Airstream: The Only Survivor of 400 Builders and an Apollo 11 Quarantine

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Wally Byam started out building heavy masonite trailers in his Los Angeles backyard in the late 1920s. In 1936 he introduced the aluminum Airstream Clipper, largely a rebadged Bowlus Road Chief, with one key change: he moved the door from the front to the side, smoothing the nose and cutting drag. It slept four, carried its own water and cost $1,200, about $30,000 today, in the depths of the Great Depression. Its fuel savings made the case, and of more than 400 U.S. trailer builders in 1936, Airstream was the only one to survive.

World War II aluminum shortages halted production, which resumed in 1948, and a plant opened in Jackson Center, Ohio, in 1952. During the 1970s fuel crisis, the budget Argosy line used galvanized steel end caps that had to be painted, hid its link to Airstream until 1973 and introduced the panoramic front window. Boxy SquareStreams in the 1980s were banned, along with painted Argosys, from Wally Byam Caravan Club rallies. After Apollo 11 in July 1969, NASA kept Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard the USS Hornet in a modified Airstream, chosen because its riveted aluminum shell could be sealed airtight.

• In 1981, Airstream's commercial division built a Class A motorhome to serve as a funeral coach.
• The space shuttle Astrovan was a modified 1983 Airstream motorhome, and in 2019 Boeing and Airstream built a new Astrovan for Starliner crews.
• The U.S. Air Force loads Silver Bullet Modules, luxury Airstream trailers, into C-17 cargo planes to carry VIPs.
• Narrower 534 and 604 models for the UK and Ireland are still built in Ohio and often become takeaway food stands in Europe.
• The fiberglass Nest, from a 2016 acquisition, was withdrawn in September 2020, and a 2022 electric concept uses regenerative braking.