If there’s one trailer that should be called “Chuck,” it’s the original Ushi Outdoors trailer. The North Carolina startup must have noticed the oversight, as its second trailer bears the name. While it’s not quite as natural a food truck as the original, it’s a small, lightweight support vehicle that owners can quickly adapt to their best adventure buddy. The Chuck can carry nearly twice its dry weight, and Ushi offers a long list of ready-made add-on options to fill that load on top of the open-top case and MOLLE rack.
The Ushi Chuck isn't as instantly cute as the original Ushi trailer – it's now appropriately called the Ushi OG – but that's mostly because it has a more imposing presence, thanks to a lower, sturdier centre of gravity, a slightly wider 70-inch (178cm) track that extends well beyond the body's width, and beefier mud-terrain tyres. It's clearly built to get off the pavement and spruce up life off the main road with no unnecessary niceties or unnecessary luxuries. It's literally a tent and a backpack on wheels.
At just 711 lb (323 kg) to start and 8.3 feet (2.5 m) from bumper to tongue tip, the Chuck is among the smallest off-road trailers designed to hitch not to motorcycles, bicycles, or human waists, but to street-legal four-wheelers. Slightly larger than the 7.4-foot (2.3 m) 500 lb (227 kg) Road Warrior, it’s a car/motorcycle hybrid trailer, but designed with a similar exoskeleton-based accessory-do-it-yourself ethic.
In fact, the Chuck represents the latest in a wave of highly modular adventure camping trailers that have brought us a steady stream of new releases, including the bolt-and-play Beaver Built, the roll-and-schuss Genimax HR, the load-and-unload VanMe Bobo, and the moto-towing Runaway Venturist.
Ushi Open Air
The Ushi’s new design is as modular as the others, thanks to the combination of a 43 x 39 x 21-inch (109 x 99 x 53-cm) box-shaped cargo bed and a MOLLE-style steel shelf. The former is there to hold large, bulky items like coolers, duffel bags, grills, stoves, and cases full of equipment. Buyers can add a set of slides for easier cargo access just behind the swinging tailgate. There’s also a diamond-plate aluminum cover to add security and weather resistance while adding a second level of storage.
The overhead rack is where things really get fun, and creativity is clearly encouraged. First and foremost, if you want to camp in this trailer, you’ll need to add a rooftop tent on top. Ushi offers a two/three-person tent, but with a 700 lb (318 kg) static weight capacity and 1,289 lb (585 kg) payload capacity on the rack, buyers should have some freedom to make their own choices without restricting their freedom for additional accessories.
Ushi Open Air
The rack's towers and crossbars are steel beams with MOLLE-style mounting points designed to make adding components as effortless as possible. These complement the larger MOLLE panels that extend along the sides and lower front of the rack.
Many truck racks and accessories already use the same hitch style, so Chuck is ready to install components right from the start. Ushi comes out of the gate with a pretty long and comprehensive options list that includes camping add-ons like pressurized 15 or 30L water tanks, an awning, a sink faucet, a grill mount, a battery, and more. Buyers can also add gear-carrying options like a kayak rack, an e-bike rack, and a rod holder.
Ushi Open Air
Beyond Ushi's own list of options, the rack easily accepts compatible mounts for equipment such as traction boards, spare tires, paddles, and Rotopax boxes.
Up front, the Ushi stores even more cargo in a lockable weatherproof tongue box. Additionally, a detachable side bench and sink basin mount, brake lights, and 12-gauge steel fenders with a textured polyurethane finish come as standard equipment. Both the aluminum bumper and tongue are removable, allowing tiny Chuck to store even smaller items than he's hauling.
Ushi mounts the Chuck on a 1/4-inch aluminum tube chassis and cushions the wheels with a torsion axle suspension. A 4-inch lift increases ground clearance to a comfortable 14 inches (35.5 cm), while steel rims wrapped in mud-terrain tires keep the trailer rolling.
Ushi Open Air
Made in the USA, the Ushi Chuck starts at a budget-friendly $6,990, but it will quickly climb as buyers start to transform it into their dream rig with camping amenities, an all-terrain kit, accompanying mounting hardware, sport racks, and more. On the plus side, they can alleviate this financial strain over time by adding components incrementally—a clear advantage of the ultra-modular cargo-camping trailer.
It’s also worth noting that Ushi has added a roof tent support system option to the chassis of the OG trailer, giving the equipment-carrying vehicle full camping capability.
Source: Ushi Outdoors