New Ideas Pop Up

(L to R) Darryn Young, chief operating offi cer of Young’s Welding Inc., and Derrick Bruenger, PopUp Towing Products advertising/marketing/ sales, make towing products from PopUp’s Kansas plant.

PopUp Towing Products recently launched two new niche towing products in 2022.

By RV News Sta

Derrick Bruenger has been pulling his weight in the RV industry for two decades. roughout his career, “pulling his weight” has meant numerous things. Most recently, it includes launching two new PopUp Towing Products o erings.

Before joining PopUp in 2012, Bruenger worked at NuWa Industries for seven years. NuWa used frames built by Young’s Products LLC, the parent company of PopUp Towing Products.

Working since 2005 at NuWa and PopUp provided Bruenger with an up-close look at consumers’ towing needs.

“It helps when you have seen a lot of crushed trailers and crunched trucks,” he said. “I have seen the results of a lot of the problems that we now solve with what our company makes.” e newly released King Pin 2 Hitch Ball (KP2BP) is an adapter hitch ball that empowers a fth wheel hitch to tow gooseneck trailers. e product solves the problem of needing to switch out hitches when transitioning from towing a fth wheel to a gooseneck trailer. e KP2BP has a 10-inch round bolster plate in the middle. e top side of the plate has a standard 2-inch kingpin. e bottom side features a 2 5/16-inch hitch ball.

Brian Fairchild, PopUp Towing Products sales and business development consultant, said Canadian distributors requested that PopUp

PopUp Towing Products’ ET Junior air-ride fi fth wheel hitch has a single air bag and a weight capacity up to 25,000 pounds.

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make a product with the versatile features KP2HB o ers. ey told the supplier certain Canadian towing standards make using a fth wheel hitch mandatory in particular situations. Gooseneck trailer consumers meet those towing regulations with the new KP2HB, without switching out the entire hitch if they previously towed a fth wheel.

“Between the RV fth wheel trailers on the road and the gooseneck trailers, this was an opportunity to ll that Brian Fairchild, national sales director, worked with the ET Hitch’s creator to adjust the hitch so it could be manufactured more easily by PopUp.

The KP2BP hitch solved a pain point Canadian distributors brought to PopUp Canadian distributors brought to PopUp staff. Gooseneck trailer consumers can staff. Gooseneck trailer consumers can tow fi fth wheels with the KP2BP without tow fi fth wheels with the KP2BP without switching out the entire hitch. switching out the entire hitch.

need,” he said. “We thought it was need,” he said. “We thought it was worth the risk. We were able to build it worth the risk. We were able to build it and compete with similar products on and compete with similar products on the market and at a competitive price. the market and at a competitive price. We took the risk.” We took the risk.” e supplier initially rolled out the e supplier initially rolled out the hitch in February and began mass hitch in February and began mass producing it in March. Fairchild said although the hitch is “kind of a boring part,” based on current unful lled consumer and distributor requests, PopUp can manufacture the new o ering in su cient quantities to generate a pro t.

“ is particular part kept coming up. We develop parts based on customer need, essentially solving a problem, and then more importantly based on safety,” Fairchild said. “One of the things I nd redeeming and enjoyable about working here is the fact the guys are so focused on problem-solving. at does make it pretty rewarding.”

Heavy-Duty Plans PopUp Towing Products’ other new o ering came from a recent acquisition of ET Designs. e ET hitch is a fth wheel air-ride hitch. Launched earlier in 2022, the ET hitch provides a smoother ride for heavy-duty trucks towing the heaviest RVs, Fairchild said.

Most ET hitch owners have a semi-tractor or similar heavy-duty truck, he said. ey often own luxury RVs such as DVR Luxury Suites or Forest River’s Riverstone-branded fth wheels. ose types of RVs can weigh 20,000 pounds dry and measure up to 44 feet long. Custom RVs from manufacturers such as New Horizon or Spacecraft often are towed by similar- sized vehicles, Fairchild said. Such fth wheels could extend 48 to 51 feet long and weigh more than 30,000 pounds dry.

It helps when you have seen a lot of crushed trailers and crunched trucks. I have seen the results of a lot of the problems that we now solve with what our company makes.”

– Derrick Bruenger

“For people who buy those and pull them with a semi, this hitch is a good t,” he said. “It is heavy enough to tow a fth wheel that heavy.”

PopUp modi ed the EV hitch from its original design to easily from its original design to easily mass produce and ship. e ET hitch measures 32 inches by 34.25 inches and weighs up to 800 pounds. Fairchild said the hitch was extremely well-designed but needed minor adjustments to mass produce.

When PopUp Towing Products bought the company, engineers went about redesigning the coupler head to t PopUp’s fth wheel head.

Although the process is time-consuming, Fairchild said, scaling down the hitch will not be di cult. Developers are now in the initial stages of developing the lighter version. Once the design is nalized, Young’s Welding will build prototype parts, and the PopUp team will test the concept to ensure performance meets the company’s standards.

“ e R&D part, to me, is the most fun part of the job,” Bruenger said. “Developing something new, when you feel like you had a hand in it, it gives you a little more motivation to push the product, do it right and do it all together as a team.”

Fairchild said designers decided the hitch was overbuilt and would be more user-friendly if redesigned. PopUp switched the 1 1/8-inch wrap-around jaw to a 1-inch version. Fairchild said the new jaw retains its strength, but the slightly smaller size simpli es hooking up to a standard kingpin. e new ET hitch also di ers from

comparable products in two fundamental areas. e rst di erence is the hitch’s parallel arm linkage. e hitch has a parallelogram design to transfer horizontal chucking forces down into the airbag spring system.

Horizontal forces, whether occurring during braking or when upshifting from a dead stop, can cause a trailer hitch to chuck back and forth, Fairchild said. A “dog bones” feature in the ET hitch’s parallelogram shape vertically suspends all the pin weight onto the airbags. When the hitch experiences sideways forces, the dog bones feature redirects the force into the airbags.

“ at all works because of the geometry of the design,” Fairchild said. e arm linkage also incorporates a head-leveling valve. e valve ensures the coupler head remains at the proper height under load, whether the tongue weight is lighter or heavier. e second di erentiator, Fairchild said, is the ability to customize the airbags. Consumers might have a hitch with four 2,500-pound airbags to tow a vehicle in the 20,000- to 30,000pound weight range. Consumers with trailers under 20,000 pounds can choose smaller capacity airbags or a single larger capacity one. e airbags o er 5 inches of travel (3 inches down and 2 inches up) to absorb bumps.

“ e guys buying semi-trucks and converting those to RV haulers are really technically savvy,” he said. “ ey know a lot about their truck. ey know a lot about their trailer. ey know a lot about what they want in their hitch.”

More RVers are turning to heavyduty trucks such as semi-tractors because of the availability and price, Fairchild said. The trend expands the ET hitch’s potential market. He said consumers sometimes find more semi-tractors for sale than new 1-ton trucks.

Fairchild said trucking companies sometimes retire semi-tractors out of their eet when the vehicle approaches 500,000 miles. Consumers can buy one at a discount in those situations. Bruenger sets up to record a YouTube instructional video on the supplier’s RV gooseneck coupler.

Youngs Products LLC, is PopUp Towing Products’ parent company. Young bought PopUp in 2009.

The ET Hitch has a towing capacity up to towing capacity up to 40,000 pounds. 40,000 pounds. Chance Summers, who works in national sales, prepares an ET Hitch to be shipped.

Looking Ahead e ET Hitch’s biggest sales opportunity may be looming in a manufacturing trend a ecting lighter-duty trucks. Bruenger said 1-ton trucks are continually being upgraded with higher towing capacities.

As the capacities continue to increase, he said purchasing a 1-ton truck, as opposed to a larger 1.5-ton or 2-ton semi-tractor alternative, would make more sense for consumers. PopUp Towing designers worked with the original ET hitch’s creator on redesigning the hitch for 1-ton and 3/4-ton truck use. e new hitch is much longer than traditional fth wheel hitches, Fairchild said, to provide space hitches, Fairchild said, to provide space to incorporate the parallel linkage. e to incorporate the parallel linkage. e distance from the center of the coupler distance from the center of the coupler head (holding the tongue weight) is head (holding the tongue weight) is further forward toward the cab than a further forward toward the cab than a standard rigid hitch. standard rigid hitch.

“When we think about going from “When we think about going from the larger trucks down, we have to downsize the footprint of this hitch and the weight,” Fairchild said. “We need to cut the weight (800 pounds) in half without jeopardizing the integrity or strength of it. Once we get that gured out, we will be ready for the 1-ton market.”

Bruenger said the future sales opportunity for a downsized lighttruck version is immense. e lighttruck market is likely where PopUp will concentrate its redesigned hitch e orts when the hitch is complete.

As R&D continues, Fairchild is mindful of how the updated version must deliver stellar performance, so PopUp can monetize the hitch’s past reliable reputation

“What we have to be very careful of is the ability to provide that complex hitch and manufacture them fast enough for a mass market,” he said. “My goal is to develop it and bring it to market. We do not want to stumble when we do.” Stay in Your Lane PopUp Towing Products makes gooseneck ball hitches and couplers, kingpin

extenders, RV adapters, fth wheel baseplates and more. Young’s Welding manufactures the products and sends them a 1/4-mile down the road to PopUp Towing Products’ facility in Chanute, Kansas. e towing products are assembled and shipped from there. ree main groups collaborate on new product determinations: sales, marketing and engineering.

“We are very calculating on what we put out in the marketplace,” Fairchild said. “We have had people bring us ideas. Some are more suitable for the mass market; some are really not.”

Over the years, the company focused on gooseneck trailer products and RV adapters. In Bruenger’s decade working at the supplier, he said the company considered adding other products to PopUp’s line, but competition and pro t margin analysis prevented expansion.

As an example, Bruenger said he thought adding hitch balls would enhance PopUp’s brand recognition with dealers and subsequently consumers. However, the research data indicated adding them would not work. Competitors had distinct advantages due to volume manufacturing and bene tted from lower manufacturing costs by building o shore.

For these reasons, PopUp has approached new product o erings di erently. If the company receives consumer/retailer feedback about a potentially problematic towing issue, the company investigates whether the problem is isolated or systemic. If a widespread, unmet market need is identi ed, PopUp may then look at launching a new product.

“We pinpoint some of those items and introduce products that will take care of those customers and get them on the road without having to completely revamp their entire towing system,” he said.

PopUp’s o set hitches are an example of how the process has worked in the past. Consumers, particularly short-bed truck owners, told the company’s sales sta about an issue with trucks’ back windows shattering when the towed trailer’s nose collided with the window when making sharp turns. Bruenger said the o set hitches added a greater turning radius for the towed vehicle’s nose.

“If you get a little more turning radius,” he said, “you do not have to worry about knocking it out each time.”

One of the things I find redeeming and enjoyable about working here is the fact the guys are so focused on problem-

solving.” – Brian Fairchild