Utah-based Zion Off-Road has taken the trailer market by storm with its highly modular off-road camping trailer. The multi-stage squaredrop modular camper is a customizable beast, allowing customers to shape it from a barebones structure to a fully equipped adventure companion. Now, the company is shifting this modularity to a simpler, skeletal utility trailer/camper, the Z2. This innovative trailer starts as a basic bed box, offering owners the chance to craft it into a gear-stacking tool for home and field use. One weekend you could be hauling lumber and supplies, the next, dirt bikes and kayaks. Add a rooftop tent, and you've got a compact camping trailer ready for open-ended adventures.
Zion's original Z1 trailer is still a top choice for camping and overlanding, but the Z2 carves out a niche for hauling larger, heavier gear. With a lifted crossbar and available rooftop tents, the Z2 ensures that full-blown overnight camping capabilities are never compromised.
The Z2 shares the same rugged frame as the Z1, and Zion has designed its standard 3,500-lb solid axle and leaf springs to be readily swappable. The ground clearance to the axle is a foot, and to the frame, 17.2 inches.
Instead of a live-in body, Zion opts for a more minimalist approach with the Z2. The trailer starts with a bed liner-finished 6061-T6 aluminum plate deck. The deck includes integrated slots for adding accessories and frame-bolted D-ring tie-downs for securing gear and cargo.
Zion provides a solid utility trailer with more mounting versatility than average. The company finishes off the standard base trailer with lights for rummaging through cargo after dark and a switch panel for those lights and available auxiliary and rock lights. The trailer can be upgraded with optional crossbar assemblies, offering up to three levels of storage.
Ultra-modular camper and gear-carrier designs are becoming more and more popular, with the builder drawing you in with a simple base RV at a low price, then keeping you coming back for years on end to add on all those cool accessories.
It's not all bad for the buyer. The modular approach allows you to get out into the wild right away with a bone-stock base model, building it up over time. That route can help identify ahead of time the add-ons that are actually useful, and those that are just for show.
Zion offers both standalone accessories and five full build stages. You can spend over $17,000 on a Stage 5 package and still not have a place to sleep at night. But Stage 5 gets you a very capable hauler with a whole host of features. Whether it's worth more than the price of Zion's Stage 1 Z1 teardrop is up to the buyer.
The base Z2 model starts at $7,600, providing a slick 950-lb utility trailer with over 2,000 lb of payload. From there, you can use it for basic hauling, upgrade it in the future, or build it out yourself.
The all-new Z2 is available for pre-order now.
Source: https://zionoffroad.com/z2basetrailer/