Pak-Rat August 11th, 2006 By: Staff Report

The Pak-Rat by Thor California is a compact lightweight toy hauler with a flatbed style trailer in the rear. It’s great for a day at the races or a weekend at your favorite riding area. It offers all the amenities of home to make your stay more enjoyable. It has an inside living area of about 8’ and another 8’ of cargo area in the rear.

Weighing in at 2750 pounds dry, the Pak-Rat is easy to tow. We towed it about 1800 miles on our adventure. We used both a half ton V8 truck and a 1 ton turbo diesel. The half ton worked a bit on the long grades while the diesel didn’t know it was there. The Pak-Rat tows with no hint of fish-tailing at just about any speed. During the tow there is not much space to carry items that need to be inside like sleeping bags and clothes. After we filled the 2 large pantry cabinets with clothes and food we stacked some boxes in the shower along with some on the floor. The Pak-Rat has 2 propane tanks on the front along with space for batteries. It also has a large cargo area outside just under the bed with access doors on each side.

Once at your desired camping spot, set up is easy. There are 2 stabilizer jacks (with the option for 2 more in front) in the rear to keep it from bouncing or tipping. The front bed folds out into a queen sized bed. One thing we noticed about the bed is it’s not the most comfortable one out there. The partition that folds out is 2/3’s of the bed while the rear 1/3 (closest to the rear of the trailer) sits about 2 inches lower than the front fold out area. The mattress that folds out is 2 inches thicker for the rear area of the bed to compensate for the height difference. We still found it necessary to put 3 sleeping bags under us for a more enjoyable nights rest. During the day we used the bed area for storage of things like a clothes bag and general storage. This needed to be moved to the floor during the night. Space is limited!

The bathroom is compact yet functional. It’s the ‘wet bath’ style with the toilet in the same area as the shower. It was extremely refreshing to be able to use a private bathroom rather than the public toilets. For our week stay we found that the 33 gallon fresh and 25 gallon grey water tank was too small. Fortunately, we were able to drain out grey water onto the grass and had both water and power hook ups. Two people were not able to fill 25 gallon black water tank during our weeks stay. This trailer is aimed more towards weekend trips unless you have hook-ups at a campsite.

The refrigerator is as large as the ones found in the 33ft toy haulers. Plenty of room to hold all of your cold items and enough room in the freezer for a bag of ice, ice cream and a few other items. Above the refrigerator is a shelf for a TV with an antenna hook up. Fortunately, we did not have a TV and used this much needed space to store dry goods. This is one of the area’s that is handy for storage during your stay. If we had a TV we are not sure where the rest of our dry goods would have been kept.

The kitchen area has a sink and a standard 2 burner stove. There is next to zero counter space for food preparation. We bought a small cutting board and set it over the front half of the sink to prepare food. We were informed that there is a sink cover to increase space. Above the sink was a CD player which had 2 speakers in the ceiling. This proved to be nice to have during food preparation and when it rained while we were stuck in the trailer. Above the CD player is a good sized shelf that extends from the back wall to the bathroom wall. This was also on area stuffed with dry goods during our stay. No oven is in this kitchen and below the sink is another small cabinet for storage. Between the refrigerator and the back wall is 2 large pantries’ with each being about 24” tall. These are the largest storage areas in the Pak-Rat. We used one for clothes and the other for dry food items. Each one has a hanger to hang clothes but they would have to be folded on the hanger or very short clothes. We would like to see the hangers removed and a shelf in these areas to double the available space for storage.

A stardard heater is located below the pantry and AC is another option. You would have to supply your own generator.

Walking out the back door you have an 8’ patio or storage area. You can order the optional tent for this area if you need more dry living area or storage. We had the tent but choose not use it. We found it extremely handy to be able to sit on the ‘patio’ and BBQ dinner while relaxing in the sun. We also used this area for storage of garage type items such as air tanks, spare tires and tools. The back area has a light for night time use along with an outside shower with both hot and cold water. The outside shower proved to be handy on 2 occasions. After a long exhausting ride it was refreshing to be able to rinse your head off with cool water. We also used it to wash some of the larger pans that we used for cooking. They were too big to fit in the sink so we used the outside shower. It worked great! The flip up ramps also doubled as a clothes hanger for wet towels. One thing we would like to see is some type of step going from the rear area to the ground. This would make it easier to get from the flat bed area to the ground without having to walk through the trailer or hop over the rail. One could easily be built but we used a small step stool that was loaned to us.

Many people stopped by our campsite to take a look at the Pak-Rat. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea but was a little surprised at the $9995.00 starting price with this one being $12K as tested. The Pak-Rat is a huge upgrade from a tent or enclosed trailer with no amenities. We would recommend it to a person or couple that will be making weekend riding trips or for a day at the races. The Pak-Rat can be a great home away from home and you don’t need a huge truck to tow it!