We are Kobie and Vaughn, and hail from opposite sides of Australia. Our little business was started off in Gippsland, Victoria in 2017, with inspiration drawn from Kobie's first Troopy. 
With the help of the retiring Gazza from Gahn Fabrication in Morwell VIC, Troopy Gear found it's feet with our Troopy Gear Driver and Passenger Side Aluminium shelves. It was a real struggle trying to find a fabricator willing to do small runs of stock, as Kobie didn't have tonnes of money to pour into the business at the time. Each shelf was pre-ordered, and customers had lengthy waits for stock.
To add to the struggle, the shelves were originally solid and over 2m long. They were literally unshippable, and customers who wanted them shipped paid more for shipping than they did for the shelf. Kobie hand delivered most of them after doing shout-outs on the Troopcarriers of Australia FB page whenever she had a roadtrip coming up. It made her travels very interesting, meeting fellow Troopy owners all over the country.
A trip up to Cape York in the middle of 2019 changed all of that, where Kobie met Vaughn on the Old Tele Track.
(Kobie tackling Gunshot with Vaughn guiding from the drivers window)
Kobie moved from Gippsland to Perth, bringing Troopy Gear with her. Again, we had a real issue trying to find a fabricator willing to help us out with small runs of stock, and we really wanted our shelves modified so they could bolt together to make shipping achievable.
Kobie was turned around so many times at so many fabrication workshops. We'd nearly given up finding someone.
Vaughn's brother sent us a phone number of a fella called Jonathon north of Perth. This legend of an Irishman re-transformed our shelves into a modular, interchangable and shippable product! He was so meticulous with the new design in CAD, and also became our fabricator with the help of his co-worker Bryce. We are forever greatful for the hours they put in after work and on weekends.
We faced another hurdle in 2021, as we were in our final stages of building our little house on wheels for a life on the road. We didn't know whether to sell our little business or just sit on it until we were based somewhere again.. We put it up for sale, and had a couple of phone calls from fellow local businesses keen on our drawings - but in the end, our design and product wasn't worth much to those interested in buying it, so selling it didn't really feel right and we decided to sit on it.
Then, we had a phone call from Liam Thorburn from Thorburns & Sons Fabrication. These guys are legends amongst the Troopy community. Liam offered to make and ship our shelves for us and we could still manage sales on the road - which was a partnership we didn't even consider possible after having so much trouble trying to find a fabricator willing to make our product! We jumped at the offer, and again, came across another special human who has kept our little business alive.
We finally managed to get out of WA (bloody Covid) in 2022 and work alongside Liam and Josh. Liam offered for us to list all of their Troopy related products on our website, which transformed our little business again.
We thought there might be some other businesses who would like to join forces as well with a similar partnership...
Marc from Dusty Decals was the next to jump on board. We purchased our decals from him when he was first starting out (we bloody love ours) and we reached out to him to see if he was keen. We have since sold well over 50 decals for him, helping grow his small business too. 
In 2022 we reached out to Surquip. We have absolutely loved spending time with Wayne and Claudie from Surquip - whether it's helping them build a table, or develop a new canvas product or going on holidays with them (we showed them around the High Country in Vic for an epic 2 week trip in Feb 2023!) - it's been an absolute pleasure and we cannot wait for the next holiday together.
In 2022 we also gained the super talented Sophie Fletcher from Sophie Fletcher Designs. Her hand drawn decals are just amazing and personalise any space! She is based in Cowes and we absolutely love working with her!
And so, Troopy Gear has become this little family unit of small Australian Businesses, helping each other to grow and gain a little more exposure. If you choose to buy something through us, we just want to say thank you for supporting Australian made products and our local families.
So what do we do with ourselves now we live on the road?
Aside from helping our customers with their orders, our main occupation is Harvest/Farm Work. And not fruit picking... We drive headers and chasers harvesting wheat, oats, barley and canola usually during November-December. It's an awesome gig, and we highly recommend it to anyone looking at travelling and earning or those who want to live a permanent nomadic lifestyle like us.
We have also started a little Youtube channel where we document our adventures (mainly for family at home) but it may also be useful for others for trip planning. Click here to check out our channel!