AIRSTREAM

The famous travel trailer has many nicknames 

 "Silver Bullet" 

and

 "Toaster-on-Wheels".

Summer 2025 is here so look for the legendary and iconic Airstream!

Sleek and shiny, Airstream trailers have been turning heads on the highways since they first started caravanning across America in the 1930s.  These "aluminum skinned, gleaming silver bullets" are currently enjoying a revival in popularity.  Praised for their clean lines and timeless aesthetics, movie stars and design buffs are snapping up these vintage beauties.  Airstream has always been synonymous with the freedom of the open road.  Today the dream lives on.

Wally Byam

Airstream trailers are manufactured in Jackson Center, Ohio.  The company, now a division of THOR Industries, is the oldest in the industry.  THOR Industries, Inc. was founded on August 29, 1980 when Wade F.B. Thompson and Peter B. Orthwein acquired Airstream.  THOR became a public company listed on the over-the-counter market.  In 1986, THOR was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.  The same year, Forbes Magazine ranked THOR sixth out of the "200 best small companies in America".

Airstream was created by Wally Byam who began building Masonite trailers in Los Angeles during the late 1920s.  In 1936, Byam introduced the "Airstream Clipper" which was essentially a rebadged 1935 Bowlus Road Chief with the door relocated from the front to the side.  Bowlus is an American luxury travel trailer with a front door, aerodynamic shape with a polished aluminum body. Hawley Bowlus designed and built the travel trailer using his knowledge of aircraft construction.  Aspects of the design were used on the first aluminum-body Airstream trailers and the Airstream Clipper.  Bowlus stopped producing the trailers in 1936.  

William Hawley Bowlus

(1896-1967)

Bowlus was an American designer, engineer and builder of aircraft (especially gliders) and recreational vehicles in the 1930s and 1940s.  Today, he is most widely known for his creation of the world's first aluminum travel trailer, the Bowlus Road Chief which Airstream imitated in 1936 to create the Clipper.  This followed his prior framed work as the superintendent of construction on Charles Lindbergh's aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis. 

Bowlus was an expert at soaring flight and gave gliding lessons to both Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  In 1930, he and Lindbergh glided at various locations in California.  Most notably, Point Loma in San Diego where Bowlus conducted many flight tests.  Anne Lindbergh became the first woman in the United States to receive a "first class" glider license.  In 1954, Bowlus was inducted into the Soaring Hall of Fame.  

This 1962 Airstream Tradewind on display at a Vintage Camper Trailer Rally in Gillette, Wyoming was custom ordered by then President of Airstream, Art Costello in 1961.  This trailer is one of only two known gold Airstreams.  

The Airstream brand is truly a design classic so it is no wonder it's always been popular among famous people who have acquired a taste for the finer things in life.  Whether it's actors, musicians, sportspeople or even politicians, the Airstream has never lost its appeal.  Among the names are the following:  Pamela Anderson.  In 2001, Anderson was given her Airstream by Playboy magnate, Hugh Hefner.  In 2006, an update to the interior decor was done. Since then it was sold at auction. 

The Apollo 11 Astronauts, Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module Pilot, Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr.  splashed down in the Apollo capsule July 1969 following the first moon landing.  The astronauts then spent a period of time aboard a Mobile Quarantine Facility.  The facility was a specially converted Airstream trailer.  An Airstream dubbed the 'Astrovan' was used for many years to transport astronauts from the mission control building a few miles to the Space Shuttle launchpad.

The Mobile Quarantine Facility aboard the USS Hornet listen to United States 

President Richard M. Nixon on July 24, 1969 as he welcomes them back to Earth.  President Nixon Congratulated these brave men on their safe journey to the moon, their safe landing and their safe return to Earth. 

Oscar winning actor, Tom Hanks owned an Airstream and used it while on location during the making of eighteen of his films between the 1980s and the 2010s.  Hanks would rest between takes in his own personal Airstream trailer parked on set for the duration of filming.  Hanks preferred to live in his Airstream than stay in the trailers provided by the studios.  Hanks stated "I had spent too much time in regular trailers with ugly decor and horribly uncomfortable furniture so I decided to buy a brand-new Airstream shell with an interior made to my own request."  His Airstream was used by the actor on the sets of Philadelphia, Castaway, Sleepless in Seattle and Forrest Gump.  In 2021, this piece of movie history was sold at auction by Bonhams for $235,200.00.

Other actors in love with Airstream include Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, 

Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt,

Denzel Washington and Sandra Bullock.

It's not just entertainers who have displayed great affection for Airstream.  These fabulous trailers have also impressed in the world of politics.  President John F. Kennedy used one as his mobile office during weapons testing in the New Mexico desert.  First Lady Laura Bush used one as her private trailer during a morale mission to visit troops in Afghanistan in 2008.