" >
The RV industry is almost as old as the car business: More than one century. And if you want to see the very first of its kind: take a trip to Elkhart, Ind., to see the 1913 Earl Trailer and Model T Ford.
It’s generally recognized as the oldest non-tent travel vehicle in existence.
You can find it today at the RV/MH (Recreational Vehicle/Manufactured Home) Hall of Fame Museum.
It’s appropriate that it’s in the museum in Elkhart, because so many RVs have been built there. More than anyplace else in the United States.
Estimates are anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of them came from there.
“The RV industry began 100 years ago,” RV Life wrote in 2003.”And within its first decade, nearly every type of RV we have today—tent trailers, travel trailers, fifth wheels and motorhomes” were introduced.
So said RV historian Al Hesselbart, who was involved in the museum which opened in 2007.
Not a lot of information is available about the first RV vehicle other than it was ordered by a Cal Tech professor to be attached to a Model T.
But the museum and other accounts trace the history of RVs in general. And provide more information about the legendary Model Ts.
Some history highlights:
RV historians have pinpointed 1910 as the start of the RV industry. That was when companies in Los Angeles and Saginaw, Michigan, began selling camping trailers.
That was also the time when Pierce Arrow introduced its Touring Landau. The Landau was definitely upscale. It was driven by a chauffeur.
The truck camper in its current form was introduced in the 1940s. Its pre-1920s predecessor: the Automobile Telescope Apartment, mounted on a Model T Ford Runabout.
It even had a modern version of the “slideout.”
The price of that RV was only $100.
Read more in part II.
