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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Celebrating 100 Years On The Open Road


Trailers, motor homes change drastically since 1910




Planning on traveling this summer in an RV? Historically-speaking, you’ll be in very good company.


In 1931, Mae West’s Paramount Studios contract included a chauffeur-driven “house car” for the star to relax in while filming movies. In the early 1940s, aviation pioneers Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, needed someplace quiet where they could write, so Henry Ford let them use a 1935 house trailer he owned that was equipped with electricity, a stove, an icebox, a bathroom and other “modern” amenities. And in the ’60s and ’70s, TV reporter Charles Kuralt famously criss-crossed the country in a motor home while filming his popular “On the Road” features for CBS News.

Today, West’s 1931 Chevrolet is just one of the unusual, iconic or prototypical vehicles on display at the Recreational Vehicle/Manufactured Home Hall of Fame and Museum in Elkhart, Ind. The 1935 Stage Coach Trailer Henry Ford loaned to the Lindberghs is parked at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich., as is Kuralt’s 1975 Motorcoach.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw something sort of strange the other day on US-13. . . . A large motor home, with handicap license plates.

I thought, "Where does that allow them to park?" I've never seen a handicap parking space that could accommodate a vehicle that large.