture,” taking upwards of 150 man-hours to complete.

That may seem like a lot of time, but Purser’s original caravan took him 1,000 hours to complete. In the future he hopes to get the number down around 80.

“The whole idea is this: If you were to see a picture postcard of Yosemite in 1951 with a guy in a tear drop, what would you see in that image? What would they be wearing?” Purser says in explanation of the company’s aesthetic.  

It turns out that the aesthetic is a popular one. In cities across America, a niche industry has developed for rehabilitating old trailers, RVs, and pull-alongs. Vintage Overland started with a modest production goal, but customer demand drove the business at three times the pace.

“Our dream was to have six sales for the entire year – we ended up with 18,” Purser indicates of his first operational year.

His company, located in Grand Junction, Colorado, is catching the attention of travelers, collectors, and dozens of media outlets. Magazines like GQ and Playboy have picked up on the story. As the story has traveled, requests for the Overland teardrop trailers have begun to trickle in from all over the world. The shop is building a vehicle for a customer in Australia. Requests have come from Portugal and Purser was even contacted by a representative of the royal family of Dubai.

Three models are currently available. The basic model is called The Tuco, after Eli Wallach’s character in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”  Then there is a mid-grade model called the Great Escape, and the top-end model called the T.E. Lawrence.  All the models include raw functionality like a solar panel, a multi-use battery pack called the Goal Zero Generator, vents, fans, tinted windows and hardwood interiors. The T.E. Lawrence is a foot larger than the others, and includes a queen size memory foam mattress, extra storage, and other features like a rear hatch and extra lighting.

Each one is made to order, so to speak, so the customer can have some influence over the finished product. Many of the trailers have a Swiss cross on the side, however one customer from Flagstaff specifically requested a graphic of Buddha.

“We have clients tell me that they went to the RV shows and they just didn’t like the manufactured teardrops – and [that] they had pretty much given up,” explains Purser. “Then they saw ours…they liked the design and the fact that they are hand built. [It became about] the simplicity and the materials,” Purser said.

There is ruggedness to these aluminum-exterior trailers. The company special-orders military grade tires – a replication of World War II-era Jeep tires – and that’s what carries the teardrops over tough terrain. And with an empty weight between 600 and 700 pounds, the trailers are light enough to be towed by just about any vehicle. 

A majority of his materials Britton orders right in Grand Junction. The area also serves as a convenient testing ground. In every direction there are remarkable parks and protected federal lands. One his favorite areas are the deserts of eastern Utah, including the rugged Capitol Reef National Park and the badlands around Moab. Purser calls the desert region “raw and hidden”. While he says many people encounter that space and see nothing but arid ground, the living desert presents itself in spectacular ways. Purser’s own spiritual encounter with this desert helped inspire him to create these unique teardrops.

“The whole point is not to take our caravans somewhere, but to take them nowhere … as in, the middle of nowhere,” Purser said.

An Overland Trailer makes it possible to sit, in the middle of nowhere, for long enough to see what Purser sees. But in that quiet space, campers will be able to charge their phones and other devices using power harvested directly from the sun. The trailers have LED lights, bug screens, and a place to sleep. In the most expensive model, the company even provides a pull-out writing desk, so the Overland Traveler might even jot a few words down when the silence and solitude of the desert sparks inspiration.