When Mobile Homes Really Were Mobile: Bowlus and Airstream

Ever wondered why what we call mobile homes are almost never mobile, and usually seem resolutely un-homelike?  As an architect, I've wondered too, and encountering a standard model mobile home forces me to ponder all kinds of design fixes that could make the thing work better. Now and again, though, usually when on a cross-country road trip, I'll see an Airstream, and an Airstream is very much an exception to business-as-usual trailers. If it's parked, I will walk around the friendly, bright metal Twinkie form of the thing, just to admire it. If mobility was indeed ever the goal, it would seem that the Airstream people solved it around 8 decades ago...

Here's an Airstream Clipper being towed by a Lincoln Zephyr.  Both the polished aluminum Clipper and John Tjaarda's unit construction V12 Zephyr made their first appearance in 1936, a full three years before the New York World's Fair gave Americans a glimpse of the World of Tomorrow. Wally Bayam had formed the Airstream company in 1931.  Before that, like some of today's Tiny House movement innovators, the Stanford history graduate had started by offering sets of plans for people to build their own travel trailers, then moved on to offering ready-made kits for home assembly, finally building trailers in his backyard*. Early Bayam trailers were made of Masonite, a novel but heavy material.  Meanwhile, by 1934 Hawley Bowlus, the designer of the Spirit of St. Louis, had designed the first aluminum trailer with riveted panels echoing aircraft practice.  Bayam, who had also worked in advertising, became involved in selling the new Bowlus Road Chief, and Bowlus was able to build about 80 trailers before suspending production in autumn of 1936...

Here's a Bowlus trailer behind another pitch-perfect tow car, the rear-engined T87 designed by Hans Ledwinka for the Czech Tatra firm (see our post for Nov. 27, 2015 for more on Tatras).  The silver car, with its teardrop forms and dorsal fin, looks ready to float into space with the somewhat zeppelin-like Bowlus.  Somehow, you wouldn't be surprised if Bruce McCall, the cartoonist who popularized Steam Punk before it was called that, emerged from either the car or the trailer.  On Bowlus trailers, by the way, the door was at the front...

That's one way you can tell Bowlus models, like the small Papoose and larger Road Chief above, from the Airstream offerings.  When Wally Bayam bought the Bowlus company at the end of their production run, he adapted their Road Chief design for the '36 Airstream Clipper, moving the door from the front to the side for improved aerodynamics and also easier access to the trailer when still hitched to a tow vehicle.  A variety of tow vehicles could be used, and publicity photos emphasized the Airstream's low weight...   

Even at the original price of $1,200 when roughly half that would buy a new Ford V8 tow car, the Airstream Clipper was a hit. It slept four, offered the convenience of electric lights and a self-contained water supply, and looked like the future.  It may not have hurt the sales effort that when Airstream took over Bowlus, a former ad man took over management from an aeronautical engineer.  Bayam must've done the marketing right, because Airstream was the only survivor of the many dozens (some say hundreds) of travel trailer builders in Depression America to resume production after World War II.

Today, both the Tiny House movement and a revival of interest in the roots of modern design have prompted many to revisit streamlined aluminum trailers. Architect Paul Welschmeyer did a superb job of adapting this Airstream interior for working and living space, making clever use of materials, color and shape to enhance the existing forms. Appliances are solar-powered, and the gauges and dials seem imported from a vintage episode of Science Fiction Theater. The repetitive circles may refer to the aircraft practice of drilling for lightness, as well as forming a link to all those rivets.

*Footnote:
It seems fitting that the first Bayam and Airstream trailers were built in Los Angeles. Another plant was later opened in Ohio, and Airstream still builds trailers in Jackson Center. Production of the Bowlus Road Chief has recently been revived by a Canadian couple who migrated to trailers from the tech industry.   

Photo credits:
Top:  archiveboston.com
2nd:  tincantourist.com & wikimedia
3rd:  hemmings.com
4th:  rvshare.com
5th:  bolide.co.uk
6th:  rvshare.com + Impressive Magazine