The CMC Core Mega-Trailer Is the Kind of Luxury Downsizing $1.4 Million Buys

The Core trailer from Italian company CMC Caravan is one such project: a piece of luxury mobile estate that redefines trailer-park living, puts a new, very luxurious spin on downsizing, and makes for excellent window-shopping for us normies who will, most likely, never afford it.

The ongoing housing crisis, the health crisis and everything it brought along, and the looming financial crisis are forcing us to change perspectives and adopt a more compact lifestyle. Mobile homes, be they tiny homes, bus and van conversions, or prefab homes, have been picking up traction, especially as the digital nomad concept is taking deep roots. Working from home makes it possible for home to be wherever we want it to be.

CMC Caravan is an Italian company that goes all the way back to 1961, having gotten its start in furniture production before moving to old-school bus conversions. Today, it’s a giant in a very specific niche of the luxury market, delivering custom units of mega-trailers to select customers across Europe, in Norway, Finland, France, the UK, and Germany. CMC Caravan makes mobile homes for the one-percenters and, as we’ve seen on previous occasions, they’re design marvels.

The Core fits that bill. It’s also a custom one-off designed for a specific client. CMC Caravan tells autoevolution that every one of their units are designed around the client’s wishes and expectations, and turned into a welcoming mobile home at the end of thousands of hours of work. It makes sense then that the company limits the annual production of trailers to just a few units.

The Core, introduced as the E-20 model, was completed in the summer of 2020, and is the result of 300 hours of interior design, 5,200 working hours on the actual build, and more than 20 tons of galvanized steel. It is a family home that sleeps four, but it’s the kind that rivals a proper brick-and-mortar mansion, from the finishes to the amenities, like the jacuzzi in the spa-like bathroom and two vertical gardens for a more exotic vibe.

Like every other CMC trailer, the Core has several slide-outs; four, to be more precise. Two of them go the full length of the trailer on either side, and two add instant terraces to the interior space: one at the rear and another one laterally, sliding out from one of the larger slide-outs. In camp mode, the Core is 16.8 meters (55.2 feet) long and 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) wide, and offers 117 square meters (1,259.4 square feet) of living space.

The chassis is based on a CMC semitrailer, using hi-grade steel and a BPW-Axles set, with load capacity of 10 tons each, CMC Caravan tells us. The bodywork is 50-mm (2-inch) thick galvanized steel covered with layers of phenolic plywood, aluminum, styrodur and fiberglass, to minimize moisture penetration. The roof is a single aluminum coil for the entire length.

Inside, you get a full-size but open-plan kitchen that can expand into the lateral terrace, a living room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bedroom and bath are of the kind you’d find at a luxury resort, down to the backlit veined onyx headboard, the wood and aquamarine washbasin in the bathroom, the double jacuzzi, and the two vertical gardens.

The introduction to the Core notes that “anything else is a compromise,” and you get the feeling that absolutely no compromise was made with the Core from the video presentation below. “We do not set limits to what can be done, except for technical limitations due to the opening and closing functions of the trailer,” the company says.

Given its size, Core can only be towed by semi, is not allowed on all roads, and requires special permits. The Core shows what trailer-park living can be like if you have around €1.4 million ($1.45 million at the current exchange rate) to spend, and are willing to invest it in your dream mobile home.