I’ve always loved airstreams. Who doesn’t? But THIS. Now THIS is a truly unique and incredible trailer.
Evidently there were only 5 ever made, and this is the only one still in existence. In 1960, it had a sticker price of $8,495. This was a time when you could purchase a decent house for $13,000. America just wasn’t ready for luxury mobile living, so after a couple of years of trying to make a sale, the showroom closed in 1962, and this trailer was purchased for $5,000 by the showroom manager. In 1995 she passed away, and her sister sold the trailer for a couple hundred dollars.
In 1999 a Los Angeles architect named Bardy Azadmard saw the trailer along side the road with “for sale” painted in the window. The trailer was so rat infested that you couldn’t breathe inside and all the wiring and plumbing had been chewed to bits. However, after nearly a decade of work and careful attention to detail, he brought the project back to life in all its original glory (from the teak cabinets to the original appliances).
The restoration cost around $20,000, and the trailer has since been sold (Sept. 2011) to a buyer in France and shipped over seas. The selling price? Undisclosed, but Azadmard says it went for as much as you’d currently pay for a house!
The whole story, including the history of its design and production, scans from the original appliances, some scans from the original advertising campaign, available floor plans and options, information about the restoration project, information from the assembly line, etc. is available at this website: http://1960prototype.com. The site is nothing flashy, so you may think you’re in the wrong place at first, but the information and photos are all there.
