(first posted 1/20/2017) Let’s take a look at Americans and Canadians on vacation with their travel and tent trailers in the 50s and 60s. These old snapshots archived at vintage.es. That ’55 Chrysler won’t be struggling with its little load.
This looks like a great spot for camping. It beats tent camping, anyway.
From the early 50s. Flatheads needing to cool off from their exertions?
The ultimate tow-mobile.
Nice place to visit in the summer.
A fine ’61 Impala Nomad wagon.
Old timer.
1952 Plymouth with a pretty good sized trailer.
Chevy and Ford wagons dominated.
Now that’s a pretty spartan trailer.
How to keep the buns dry.
A ’62 Plymouth, always a treat.
Nice combo.
Color coordinated.
Another Caddy.
’61 Ford Ranch Wagon with Airstream Avion trailer.
Taking in the scenery. Looks like Eastern Oregon.
Don’t forget the ultimate 1950s trailer movie: “The Long, Long Trailer” starring Lucy and Ricky. It’s a great little travelogue of early 1950s America. It’s also where I got the little voice in my head screaming “TRAILER BRAKES FIRST!!” to this day whenever I see someone towing a trailer.
“Tacy” was supposed to get rid of the rocks.
If you watch carefully, Nikki and Taci’s Mercury magically turns into a Lincoln for the location shots taken in the Sierra Nevadas.
I never noticed that! I guess the stronger engine of the Lincoln was needed to pull this behemoth!
Noticed that about five, six years ago. Reminded me of a few “Perry Mason” episodes where the car going off the cliff isn’t the car that was on the road. In one, it’s a different color, about 18-20 years older.
Such a great movie. Always enjoy watching. Great scenery. The classic example of travel in America with so much to see. You had to really know how to drive back then. no backup cameras, lane departure, LED lights, navigation systems or tire pressure monitoring etc. Cars were so big!
Need a story on who would be the best candidates for a remake of the movie.
Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo could do cameo appearances. Imagine Ellen Griswold (now a grandma) tied to the roof rack of a Chevy Suburban towing a 40′ Airstream .
“You didn’t let me finish, I said right here, turn left”!
Those are all great photos, but…I just don’t know what gene I must be missing that I start getting hives whenever I look at scenes like that. All at once I can smell mildew, swat at imaginary mosquitoes and get a sense of heartburn from too much pan-fried processed food.
I can appreciate Americana as much as the next guy, but I’m quite literally not a Happy Camper.
Me too MTN,
Not a happy camper and not a happy cruiser.
I had to do some camping in the snow for Boy Scouts and was deemed a wuss for hating it.
But I also get uncomfortable thinking about 2 week cruises from Freeport LI, NY to Martha’s Vineyard in an old, late 1940s wooden cabin cruiser with one engine, 6 volt electrical system, a small ice box with 40 lbs of ice in it for cooling, 25 gallons of fresh water in a monel tank (want a bath – jump overboard and let the salt water dry on your skin), no sun screen (not yet invented), and certainly no A/C.
But, lots of biting green flies, mildew on the sheets, following a compass course for hours, and fretful watching of the engine temp gauge when running through shallow sea weed infested waters that might clog the cooling water intake.
And there’s nothing creepier than seeing periscopes go by with no land in sight.
And hurricanes; we ran into a few out East.
+1+ on the camping. I got all the camping I ever wanted, and then some, when I was in the army. Having to take every thing that you might possibly need with you, trying to sleep while being aggravated by flying insects, rudimentary sanitary facilities, all of that and more, and I don’t miss any of it. Of course now people try to take all the comforts of home with them and call that “camping”. My neighbor has a 40 foot motor home with A/C, satellite TV and who knows what else, and he considers himself to be camping when he drives it to the state park the next county over. To each his own but my idea of roughing it these days is staying in a motel with only basic cable.
I am a certifiable vintage trailer addict. I own two, but I am a part of a few regional vintage trailer groups. I have a 1975 Cygnet 16′ and a 1973 Travelux President Elite 29′ which is undergoing restoration.
Very nice shop!
Too bad it doesn’t look like that anymore. That was the day it was finally completed (good enough) and I backed the trailers in for the first time, late last fall.
Now I can barely walk in there, let alone park a car in it.
Last week, while brushing 6″ of snow off of our truck, my wife remarked how nice it would be to have a garage… 🙂
“Last week, while brushing 6″ of snow off of our truck, my wife remarked how nice it would be to have a garage… ?”
Sounds like permission for another out building to me. 🙂
Recall in 1965 or so our next door neighbor got a huge Airstream trailer. When his ’63 Ambassador wagon proved not up to the task as a tow vehicle, he bought a new Chrysler Town & Country wagon with the 440 Magnum. White, A/C, no wood siding, with the cool luggage rack that went the whole length of the roof. Curiously, it came with blackwall tires, as the six ply tires he ordered were not available in whitewalls. He said that once he got on the highway it was easy to forget he was pulling the trailer. Loved the sound of the 440 from the factory duals as he would back the Airstream up the incline of his driveway.
Maybe it was in 1966? I think that the 1965 would still have the 413 on the Town & Country, the next year replaced by the 440.
My Dad had a 1963 Rambler Wagon, but we never camped with it (I think the Ambassador was the same size but had the V8 vs the 6). The Rambler was in an accident in ’65 and he replaced it with a ’65 Oldsmobile F85 wagon with the 330. We started camping with the F85. At first we rented a pop-top camper (can’t remember if it was a Nimrod or an Apache)…guess we had a hitch put on the car, but it was only used to pull this rental camper, was not used afterward, as we ended up buying a “car top camper” made by Camp O’Tel, which we used throughout the ’60s (yes, the cartop camper was a sight..it was pretty rare, it had a kitchen unit (with stove and washbasin, plus flip down picnic table shelves) and a cabana (with a port-a poty and a gravity fed (cold water) shower). It had 2 water tanks (maybe 10 gallon each) that weighed a ton when we had to carry them to fill them up, The camper hooked into the raingutters (remember them?) and had a little ladder on the side to allow you to climb up into the fold out tent unit on top of the car.
My Dad traded in the F85 on a ’69 Ford Country Squire with a 351, which we had several years. but in 1972 he traded in the cartop camper for a Viking Pop-Top camper, and had a hitch put on the Squire but again it barely was used to pull the camper, as early in 1973 he traded in the Country Squire on a Country Sedan (Wagon) with a 400 and trailer towing package, which was used until 1978 to tow the camper when my Dad bought a Caprice Wagon (305), which was of course also used to pull this same camper until 1982 when he ended up selling the camper, which effectively ended his camping days.
I don’t think he needed the trailer towing package to tow the camper, but it gave him some extra confidence, especially with the transmission cooler (lots of back and forth jockying of the camper to get it in the right place)…what didn’t inspire confidence was when he found out that the almost new Firestone 500 tires on the ’73 Country Sedan were delaminating …they were early domestic radials and I guess that wasn’t unheard of for early radials…he was glad that was found during service on the car before we took it on a long trip with the camper.
He bought the Town and Country a few months after the Airstream, so it would have been a 1966. Recall the dual intake air cleaner labeled 440 Magnum TNT. Was quite the beast with the top trailer towing package and heavy duty everything. Was replaced in 1974 with a new Town and Country. Recall him saying the ’74 wasn’t nearly as good and struggled to get 10 mpg.
I’ll bet the ’66 Town and Country was something…I guess the ’74 was affected by all the emissions stuff going on then, so it would suffer in comparison to the ’66 even if both had 440’s. Though his first (new) car was a Mopar (a Plymouth sedan) my Father didn’t ever try one among all the wagons he bought; he bought 2 Dodges in the 80’s but among the (domestic) wagons he tried each manufacturer except Mopar …..he’s been gone almost exactly a year, unfortunately can no longer ask him why (I’d be the only one in the family who would be interested in his response). My Mom’s Father (and later brother) had the Chrysler…a ’51 Windsor she learned to drive on way back when.
Nice shots, these make me want to hitch the Jayco up to the Caravan and head out, even if that’s not as cool as an Airstream and 61 Ranch Wagon.
I like the canoe on the car in the 5th shot at White River, is this the first post with a canoe on top that wasn’t a DougD post?
I also see my Beetle again in the 6th shot 🙂
I had to look at that picture like 3 times before I realized the canoe was on the ’63 Chevy across the street. That picture appeared to be from the early seventies though, as the Country Squire in the shot looks to be a ’71 or ’72 (heck, it could be a ’70, I suppose), but it’s hard to tell since the front bumper got cropped off in the photo. But curiosity got the better of me, so I Google’d “White River Col….” (Of course Google read my mind and filled in the rest (scary)… and found this Wiki-Link…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_River,_Ontario
The very same photo is there, and Wikipedia dates the photo at 1973. I was more curious about the weather claim than the year of the photo. Apparently, some other place has the “Coldest Spot in Canada” distinction.
Yeah I’d wondered about that too, since White River isn’t THAT far North.
No doubt we went through that town on our miserable motorcycle trip across Canada in 1997, but I don’t recall it. I was probably too stunned by the enormity of Ontario by that point.
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/born-to-be-wild-at-least-once-our-cross-canadian-motorcycle-trip/
One other neat thing about that photo is the decals on the trailer. I always wanted to do that but my parents wouldn’t let me. So now that I have my own trailer it is stickered with every place we could get one.
Great photos ! .
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We always tent camped .
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-Nate
We always did, too. My dad would take the bulk of us 9 kids (and usually a cousin or two would show up). A big “army” tent with up to 8 sleeping bags / air mattresses along one side. Good memories. My dad was driving Fords then. Five or six in the back of a 63 Galaxie 500 for 3+ hours. Maybe not that good memories. 🙂 But everyone loved the Galaxie.
I took my three kids and occasional friends when they were young. Always in a tent. Thought about pulling the trigger on a camp trailer but never did.
They were called ” Cottage Tents ” and Pops bought one in the 1950’s, we used it even after Mom kicked his ass to the curb, she tried to commit suicide in it one Summer @ Mt. Desert….
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Mostly good times .
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Six screaming brats in an International Harvester Travelall .
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-Nate
Love these. In truth, however, I like the idea of camping more than actually camping.
That second picture is just depressing. A rainy weekend, parked next to a mosquito-infested mud puddle and a two-taillight Chevy with blackwalls and poverty caps for the drive home. 🙂
When I see that I think “Thank goodness we’re not tenting on the ground”. We’ve endured some really horrendous conditions in our little pop up and come through mostly dry.
I agree on the location though. It looks like racetrack paddock or amusement park camping.
I still love camping…but with a family it is a lot of work for sure. Of course any activity with kids is a lot of work, so why not. The memories are always better than it seems at the time.
@Phil ;
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Camping is a priceless opportunity to teach your kids real world lessons that will service them well for their entire lives .
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EVERYONE needs to go camping if only to discover they don’t like it .
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I remember sending my Son off many Summers to stay with Relatives, he loved it but didn’t want to go to Summer Camp until he did then he wanted to go forever….
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Now he’s taking/teaching my 3.7 year old Grand Daughter to love camping and traveling .
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-Nate
The “sedan version”,of that Chevy was our “brand new, shiny, 1965 car! lol
(poverty caps and all)
Great photos. The 1965 Chevrolet wagon and trailer in the second photo also appear in the ninth photo.
I had to do a double-take at that ninth photo down. The bicycle in the picture looks like a ‘bicycle built for 3’, until I realized that what appears to be the third seat is actually the bright reflection of the top of the passenger side of the ’65 Chevy’s front bumper.
I love these. And ironically, for trailers, they have better storage and floor plans as well as real electrical, plumbing and heating than the trendy “tiny houses” in similar square footage being promoted.
See the New Moon in The Long Long Trailer.
An old idea is new again.
Great website: http://www.mobilehomeliving.org for lots of details on these travel trailers as well as floorplans. The split levels are a scream.
Love all these period shots. Many thanks.
Totally agree about the quality layouts of trailers from this period. They are very appealing.
I think so many of examples of today’s tiny houses suffer from really poor design because they are so often DIY affairs. Much better are the few that are done by architects and other design professionals.
I’m currently obsessed with new lightweight Tiger Moth trailer from TAXA. They also make the larger Crickett Trailer. Very clever design.
OMG. That’s fantastic
These are from a little later period (early 1970s). We had an 18′ Swinger trailer we pulled behind the ’68 Country Squire LTD… Two adults and four rambunctious boys! Couldn’t quickly find a pic of both together.
Mom, me and brother #3.
The station wagon, at my grandmother’s home in Hollywood, FL.
I am shocked that there was only one truck in those photos. It was amazing what cars used to be able to tow. Nowadays it seems you need an F350 with a power stroke diesel to tow a tent trailer (at least in western Canada)…
Marketing is a powerful force. They’ve convinced people that they need a truck to haul their lunch.
Right now I’m choosing a tow car to haul my new 16′ Scamp fiberglass trailer. My choice will be a luxury compact SUV with 275-395 hp, that’s rated to tow a half-ton more than my trailer’s weight. And I know that most of the trailer and truck owners I pass will think I’m crazy to tow with a car. That’s just what pickups do, they’ve been told, over and over again. Pickups actually have their drawbacks, though. The guy I bought my Scamp from used a Ridgeline. It had an extended hitch so he could drop his tailgate without hitting the trailer jack. That placed the hitch ball even farther from the rear axle, and that gives a trailer more leverage to jack around with the truck’s rear suspension. So you get a bigger truck, then a bigger trailer…
In Aussie they introduced loading/towing laws, you could only tow 100% of the tow vehicles Max train weight all big cars suddenly became cheap and 4WD utes appeared for towing heavy trailers, horse floats and the like, Caravans or travel trailers as you call them are light and easily towed with a decent 6 or 8 cylinder car.
I love these pictures!
This past summer, we went (tent) camping at Hoffmaster State Park in western Michigan. Unfortunately, we missed the “Vintage Camper/RV Gathering” by two weeks. Apparently, that’s an annual event at Hoffmaster… I looked at pictures of it, and it sees like quite an interesting event.
It’s great to see these photos from my youngest years. I wasn’t from a “trailering” family (and so I’m not a fan of neighborhoods where they’re stored alongside homes; YMMV), but the mobility still seems tempting to me somehow.
Here’s a FoMoCo publicity shot taken as its new ’49 was launched–would anyone tow a trailer that size today with 100 (SAE gross) horsepower and 4-wheel drums?
Is that really an Airstream with the ’61 Ford? The finish and treatment of the seams at the back looks very Avion-like to me.
It is an Avion. Text amended.
This is a combination one doesn’t see every day
H’mm.
I love the pics! Probably the nostalgia in the comments even more. My parents started camping in a fold down trailer in 69 towing it and 6 kids with a little 289. That was replace by a 351 in a 1970 Ranch Wagon. But now the tent trailer was replaced by 17′ upright EEE trailer so not sure there really was any more power to weight ratio. But it worked and many happy trouble free holidays were had!
I suspect most of us would go back to those days in a heartbeat if that were possible.
Ah those heady days when a mere station wagon was built tougher than today’s “1500s” (insert your favorite truck brand here) and more reliable, and cheaper to fix. Sigh…
Your memory is a bit off. Most of those wagons didn’t make it to 100K. Today’s half-ton trucks can haul twice as much and are more efficient and more reliable while offering better performance.
The campers have changed and the cars have changed, but the spirit has not.
In the Minnesota woods:
Unfortunately, I don’t have a device to scan 35mm slides into the computer. Otherwise you could see my Aunt’s 2 generations of Apache trailers, towed variously by a 61 Chevy wagon, 65 Plymouth Fury wagon and 70 AMC Ambassador wagon.
Last time I was under canvas was in the first Apache, around 64, freezing in the August wind blowing of Lake Superior, at the Brimley campground.
http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?id=414&type=SPRK
My eyes hurt looking at that slide of the 1961 Chevrolet station wagon. So here it is again.
By the way, it appears to have the Stove Bolt Six…I don’t think I see a gold “V” at the bottom of the Chevrolet emblem in the grill.
My neighbors ‘family ride” until summer, 1970.
i can guarantee that sitting on newspaper was not to keep your buns warm.
they are bundled up in that photo, it is cold outside. so why the newspaper? the seats are dirty. not to be trusted. the table is covered too. it it were summer you could wash the picnic table down but as cold as it is in this photo the wood would never dry.
My 1980 31 foot Airstream Excella and 1983 F 250 tend to get a favorable reception. Although the Airstream is stationary more often than not these days.
Worlds oldest trailer/caravan recently restored. And it’s towed with only 2 horsepower.
http://mobilehomeliving.org/vintage-mobile-home-restoration-worlds-oldest-caravan/
Many summers spent camping at Rogers Rock on Lake George NY. 50 years this summer. Pop bought a used 65 Trimline in 70 and it’s still in use as my brothers and I just got back from there a few weeks ago. That Trimline has survived a 64 Country Squire, 69 Mercury Colony Park, 77 LTD and a second used 83 Colony Park. The trailer was empty inside very simple layout with just a folding table and we over loaded the hell of it with all our camping gear including a small outboard motor. We used to throw a 14 ft. Sears boat on top of all those wagons no Thule racks required. I’ve got my two kids now going. I’ve got a Tacoma PU and a few years back bought a used Fleetwood. The Trimline is tired and the canvas needs replacing as well as the hard top but that 65 will survive that Fleetwood of mine. They don’t make them like that anymore!
Trying to identify this trailer. It has a Mercury Coach emblem near the door, but no other identifying information anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Would Love to have one of the Retro Campers of that time
I’m working on re-creating the look and feel of this era for myself, with my ’66 Rambler American and ’70 Apache Eagle.
What “trim level” is the car? I see the “fancied up , wheel covers paired with white stripe, tires.
It’s a 440, or the higher end trim level. I added full wheel covers from a same-year Classic, to dress up the drab colored little Rambler–originally, it had dog dish hubcaps. I purchased it with the white stripe tires, but i have no idea what would have been original equipment.
Great pics!
From my perspective growing up on the Canadian prairies not many families up here invested in trailers or camper trucks. You just packed the family into your sedan or perhaps station wagon. By the late sixties and into the seventies that changed as families matured and incomes increased. We had a lower standard of living of here back in the fifties and sixties. Things cost more and only now and then was our dollar on par with the US dollar.
Airstream trailers to me anyway, were seen with American tourists coming up here in summer. Often pulled by pickups or International Travealls.
Many of these old trailers are being restored by people and some are quite valuable now.
Right now I’m choosing a tow car to haul my new 16′ Scamp fiberglass trailer. My choice will be a luxury compact SUV with 275-395 hp, that’s rated to tow a half-ton more than my trailer’s weight. And I know that most of the trailer and truck owners I pass will think I’m crazy to tow with a car. That’s just what pickups do, they’ve been told, over and over again. Pickups actually have their drawbacks, though. The guy I bought my Scamp from used a Ridgeline. It had an extended hitch so he could drop his tailgate without hitting the trailer jack. That placed the hitch ball even farther from the rear axle, and that gives a trailer more leverage to jack around with the truck’s rear suspension. So you get a bigger truck, then a bigger trailer… These old sedans with their short wheelbases and long overhangs would suffer form that instability, too.
The photo with the caption “How to keep the buns dry” brought back memories. Went camping in the Pennsylvania mountains Memorial Day weekend. A cold front moved in overnight. I woke up freezing to death under a single blanket. Slept the rest of the night in the car till Walmart opened and bought a zero degree rated sleeping bag. I still have it after 20 years.
I could always tell when our neighbor was getting ready to go camping. Two big ugly strap on mirrors would suddenly appear on his ’62 Mercury a day or two before he’d pull the trailer out of the back yard.
Those mirrors evidently did a good job. I recall the neighbor as being quite skilled at backing his trailer around the house and into the back yard at the conclusion of a camping trip.
Given the width of some of these trailers relative to their tow vehicle, I’m surprised not a single tow vehicle is these mirrors. I thought they were a fairly common towing accessory in the ’50s & ’60s.
Yes, back in the day, my Father had them on both sides of our ’73 Country Sedan (bought early in the year, probably 50 years ago this March) when we were going to pull our 20′ pop-top camper. He did things out of order, he bought the camper first, probably in February, and had a hitch installed on our old ’69 Country Squire (never had a trailer before this one, nor one since) and after buying the Country Sedan, had to take it to the same place to have a hitch installed on it as well…they gave him a hard time about that. My Dad bought the ’73 with the trailer towing package, maybe a bit overkill for a pop-top but he had his family with him and didn’t want to take any chances. However, right before we were going on our first long camping trip, he took the car in for something and they noticed delamination of the Firestone 500 radials (which probably had less than 500 miles on them at the time), which of course were replaced. The radials came with the car, they were catching on about then, but my Dad had them on his ’68 Renault R10 he bought new 5 years prior.
I was a new driver, but I got to spell my Dad a few times during the long trip. The mirrors helped out even with the pop top camper. We removed them when we put the camper in our back yard, my Dad would drive the car in and circle around one of the apple trees (we had 4 in our back yard then) and pull the camper along neighbors fence where it was stored.
Our camping time pretty much mirrored my time living with them, we first rented a pop top about 1966 or 1967, the next year he bought a car-top camper, which we outgrew when my youngest sister was born, so eventually he bought a pop top, but when I got my undergraduate degree and moved away, they only used it a couple of times, then sold it about 1982 when they moved from Shelburne to Texas…a bit too hot for camping much of the year, we didn’t have air conditioning.
We got pretty good at putting up/down the camper quickly, almost a military drill (my Dad had been in the Army, so probably inspired it)…getting it levelled, and also putting on the tarp, which was pretty neat, it was spring loaded and didn’t require any guide wires. The camper was pretty neat, it had a chest of drawers each of us had a drawer we could put our clothes in (pretty small most of them) but also there was a fold down wardrobe for coats…so we didn’t bring any suitcases or bags for clothes…of course the camper had to be up for us to load or retrieve our clothes, but it worked pretty well. Also, the Ranch Wagon was a 6 passenger model without the dual rear seat, and my Dad made an art of packing stuff into it such that my younger sisters could sleep in the wagon area with minimal other stuff on top to get in the way…it worked well for us…but we haven’t been camping since (~40 years).
While the pictures are great, what’s funny about them is they don’t show any of the “big” trailers for the era that were hauled behind cars. Typically station wagons, but sometimes sedans, but some of them were over 20 feet long and shaped like an aggressive brick, not just a box. Unsafe at any speed, maybe. But I don’t recall a lot of visuals or stories about accidents in them. Likely engines and trannys didn’t have robust lifespans, but most of them made it.
Nowadays it seems you need a 3/4 ton pickup truck to rent a utility trailer at a rental yard.