RV history is chock-full of eccentric builders who were obsessed with combining campers with boats. People love boating and they love RVs, so why not combine both? One of the rarest and coolest interpretations of this idea has appeared for sale. This is the Kom-Pak Sportsman, a gorgeous fiberglass camper from the 1950s with a fishing boat for a roof. It’s believed that fewer than 20 of these might be out there, so there’s no saying when you’ll even find another.
The idea of the camper that’s also a boat is somehow just as everlasting as the flying car. I’ve written about a bunch of these things, from the CAMI Terra Wind motorhome that doubled as a yacht to the Ship-A-Shore Combo Cruiser camper-boat built by an all-women team. Then there’s something like the Apache Cub, which tried to be a utility trailer, a camper, and a boat in one. There are companies that still pitch the whole floating camper idea today. Yet, RV-boats also seem to have a similar curse as the Wankel engine. Companies bold enough to try to make a floating, towable hotel room usually fail after producing only a handful of copies.
One earlier example of a camper for boaters is the Kom-Pak Sportsman. This little rig, which hails from the 1950s, was ahead of its time with its streamlined fiberglass construction. The boat was only the cherry on top. This 1952 Kom-Pak Sportsman is up for grabs in Aurora, Indiana, and it comes with a sweet matching 1952 Ford Ranch Wagon.
A Bit Of A Mystery
The last time I wrote about one of these was in June 2023. Sadly, despite more hours of digging, I have not learned anything new about the Kom-Pak Sportsman that I didn’t already write about two years ago. That means that its history is still somewhat of a mystery, from my previous reporting:
[I]f you do a search on Google for “Kom-Pak Sportsman,” you will find at least 12 of these Kom-Pak campers, and many of them were auction listings. Toss in the one I found today and now you have 13. It’s been reported that just 6 of these survive, but to my eyes there does appear to be more than just 6 out there. And those are just the ones that have made it onto the internet. Of course, the question is how many of those are around today and there isn’t a definitive answer. There could even be more than 20 of them out there, but it appears nobody really knows for sure. In fact, as you’re about to find out, information about these campers is about as rare as the campers themselves.
Not a ton is known about the company that created this camper or that company’s motivations. According to the sole advertisement I could find, Kom-Pak Industries assembled the campers in Medford, Oregon, and charged $1,595 for the trailers.
The advertisement, which may have been intended for California customers, shows four dealers in the state. A business search reveals that Kom-Pak may have had a presence in Indiana in the mid-1960s as well. So, Kom-Pak presumably had a distribution network of some kind running. A definitive timeline hasn’t been established, but it’s reported that these campers were built between the early 1950s and the mid-1950s.
This idea of a fiberglass camper with a car-like design and a boat for a roof did not die with Kom-Pak Industries. In the 1960s, the Trailorboat Engineering Company introduced the Trailorboat, which had a somewhat similar look to the Kom-Pak Sportsman. This idea was reborn again in the late 2010s by the American Dream Trailer Company’s Classic American Dream Trailer, but it’s unclear how many of those were sold.
If you happen to know anything else about Kom-Pak Industries, please drop me a line at mercedes@theautopian.com.
I was shocked when I went to the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show, and in the Galpin section was none other than the pink fiberglass camper and its color-matched 1954 Ford Crestline Victoria. Apparently, our site’s co-founder, Beau Boeckmann, had purchased the camper and car combo that I wrote about. [Ed note: That’s at least the second time that’s happened. Beau sometimes has real Captain Planet energy when it comes to car taste, with a pluralistic interest that covers the microcars Jason loves, vintage ’50s stuff like this Mercedes is into, old Land Rovers/Mustangs for David, sports cars for Thomas, and oddball Euro stuff like the Lotus Elan for moi. Plus, Beau brings a world-class understanding of Hot Rod culture that gets us all excited about them. – MH]
This Kom-Pak Sportsman
This 1952 Kom-Pak Sportsman and matching 1952 Ford Ranch Wagon also seem like a great pick for someone wanting the coolest vintage camping rig this summer.
The seller for this combination claims that what you’re looking at here is very original. Included in the list of photos is even the car’s original title, and the seller says that the title is still in the original owner’s name. What has the pair been doing for all of this time? They’ve been sitting in a museum, allowing them to be preserved like time capsules.
According to sales literature, the Kom-Pak Sportsman is designed exclusively for outdoorsmen to be a boat, house trailer, and boat trailer in one package. Specifically, the brochure said that the camper is great for anglers, nimrods, and anyone who likes camping and boating at the same time. Clearly, this camper was built during a time when “nimrod” meant “hunter” and not “idiot,” but applying the modern meaning to the brochure is hilarious.
The best feature of the Kom-Pak Sportsman is its fiberglass body. This camper predates pretty much all of the fiberglass campers that we know and love today and was made when fiberglass was generally thought to be a cutting-edge wonder material. It was only in the late 1930s that fiberglass boats had come into their own. Likewise, Kom-Pak was among a flurry of manufacturers that experimented with fiberglass campers in the 1950s. One of the other RV companies that experimented with fiberglass was Airstream, which thought that fiberglass could be the future.
One of the highlights of the Sportsman was its design. The body was shaped to match the car design of the era, with Hemmings claiming that it was no mistake that the trailers looked like they had the rear ends of Fords. Kom-Pak’s brochure says that the trailer rides on 15-inch tires and hubs were taken from Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler products. In doing so, this allowed the trailer’s wheels to match the tow vehicles wheels, which meant that the tow vehicle’s spare tire could also be used on the trailer.
The biggest feature was the roof, which was actually a 12-foot fiberglass boat. The boat weighs 135 pounds and measures 12 feet long. Kom-Pak says that the craft also has a 54-inch beam and a 23-inch depth. Removing the boat was supposed to be easy for one person to do thanks to rollers embedded in the roof. Then, once you removed the boat-roof, you deployed a canvas top to keep the inside of the camper dry.
Kom-Pak said the boat was compatible with outboards ranging from 3 HP to 10 HP and when your boat functioned as your camper’s roof, you hung the outboard on the trailer’s tongue.
Inside, the trailer’s standard equipment included a 5.3 cubic-foot ice box, cabinets, a work table, vents, and an 8.4-gallon water tank. A Sportsman trailer measures in at 13 feet, 8 inches long, and 6 feet, 5 3/4 inches wide. It’s also 6 feet, 9 inches tall, which means that it fits into a standard garage.
Sadly, Kom-Pak never mentioned anything about interior height, but the space in there looks a little bit tighter than what you’d get in a teardrop camper of a similar size. The brochure just mentions that it’s good for up to two people. You got all of this for $1,595, or roughly $19,308 in 2025 money.
The seller doesn’t tell us much about this 1952 Kom-Pak Sportsman’s history. We’re told that the factory ice box, water tank, and cabinets are present, but that’s it. The boat part of the trailer comes with a 3 HP Johnson outboard that folds up into a suitcase-like container, which is something I didn’t even know was a thing.
The Matching Ford Ranch Wagon
What is clear is the fact that this camper appears to be in stellar condition, and that is probably due to the fact that it has spent a lot of time in a museum. Joining this camper is a 1952 Ford Ranch Wagon and this vehicle has gone through a frame-off restoration that reused many original parts. The engine is original, as is the interior, except for the carpet and headliner. The transmission is said to be original to the car, but is rebuilt.
The Ranch Wagon was introduced in 1952 as part of Ford’s Mainline series. These were among Ford’s first all-steel wagons and the Ranch Wagon was a value at a starting price of $1,832. This was a volume model and was pitched to trades people, farmers, and families alike with taglines like “for payloads or playloads.” Power came from a 239 cubic inch flathead V8 good for 110 HP.
Both the car and the camper look pretty clean, and I love how they’re just so perfectly matched to each other. You sort of have to buy them as a package deal. The seller, located in Aurora, Indiana, wants $61,500 for the pair. The one that Beau bought in 2023 was listed for $53,500, which is now the equivalent of $57,367 in 2025. So, this seems to be roughly the going rate for matched Kom-Pak pairs in good condition.
That said, if this setup is too rich for your blood, there is another Kom-Pak Sportsman (below) for sale in Merrimac, Massachusetts, for just $8,500. That one doesn’t look as good as the one above and doesn’t come with a car, but hey, it is much cheaper!
Dare I say? Both of these trailers seem to be pretty good deals. You can’t even really buy a new camper van from a mainstream brand for this price and the van you get won’t look anywhere nearly as cool as this camper and its matching car. Plus, you get a cool car that you can take to shows and enjoy all by itself. The other Kom-Pak is an affordable way into a neat piece of RV history.
Either way, it seems to me that you can’t go wrong here. So, pick one of these awesome vintage trailers up and have yourself an unforgettable summer.
Wow! When I was a kid, I used to think the high-roof pieces on conversion vans were boats flipped over. Never would’ve guessed something like that existed since being corrected.
It looks so nice with the matching two-tone Ford wagon. If I had an extra $60K to blow on a whim, I’d feel deeply tempted to buy it and take up fishing. 🙂
Hey! I had something like this back in the day! (Fisher Price Little People Play Family Camper).
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/gJQAAOSwVeNlfl-q/s-l1200.jpg
Me, too.
They make a good-looking couple.
Hey Mercedes, see if you can dredge up some info on a boat that was designed to fit on top of a split-window era VW bus with a sunroof. I’m confident that they existed as I searched for one decades ago.
In the event of a water landing, your camper can become a flotation device.
This reminds me of an old quote on the Amphicar. “It is a bad car and an even worse boat.”
Nimrod was a mighty hunter referenced in the Bible, Genesis 10:8-9 (KJV)
8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.
It is widely believed the meaning changed in popular culture due to Looney Tunes cartoons, when Elmer Fudd was sarcastically referred to as Nimrod the mighty hunter. Some say Bugs Bunny as far back as “A Wild Hare” from 1940 (have not been able to verify although I think I do remember Bugs saying something like that) while I have seen a clip of Daffy Duck from 1948 saying it. People didn’t realize it was a sarcastic historical reference and instead simply took it to be an insult.
Well, that answered my question of how “Nimrod” of mighty hunter fame, became a fairly savage put down. Thanks!
For a company that sold <100 units, this outfit gets a lot of press, 70 years later.
Not sure if modern people would want lift a boat that heavy up there.
Definitely seems like a two healthy person job.
Love it, especially with that Ford wagon.
Amusingly, about fifteen years ago there was someone running around Minneapolis with the bottom of a fishing boat as the roof of their car. I wish I could remember the make and model, but it was an 80s car, and I suspect the boat part was a permanent replacement for a damaged and rusted roof. Every time I saw it I wished I’d had the chance to take a photo, but I only ever saw it going the opposite direction of me on 94 or 494.
As someone that is on those highways most days, that in no way surprises me. I did the intersection of Broadway and 94, 2x a day for10 years and saw nearly everything at that intersection.
Yeah, I don’t miss the interesting/scary cars I saw up there. Watching parts fall off of cars as they drive because of rust was always an experience. Not to mention people substituting parts, like flashlights in place of missing headlights, which was always confidence inspiring. I’ve lived a lot of places so I know that stuff happens everywhere, but I’ve never lived anywhere that embraced it as much as there – for years I parked next to a guy with an early 80s LeSabre so rusty that it had four flashlights for headlights, magnetic tow lights for tail lights, a rear window made from a tightly installed trash bag, and all four doors had gate latches to hold them shut and chains run through the rust holes in the door and body to act as door locks. It was wild, but somehow not abnormal. I am glad to be away from the rust belt.
I moved from an annual safety inspection state to MN and was shocked at what people drive.
I did as well, and didn’t appreciate the “draconian” (as my friends called them) safety inspections until I moved to Minnesota and started thinking they weren’t so bad.
Since moving to MN I have had this semi-conscious reluctance to buy used cars knowing the maltreatment and rust issues.
I hear that. I went through eight vehicles in my five years there, and only one did I buy locally – all the others I picked up in a rust-free state and drove back to Minnesota. I hate the hail damage and clearcoat failure that plagues vehicles here in Colorado, but at least rust isn’t much of an issue in my part of the state.
When I lived in Texas, an inspection was mandatory every two years. It was less than $10 and they really only checked that your horn, lights and wipers worked. No smog check. What a surprise. They were mandatory in Washington state when I moved down to Texas in 2016 and returned in 2022. But the testing program was discontinued New Year’s Day of 2020.
The rationale was pretty surprising for a West Coast state. From the WA Dept of Ecology:
“In 2005, the Legislature phased out emission testing based on our calculation that the program wouldn’t be needed by 2020.
The air is much cleaner now than when the program began in 1982. All areas of Washington, except a small area in Whatcom County, currently meet air quality standards.”
There are still some pockets of common sense in government.
I don’t miss the air quality in Texas. The flare-offs from refineries, the gas leaking out of abandoned wells across the Permian Basin all the way down to I-10 and the number of still barely running beaters, then being baked by intense sunlight was pretty gross in places.
The TX state inspection was due every year once the car was 2+ years old. Meaning when you bought a new car, it came with and inspection good for two years. The yearly inspection ended in 2025. Smog is still required in some larger population counties. One example is Harris county that encompasses the city of Houston.
I lived in Beaumont and it’s surprising that Jefferson County didn’t also require a smog check since the air was already not great from the refineries and other chemical plants. My recollection was a little hazy about the frequency of inspections. Thanks for clarifying.
Same here. Passing MA inspection (emissions, not safety, as I don’t let my cars go like that) was always a nail-biter (going to a guy and handing him triple the cost of an inspection to leave with your car and come back with a sticker on it) that I found annoying until I went to school in Detroit and saw what cars with minimal rust protection after years of neglect driving on roads that are salted rather than sanded (which is bad enough!) look like when inspections aren’t forcing them off the road, not to mention the widespread lack of insurance. I became a fan of inspections.
I live in MN and overall in my experience the cars here are relatively clean.
That said it Definitely is rare to see a car that is over 20 years old driving down the road. Loving cars, i love seeing anything unique. And yes seeing any car +20 years old here qualifies as unique.
The other day I saw a Dodge Neon.
There’s a 90s Mercury Capri (think budget Miata) where the owner must live near me bc I see the same one at least half a dozen times a year.
Neighbor 2 houses down has a nice Audi S7 and a Ford F1
House 1 more over is a Subaru house.
I Definitely see hooptie shitboxes from time to time but I would say it is rare(ish), definitely less than 5% of the time
I have a stupid soft spot for vehicles that are combinations of two vehicles. This is such a neat idea.
My old boss retired and bought a Class A a few years ago, he summed up RV ownership as “Imagine all the problems you could have with a vacation reservation, a car, and your home, but then make them happen all at the same time.”
Now just add “boat” to the mix. Can we make one that flies, too? I’ll ask my friends in Qatar if they have one they could share.
I don’t think that boat thing really applies with a tiny fishing boat/row boar. You might need to sand and repaint the keel once in awhile and clean and polish the fiberglass, but anything that can go wrong is going to be related to the little outboard motor, not the boat itself. The break out another thousand jokes are related more to cabin cruisers and speed boats, not stuff like this that you can leave outside propped up against your garage wall all winter
I have a jet boat less drivetrain.
Is that a roller?
It’s a beautiful survivor.
As long as I don’t put it in the water, no problems!
I have two wood and one HDPE EV kayak and they are very little maintenance (really, effectively none on the 20+yo plastic kayak that isn’t related to the shoehorned EV part). Especially where it doesn’t sit in the water, that fiberglass boat should be almost no maintenance and the motor is probably not too bad to deal with if you have some mechanical ability. Don’t know about parts availability, though. I do wonder if the trailer has issues with leaks, which would be related to the boat.