HI
My name is Robert and i live in Sweden
im about to buy a nice Barth Continental 1970
its 22 or 23 feet long "cant remember exactly"
I would like to know how much it can weight..
here in Sweden we are only allowed to drive and tow a car+ trailer with the total weight of 3500 Kg. since my car its a Ford Ranchero 1978 i dont think i can tow more then around 2000 kg.
thats a little more then 4000 Lbs.
i have tryed to to find more info about the Barth Continental but it has been hard,, untill i foudn these site...
Thank you for your help.
Robert

Hi RetroBob and welcome to the forum.

I have attached below the brochure for the 1973 Barth RV's which I am sure is very similar to the 1970's. I am guessing the weight of your coach is in the 12000# area.

1973 Barth Catalogue - (8,260 KB) ~

Is the Continental a trailer?

yes
actually i saw in on sale on craigslist. even in these forum.
so i dont even know if it still available

The Barth Continental is a travel trailer, not a motor home. It may compare to an Airstream trailer in weight. The Airstream Europe website shows a modern 22 foot Airstream trailer weighs 1370 kg empty, with a gross vehicle weight rating of 1700 kg. An American 23 foot Airstream is listed at 4694 lbs dry, about 2135 kg, with a GVW of 6000 lbs, 2727 kg.
A 22 or 23 foot Barth is likely to be somewhere
in this ball park, but the only way to be certain is to have it weighed. In any event, you will be close to the maximum your law allows.

Good luck. The Barth Continental trailer is what introduced me to Barths many years ago, but it was out of my price range then.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bowers:
I am guessing the weight of your coach is in the 12000# area.

I would guess less than half that.

It would be a good idea to weigh the tow vehicle, weigh the trailer and check into the tow vehicle's rated towing weight before a purchase. The Ranchero might need a little work to tow, too. What engine and trans does it have? Perhaps there is a Ford or Ranchero forum that could provide information that would help you.

I towed a 16 foot Shasta with a Dodge Dart and had to do suspension, transmission and brake changes, and it still was marginal. There is much more to towing than horsepower.

I believe your Ranchero is more of a comfort car than a truck. Here in the USA they carried little more than a motorcycle or a bale of hay. If you can't find tow ratings for a Ranchero, check for a T bird or LTD of that year. Some LTDs had police and taxicab suspension parts and a tow package that could help.

my Ranchero is equipped with the bigger engine "400" and also the extra radiator, i dont know about the tranny. im member of the ranchero forum and from the information i have from there it seems that i have a tox package.

Sorry about that, I thought that we were talking about a motorhome. Barth did make Barth Continental motorhomes up to 1970. I have seen two of them.

Your Ranchero was produced when those trucks still had frames. I am guessing that the transmission and the breaking would be the questions.

i have disc brakes at the front.
regarding the tranny i dont know yet

quote:

Originally posted by RetroBob:
i have disc brakes at the front.
regarding the tranny i don't know yet

With that engine, it is probably a C6. A good tranny if it is kept cool. Look into a shift kit, too. Do any of the folks on the Ranchero forum have info on tow limits on your car?
Have you looked at equalizer hitches and sway controls? They make a big difference with a light tow vehicle. I use an Equal-i-zer® Sway Control Hitch, with 4-Point Sway Control™, with far better results than the the EZ Lift and Reese units I had used previously. Even adding sway controls to those hitches did not make them as good as the Equal I Zer.

Air bags in back with individual hoses can be a big help.

I would also recommend a Prodigy brake controller. The ability to gradually apply the trailer brakes separately is an important safety feature.

Having wrapped a tow car and a boat into a ball, I have strong feelings about towing safety.

IMHO, if Bob's combined weight is within Swedish law, he should have no trouble towing a 22 foot trailer with a Ranchero that has a 400 ci engine; provided he has a brake controller, transmission cooler, equalizing hitch, sway control, heavy duty shocks, and the spring capacity to keep the Ranchero up when the spring bars are cinched up enough to level the Ranchero. This is all stuff that every trailer tow vehicle needs.

My opinion is based on experience: Our first RV was an 18.5 foot travel trailer that weighed about 3500 lbs loaded for travel. It went across the U.S., down the West coast, and back twice, and made one final trip from East to West, all behind a 1968 Dodge 2-door hard top with a 318 ci engine, about 15,000 miles total, plus miscellaneous short trips that probably totaled another 1-2000 miles. No mechanical problems, & the car had about 124K miles when I sold it.

I towed a 31' Timberline (a really heavy trailer) with a 1/2 ton Chev pickup with a warmed over 454, and a 24' Road Ranger with a 3/4 ton Dodge van with a 360.

The only time I was ever nervous was coming down a California mountain with the Timberline when the trailer brakes faded. That was too much travel trailer on standard trailer brakes, not the fault of the tow vehicle.

The most critical items are brake controller, trans cooler, equalizing hitch, and sway control.

In the early days, most travel trailers were towed by cars. Pickups weren't that popular 40 years ago. For most trailer owners then, a 22' trailer behind a Ranchero, or any sedan with a big engine, would have been fat city.

FWIW, I have seen 3 bad trailer accidents, all behind short wheelbase tow vehicles, Ford Bronco, Chevy Blazer, etc.

Boats are a different problem. They tend to go down the road with much less hitch weight than travel trailers which reduces their ease of towing, and makes for a different safety issue. The rule-of-thumb for travel trailers is 10 to 15% of the trailer weight on the hitch.

Curiously, the European Airstream site shows hitch weights in te 5% to 8% range. They must do things differently in Europe.

quote:

Originally posted by olroy:
In the early days, most travel trailers were towed by cars. For most trailer owners then, a 22' trailer behind a Ranchero, or any sedan with a big engine, would have been fat city.

I recall thinking that Airstreams were sold with big Buick Roadmasters attached. Dark colored ones.

quote:

Boats are a different problem. The rule-of-thumb for travel trailers is 10 to 15% of the trailer weight on the hitch.

Yeah. I am a big believer in that. Maybe a bit more.

quote:

Curiously, the European Airstream site shows hitch weights in te 5% to 8% range. They must do things differently in Europe.

Or have smaller cars. I have seen some caravan rigs that scared me silly. I remember a video of a bicycle passing one such rig up a hill. Something failed and the whole rig went backwards down the hill, ultimately jacknifing. Good thing the bicycle had already passed.

First of all, sorry if i cannot the proper words, but ill try to explain as best as i can.
in Europe we have a different way of towing trailer.
first the recomended weight supposed to be on the hitch is 70 kg..basically you are supposed to lift the front end of the trailer by yourself. these is because it will reduce the sway sideways..
regarding the brakes the must common brake system are mechanical, when you start braking your car. the hitch on the trailer is supposed to pull backwards and mechanical brake the trailers wheel..
these doesnt allway woork so good, i remeber in a full winter day "minus 20" we started a journet towing a car on a trailer of around 200 miles, after just 3 miles in a steep hill the car started to sway very much...
nothing happend, we where able to sort it out, but it wasnt a nice experience..
regarding towing US made trailers, its virtually impossible due to some european lwas.
if the trailer is newer then 1970..

I hope that you work out the issues and can use the trailer. Having driven through south west and south east Sweden, you have many wonderful camping opportunities. Every time I arrive in Sweden, I am surprised at the number of trailers and RVs I see

Thanks for the documentation!