My goal for this is to make it into a camper. For the short term,the easiest way seems to be to just roll back the tonnou cover, and setup a flat plywood platform and throw a little dome tent on top of it. Another idea is to make a fiberglass cover to replace the tonnou that cranks up and is screened in with mesh. Not sure though, still in the idea process
I just bought this one. Can anyone tell me what I have here? Someone has removed all the mfr identification on it.
What about, cutting the sides of the front vertically, flanging (for rain when towing) and hinging the bottom edge of the front to drop down and rest on the tongue, the tonneau area could then be the flashlite portion of the tent screened/rain fly. Set up a couple fiberglass tent pole locations in the corners to crisscross from the lip of the forward edge of the dropped panel high over the tonneau area into similar pole locations built into the rear edge of the tonneau.
The nose of my 53 Buick with our early 70's Airstream Argosy. I'd love to someday rebuild this thing and tow it to shows behind the old Buick!
GMC Bubba That guy sells everything from Teardrops to Hot Sauce and everything he lays a hand to is quality JIM
Based on the stripe pattern, it looks like it may be a Deville. Check out the 1959 Deville on this page (nearer the bottom): http://www.retrorestoration.com/Gallery.htm I googled Deville trailer and came up with some other similar photos, etc. Scott/Gotta56forme
Well,,i guess the site didn't approve of my big pics of my '78 GMC Motor Home,,heres a smaller on of it sittin' next to my "Tequila Sunrise" X '60's '55 Chevy Gasser ,,
Little OT but all of my brothers (Retrorestorations) restored trailers, 4 classic cars and the Tote Motel pictured on the previous page are at his trailer park in Canon City, Co. His park is the 2 story building on the left of this picture taken Monday evening. Scary, he almost lost them all, fire passed by and barely missed him!
Is a '76 too new for this thread? We bought it May of last year and I spent all summer/fall rebuilding it. Still have a few details to finish inside. Haven't posted recently, but I built a blog that I haven't updated for awhile. http://chrisserneefercamper.blogspot.com/ Here's some pics towards the end. I need to take some final pics now that it's basically done: Here's what I started with (it was a lot worse than it looks): I painted it with marine paint and a camel hair brush. Definitely not automotive quality, but it looks pretty good even close up. I'm not a fan of yellows and oranges, and I couldn't find Coachman graphics from that era, so I went with my own paint scheme. I wanted to find some old-school wheels with moon caps and trim rings, but I couldn't find any with six-bolt pattern and high enough capacity. The structure is essentially the same as they used in the late 50s and early 60s, so nobody guesses it's a '76. We've camped in it twice and both times people came up to us and talked about it. Last time we were in Pipestem WV. Seems every third house down there has an old travel trailer if anyone's looking for one. Guy in a Pepsi truck stopped by and said he always wondered what an old trailer would look like redone, but he's never seen one. LOL.
Think about doing this top with wood struts, canvas and airplane dope! I've got plans for a small trailer from 1938 using a doped canvas top and porthole in the door.
The 1978 Burro we call "the Marshmallow", I put on the '60 Dodge tail lights, Corvair wire wheel covers,we had the cushions recovered in denim, I made the curtains out of a Sunbrella Mexican blanket stripe material, I faired in a frame for the 5000 BTU A/C unit up front... stays cool even in FL. Towed it to Daytona last year with my '46, but it's been to Atlanta and back on my daily.
Here is ours, a 71 Scotty Serro... Link: http://bthomas1967chevy2wagon.com/Home/Brent/1971ScottySerro/Scotty_Home.aspx (My website is not updated. but it is almost done)
beautiful! I have one in the yard and didn't know the make and now I do.Its a King! Inspires me to get it back on the road. Great thread, I'm gonna get to work.
Anyone notice some old trailers on the side of 131 I think it is, by Holland MI... 3-4 of them set back from the road a bit?
American trailers (caravans) seem to have gone to aluminium skins well before our Aussie ones. The vintage vans I know of here are all plywood on the outside as well as the inside, especially those built before about 1960. My granparents had a 10 foot plywood van for years, they towed it with my 41 Willys befoe I bought it off them, and in the 70's I lived in a 12 footer for 2 years, I was single, the rent at the park was cheap, and I was right behind my favourite surfing beach so I wasn't complaining! OK, here's a few pics... My 12 footer was just like the first image. Cheers, Glen.
That was at the TCT Spring Ralley a couple of years ago, brought by one of the GM guys involved in the restoration. I knew GM auctioned off some "excess" stuff, but didn't know that house car was "excess" inventory. The resto was mind boggling. Stainless carriage bolts holding everything together, all polished, all nuts, screws, etc. indexed and so on. Brian
I can't remember where I read it but IIRC, the aluminum sided camping trailers and mobile homes here in the US all came about as part of the airplane manufacturing techniques & tooling developed and refined during WWII. I believe metal campers were available before WWII, but perhaps they were more handmade and not mass produced the way there were until after the war.
The Jalopy Journal
