You Can Buy This Cheap Chinese Aluminum Camper In America And It Looks Shockingly Nice

Chinese-built goods can be found all over America, from the Apple smartphone you’re reading this piece on now to even the Buick in your driveway. You can even buy Chinese motorcycles in America. However, Chinese campers are harder to find. A golf cart dealership is changing that. This is the AMC Quick Stop, and it’s a relatively cheap camper with a weird design, and it looks shockingly nice.

I was tipped off to the existence of this cutie and its larger siblings by Patrick Botticelli of the New Jersey Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel, which first covered the campers. I’m finding myself captivated by these little guys. They’re painted in bright colors and have designs that I haven’t seen before. They’re also plenty weird with somewhat unconventional onboard equipment for a production RV.

But the big question I had was, “Who built these?” The AMC Quick Stop, Adventure, Lakeside, and Mountain View are all variations of the same trailer being sold by New Jersey-based AMC Golf Carts, which is known for slapping its own branding on imported Chinese vehicles. I figured out where these campers come from, and it only makes them a little bit weirder.

Not The AMC You’re Thinking Of

AMC Golf Carts and its parent, AMC Electric Cars, are honestly fascinating sites that you have to pay a visit to. AMC sells electric golf carts, sure, but the whole enterprise is impressively huge. AMC sells everything from electric buses to resort shuttles that look like cars from the 1920s. The company says that it has four decades of experience in the industry of electric vehicles and offers this little description:

AMC Electric Cars was founded after we discovered major supply holes and poor customer service in the vehicle industry. We were selling hot dogs on Wall Street at that time, but once we realized that it was our duty to provide quality vehicles to people, we started working on our business and built this empire.

At AMC Electric Cars, we manufacture, assemble, and ship electric cars to our customers. We deal in Electric golf carts, LSVs, Street-Legal electric cars, their sales, services, parts, and, shipping. Along with our parent company, we have about 40 years of experience in this industry and our only goal is to provide safe and well-manufactured electric cars to our customers.

We believe that electric cars are the future and our people deserve to enjoy this mode of transport to make their lives hassle-free and convenient. With our electric cars, the conveyance in a variety of environments is bound to become easier and quicker.

AMC claims to have a 20,000 square meter facility with two production lines and over 400 employees, including 70 development engineers and 10 quality control engineers. This facility can produce up to 100 vehicles per day. Notably, AMC says it got its ISO9001-2008 certification in 2003 and a Certificate of World Manufacturer Identifier (WMI) code, L4F, in 2006.

That WMI is interesting, as L4F corresponds to the Suzhou Eagle Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Co., Ltd. of China. This company was founded in 1999. If you visit Suzhou’s site, you’ll see that the company is selling the exact products that AMC sells, but with its own name. Suzhou is also claiming to have the factory that AMC says it has. It appears that what’s actually happening here is that Suzhou supplies AMC with its vehicles, and AMC puts its own branding on them. That’s fine! A lot of golf cart dealers do that. But it does explain how this random golf cart dealer in New Jersey somehow has the engineering prowess to build electric buses.

AMC Campers

These campers come from a company called Shanghai Dachi Auto Power Co. Ltd., another Chinese manufacturer of golf cars. This company does something a little different than Suzhou, and it has a subsidiary called Dachi Intelligent RV (RiZhao) Co. Ltd., which builds and sells RVs. Dachi Intelligent RV sells a line of Class C motorhomes that look vaguely like Mercedes-Benz Sprinters and have Cummins engines. It also sells the campers on your screen today.

These campers were launched in China earlier this year as the Panda series, and the model name is DT, followed by a three-digit number indicating body length. This isn’t any different than how American RV companies name their rigs. The smallest Panda is the DT392, which translates to a box length of 3900mm, or 13 feet.

All of AMC’s campers are different lengths of the Dachi Panda, but are renamed and modified for the North American market. The Panda’s spec sheet says it has a galvanized steel frame on the bottom with a German AL-KO axle and a composite body on top.

The composite structure features polyurethane insulation and aluminum exterior panels finished with automotive paint. Patrick says that the exterior feels like fiberglass, but that could have just been the trim panel he was knocking on, or just how the aluminum feels like.

The trailers are said to be modified in Canada before making their final stop in New Jersey. The specifics of the modifications in Canada are not said. However, the trailers for sale in New Jersey are only slightly different than the Chinese versions. The AMC-branded trailers have different wheels, different badging, and a North American-spec electrical system.

The exterior of this trailer is actually pretty neat. It looks pretty high quality, or at least better than some of the new RVs I’ve seen coming out of Indiana. That theme continues inside, where the Panda and its AMC offspring actually look really inviting. Patrick toured all three units and at least from his inspection and my eye, these trailers look pretty well built.

Stepping into the Quick Stop, there’s a bunk immediately in the rear, which looks great for kids or teens. In the middle, there’s a galley kitchen featuring a small refrigerator, an 800W induction cooktop, and a kitchen sink. The front end has a U-shaped dinette that transforms into a be,d while across the kitchen is a sizable wet bath with a Thetford Porta-Potti portable toilet. Apparently, a cassette toilet is an option.

The equipment onboard gets interesting real quick. The campers use a mini split for an air conditioner, a diesel-fired heating system, and electricity for everything else. You would usually see a diesel heater in something like a camper van or a skoolie, not so much a factory-built travel trailer. I have also seen mini splits on campers, too, but usually added by the owner as a modification.

The Quick Stop is also pretty well equipped given its diminutive 17.6-foot length. It has a 31-gallon water tank, 400 watts of solar, and a smart home system for the electrical system. Confusingly, the brochure says the camper sleeps six, but I see this being more for two in the main bed and two in the bunks. The Quick Stop also has a dry weight of 3,095 pounds, which isn’t that bad given the heavy use of metal. It weighs just a touch more than an Airstream Basecamp 16.

I also like how these trailers are sold in different sizes. The next one up is the 19.5-foot-long, 3,483-pound AMC Adventure.

It has the same body and the same overall construction, but a slightly different layout. The Adventure features a similarly basic kitchen and large bathroom, but now the rear bunk is gone and replaced by a single larger bed. The spec sheet notes the same tanks, air-conditioner, and diesel heater, but 600 watts of solar.

Next from there is the 19.5-foot-long, 3,414-pound AMC Lakeside and this trailer is the same as the Adventure, but instead of a wood interior aesthetic, it’s more grayscale.

Finally, we stop at the 21-foot-long and 3,622-pound Mountain View. Once again, the body and the construction is the same. This time, you also do not get any further equipment upgrades as the specs match that as the Adventure and the Lakeside. That also means a 9,000 BTU air-conditioner across all Panda/AMC campers.

The layout of the Mountain View is similar to that of an American camper. There’s a primary bed at the very front, a dinette right behind it, and a bunk in the rear. The galley kitchen and large wet bath also make a return here. Sadly, if you were hoping for a black tank, you will be disappointed. The best toilet option is a cassette toilet. But it is neat that the toilet sits on a swivel platform so that you can get that perfect angle while reading the Morning Dump while taking the morning dump.

The Catch

These campers do have some funny quirks. No member of the AMC quartet has entry steps, which is a bit weird and sucks if you don’t have perfect mobility. They also appear to have the same basic chassis and axle underneath. This is reflected in the trailers’ carrying capacities.

The wee Quick Stop has 813 pounds of carrying capacity while the Mountain View can carry only 346 pounds. That’s suspiciously similar to the weight gained to reach the 21-foot Mountain View, and pretty much means that the trailer is sitting at the limit while empty.

A gallon of water weighs roughly 8 pounds. A full tank of water would weigh around 248 pounds, which means that you have fewer than 100 pounds for everything else. That just isn’t going to work for many American RVers.

I actually like a lot of what’s going on here, with the exception of the Mountain View’s pitiful capacity. These trailers have a funky design, bright colors, and welcoming interiors. They’re also well-equipped and not too heavy, either.

Apparently, they’re also really cheap. Dachi says that you can get the smallest Panda/Quick Stop for about 56,800 yuan or $8,000 at current exchange rates. Of course, that price doesn’t factor in shipping or import duties. AMC Golf Carts sells the Quick Stop for $28,999, the Adventure/Lakeside for $32,999, and the Mountain View for $37,999. Assuming the quality in real life is anywhere as decent as the trailers look, I don’t think that’s a bad price.

Of course, these trailers do bring some uncertainty. They’re filled with equipment that comes from Chinese suppliers, so if something breaks, it’s not like you’ll be strolling down to your local Camping World for a replacement part. Likewise, the whole tariff headache means you have no idea what a replacement part may even cost right now. Maybe even the trailers themselves will end up with different prices if the trade war keeps going on.

You may also find someone who is unwilling to work on a camper that has minimal support here in America. But if you can look past all of that, I think these weirdo AMC campers can be neat picks. They look like nothing else here in America, they look pretty cozy, and the build materials at least seem right on paper. Maybe I can convince the folks of AMC to let me take one for a spin this summer.