April 10, 2007

New Comforts for Trailer Travel (Feb, 1938)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 9:21 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1938
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New Comforts for Trailer Travel

ANY attractive spot along the road is home, for the owner of the latest in automobile trailers and fittings. Pictures on these pages show some of the most ingenious accomplishments of clever designers in providing new luxuries for those who live on wheels.

Vying to combine roominess with the most elaborate array of conveniences, trailer makers have performed magic space-saving feats. One offers a double-duty fireplace that heats the trailer by day, and turns into a dresser at night! Another provides a three-gallon hot water tank that swings out over a gasoline-stove burner to heat a supply for the washstand, shower, or kitchen sink, and disappears into a closet when it is not in use.

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March 14, 2007

Movies Travel to Town in a Trailer Theater (Aug, 1938)

Filed under: Movies — @ 9:08 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1938
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Movies Travel to Town in a Trailer Theater

Traveling from town to town throughout the northwest, a trailer theater is bringing talking movies to communities lacking theaters of their own. This mobile movie house is fifty-five feet long and comfortably seats sixty persons in bus-style chairs, which are permanently fixed. A small stage over the front wheels permits vaudeville or lectures, and two projectors in a fireproof booth show up-to-date movies against a rolling screen. If power lines are not handy, the plant can furnish its own 110-volt current. Electric fans have been installed.

January 25, 2007

Folding House Becomes a Streamline Trailer (Dec, 1936)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 9:52 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1936
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Folding House Becomes a Streamline Trailer

For the motoring tourist who wants to carry his home along but wants no bulky trailer blocking his rear vision from the driver’s seat, a folding trailer has been developed. When collapsed for driving, it is streamlined to a point at the rear and is below the rear window of the car. Yet when open it is spacious enough for comfortable living quarters, accommodating a double bed and two single beds, stove, sink, refrigerator, water tank, drawers and cabinets. It is six feet two inches wide and thirteen feet four inches long. The single bed supports, when not used for sleeping, form service tables or comfortable side seats. During the day the double bed is latched to the top, out of the way. Springs set in the door frame counterbalance the weight and allow easy opening and closing of the trailer. Four folding legs adjustable for uneven ground make it steady wherever it is parked.

December 5, 2006

HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A CAR (Dec, 1936)

Filed under: Automotive, Sign of the Times — @ 10:55 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1936
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HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A CAR

By H. W. MAGEE

PART I

THE canvas-topped prairie schooner, the original home on wheels, crawled across a continent and transformed it into a nation. This slow, clumsy conveyance carried the pioneers and their meager belongings across the plains and pushed our frontiers westward to the Pacific.

Today America is returning to the covered-wagon era, and the modern covered wagon again is extending our individual boundaries by releasing us from permanent abodes and providing a mode of travel so comfortable and inexpensive that we are likely some day to become a nation of nomads.

Today’s prairie schooner is a streamlined, luxury-crammed “cottage” on rubber-tired wheels. It is hitched to a 100-horsepower car instead of to a team of oxen. Thousands of families are towing these rolling homes behind their cars today, living in them as they travel. They stop where fancy dictates, and wherever they stop, home is waiting just behind the rear bumper. When they tire of sitting still, they move—and take their home along.

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November 28, 2006

Make Trailer From Defunct Auto (Nov, 1932)

Filed under: Automotive, DIY — @ 7:49 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1932
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Make Trailer From Defunct Auto

OLD automobile bodies that have been consigned to the junkyard can still do a lot of good in the world, for they can be pressed into service as very substantial trailers.

The chief operation you will have to perform on the auto is the cutting ofF of the front at about the point of the dashboard. This disposes of the motor and its weight. You can easily contrive your own coupling. In the photo above the side members of the chassis are bent in, to form a V, at the point of which is attached the coupler.

Of course, weight should be reduced to a minimum. Strip the machine down to its essentials, and you’ll have accommodations for extra passengers and luggage when you go camping.

October 16, 2006

Floating Automobile Trailer Cruises Lake Under Own Power (Aug, 1954)

Filed under: Automotive, Just Weird — @ 9:37 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1954
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Am I the only one who thinks this looks like a floating bordello?

Floating Automobile Trailer Cruises Lake Under Own Power

When it’s not rolling down the highway, a trailer owned by a West Berlin woman is likely to be found cruising around a lake.
A pontoon raft turns the amphibious trailer into a houseboat. A small gasoline engine propels it when it’s in the water.

June 29, 2006

Seven Year Old has Pimpin’ Trailer (May, 1954)

Filed under: Automotive, Toys and Games — @ 2:53 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1954
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TRAILERETTE built by Charles Rucker of Flint Mich., for his seven year-old son, Billy, is 32 inches wide and 40 inches high. Billy hauls it around with his battery-powered “hot rod.”

June 22, 2006

Collapsible Bike Trailer Has Comfortable Bunk for Camper (Jul, 1935)

Filed under: Bicycles — @ 8:41 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1935
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I’ve always wanted a bike with an attached sleeping coffin.

Collapsible Bike Trailer Has Comfortable Bunk for Camper
A COLLAPSIBLE bicycle trailer which can be converted into comfortable sleeping quarters has been built by Joseph Do-rocke, 25-year-old Chicago youth. With it he intends to make an 8-months bicycle tour of America, retiring at night in his ingenious sleeping compartment.

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March 22, 2006

“Orange-Peel House” for Campers Fits on Small Trailer (Jul, 1955)

Filed under: Architecture — @ 2:37 pm
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1955
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“Orange-Peel House” for Campers Fits on Small Trailer
Developed in Germany, a portable shelter for camping or trailer travel looks like a gigantic orange —and peels apart almost like one. The parts of the shelter are shaped much like the segments of an orange peel. One person can fasten the segments together to complete the shelter in 15 minutes. The parts of the shelter including the floor are made of plywood. When the shelter is disassembled, the parts can be stacked on a small trailer for the trip to the next camping site. The collapsible house has two windows and a door. In Germany the “orange house” sells for about $150.

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