Small campers are a great way to get out and enjoy a trip, but in a small form factor that’s easy to tow. Many of the smallest hard-sided campers out there today measure around 13 feet total in length. That’s just enough room for one, maybe two people to sleep without wanting to kill each other. But, you can get even smaller. This 1964 Fireball Friendship 11 is just 11 feet long and weighs a featherweight 1,050 pounds.
Every once in a while, I search for a hard-sided camper that the least capable cars on the road could tow. A lot of Americans own vehicles not nearly capable enough to tow a traditional travel trailer, but maybe they could tow something light.
For example, the Toyota Corolla Cross isn’t the smallest vehicle out there, but its tow rating is just 1,500 pounds. That locks it out even wee little campers such as a Coleman Rubicon 1200RK or even a Scamp 13. That’s right, you can’t even tow the most popular fiberglass trailer with a Corolla Cross.
However, you could tow something like the Fireball Friendship 11, if you could find one.
Fireball, But Not The Drink
I haven’t been able to find a ton of history out there about Fireball. A restorer of vintage campers claims to have gathered print information about the company and says it started in California in about 1952 by Joseph Kurmann as Kurmann Trailer Manufacturing Company. I have been able to confirm that Kurmann was building trailers as early as 1955 and that his company was renamed Fireball in 1956.
The company’s trailers were given space race-themed names and often had some unique features. Fireball trailers were available in total lengths as short as just 8 feet long. Like some manufacturers, the company also had smaller trailers with an upper berth for a bed. On the large end, Fireball sold trailers like the Commodore 33. This trailer was 33 feet long, but just 14 feet of it was living space. The rest? It was a covered area to park your boat. It was a camper and a boat trailer in one!
This particular Fireball Friendship 11 is a show trailer that was displayed at SEMA and featured in Vintage Camper Trailers Magazine. A sign from the trailer’s SEMA display says Fireball trailers didn’t put much of a dent into the camper market, and many were sold to the U.S. government to be used as temporary housing. It didn’t help that Fireball trailers were built and sold on the West Coast and Midwest. So, it’s possible that someone in, say, Maine, never heard of these trailers.
It’s not known exactly what happened to Fireball, but the company did manage to produce some small motorhomes before its factories shuttered in the 1980s. Kurmann passed in the early 1990s, ending the story of Fireball. The owner of a Fireball trailer purchased the rights to the Fireball name and mark sometime after 2014.
Super Compact
The trailer up for grabs today is a 1964 Fireball Friendship 11. At first, I thought the pictures of this trailer had to be compressed or something. Nope, that really is the trailer you’re looking at here! The Friendship 11 has a bumper-to-tongue length of 11 feet and a box around 9 feet. To put this into perspective, my U-Haul CT13 is a total of 13 feet long with a 10-foot box. My U-Haul is already pretty small inside, yet this is even smaller while still being a usable camper. Somehow, it even has far more features, too.
Like many “canned ham” style campers of the day, the Friendship 11 is wood-framed and features an exterior shell built out of corrugated aluminum. A design touch I like with this trailer is the metalwork toward the front. Was it necessary? No! Is it beautiful? Absolutely. Also notable about the interior design is how the corrugated metal is broken up with pleated metal. It’s another unnecessary touch that goes just a little bit further in making the trailer pleasing to look at.
Moving inside, you’re presented with a surprisingly packed interior. The seller says this space is hiding a toilet, a propane-powered ice box, a stove, and a sink. The dinette area transforms into the camper’s main bed. There’s also a drop-down bunk bed that fits either a single adult or two kids. The ideal owners of a Friendship 11 were an adult couple.
The trailer is said to have been restored and features a new floor, interior, glass, trailer jack, wheels, seats, roof vent, toilet, appliances, and front air-conditioner. It even gets period-correct Coker white wall tires, though, it would appear the toilet is of the cassette variety.
Still, you’re getting quite a lot in such a small space. Add an outdoor shower and you’ll have everything you need for a decent camping weekend. The seller appears to be correct in their assertion that this is a rare trailer. I found no other Friendship 11s for sale, but I did find this adorable 8-foot Fireball.
The seller says the trailer is 6 feet wide and 8 feet tall while offering enough headroom for the “average adult” to stand in. I would expect headroom of just over 6 feet. Most importantly, it weighs just 1,050 pounds! That doesn’t make this the lightest trailer out there, but it means so many vehicles can tow it.
If you think you’re the right kind of buyer for the 1964 Fireball Friendship 11, it’ll cost you $12,500 from the seller in La Crescenta, California. I’d love to see something like an AMC Gremlin or some other small-ish classic American car towing this.
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
