8/8/2023 0 Comments 1969 clipper camperLater, that engine would be replaced with a two-cylinder steam engine designed by steam enthusiast Roland Giroux. It featured a two-cylinder White steam engine powered by fuel oil. The updated Housecar is also said to weigh 2.5 tons.Ī year later the design would evolve further, and the 1941 Housecar would ditch the gasoline engines for steam power. It isn’t said what’s under the steel of the 1937 model, but in 1940, Hunt made an update that involved pushing the wheels out for more interior space, a change in body to aluminum, and an upgrade to a 1939 Mercury flathead V8 making 95 HP. The Housecar got a full restoration and Woodworth’s collection was purchased for the museum.Īs I said before, the Housecar was actually a production vehicle and Hunt made improvements on the design along the way. Inside were a bunch of mattresses and shag carpeting all over. Somewhere in the RV’s history, it was converted into a van and painted black with orange tiger stripes. Yep, this RV wasn’t just a one-off built for Hunt, but a real production vehicle. Historian Al Hesselbart from the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum notes that the razor was actually a standard feature. Despite the diminutive size, you get a two-burner stove, a sink with running water, pantry, a refrigerator, toaster, and even an electric razor. Once inside, you immediately see the unit’s small kitchen. When you pull open the door, it pulls out a step that you’d use to climb into the interior. The first thing that blew my mind was the deployable step. But as great as it is outside, the real magic is inside. The exterior is certainly striking and there isn’t a single modern RV that can come close to the elegance of this design. He then took it to a fabricator in Southern California to create its 16-gauge steel fuselage-like skin. The story goes that Hunt acquired a 1937 Ford pickup. It’s unclear what inspired this design, but it looks like streamliners of the era like the Stout Scarab and the Dymaxion. But two years later, Hunt would build this, the Housecar. That’s pretty awesome by itself, but Hunt also had an offbeat hobby: he liked designing RVs.Īs Hemmings writes, in 1935, Hunt took a Willys sedan delivery and threw a bed in it alongside a table, a generator, and a radio set. And he also reportedly tried to buy Howard Hughes’ incredible Doble E20 steam-powered roadster. A car enthusiast, during his film career, Hunt worked on a steam-powered car design. Before his film career, Hunt raced cars and motorcycles. Hunt’s life wasn’t totally dedicated to film. His cinematic CV, though, also included B-listers such as Parachute Battalion and Brooklyn Buckaroos. Hemmings notes his work:ĭespite never getting past the third grade, Hunt was an early Hollywood cinematographer whose work was acclaimed, pre-Oscar, on the Foreign Legion epic Beau Geste, and he later did the camera work for the Oscar-nominated Flying Down to Rio. Hunt made a career in cinematography lasting between the first World War through the 1950s. And if his name even rings a bell, it’s probably because you’re a film buff of some kind. Born in 1884 in Caperton, West Virginia, Hunt is not a household name. I got to see it at the RV/MH Hall of Fame during last week’s giant RV show. Another striking RV from the era is this, the Hunt Housecar, and there’s more to it than good looks. That’s what made Bowlus and Airstream stand out. And the trailers weren’t much different, either. Some looked ungainly or otherwise unappealing. Many house cars of the past looked like a trailer or boxcar tacked onto the back of a truck. Before then, motorhomes were known as house cars. Frank launched his Frank Motor Home, and eventually would help popularize the term “ motorhome” to describe a self-propelled camper. Motorhomes were around during this time, too, but they weren’t called motorhomes. Wally Byam followed it up two years later with his own interpretation of an aluminum trailer, the Airstream Clipper. That trailer borrowed techniques from aircraft construction. Louis–created the aluminum Bowlus Road Chief. In 1934, William Hawley Bowlus–the superintendent on construction of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. When the Housecar was built the RV industry was still in its infancy. Roy Hunt, and it’s so far ahead of its time that it would be usable as an RV today. The 1937 Hunt Housecar is the idea of cinematographer J. In fact, this RV is a whole 85 years old. The campers I saw varied between the novel Airstream eStream and the durable Taxa Mantis, but one RV that stood out to me wasn’t new. Last week, I spent a few days surrounded by hundreds of examples of the latest RVs that you can buy today.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |