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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.2260973
EAN num: 9780670030552
ISBN number: 0670030554
Label: Studio
Manufacturer: Studio
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: September 29, 2003
Publishing house: Studio
Release Date: September 25, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 196571
Studio: Studio
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Product Description:
Americans in search of family oriented domestic travel, safe and inexpensive, are buying trailers and RVs in record numbers. At the same time-with fantasies of Lauren Bacall sipping an extra-dry Gibson against a gleaming metal doorway in Palm Springs and Lucy and Desi's madcap Long, Long Trailer trip-they crave the vanished luxury and quirkiness of antique auto trailers. Those simpler, slower days of freedom and security are being recaptured in trailers from all eras, rescued and restored as living, road-ready Americana.
Ready to Roll, with more than 300 colour photographs, taps into this trend in gloriously illustrated and insightfully chronicled retro style. Here is the complete evolution of the trailer, from the utilitarian Covered Wagon to the aristocratic Airstream and Aerocar Land Yacht to the homemade Hammer Blows of the Depression. Here too are the people who drove these cherished chariots and increasingly lived in them in trailer parks, from the stereotypically seedy to the likes of Bing Crosby's exclusive Blue Skies Trailer Village. The amazing camaraderie of groups like the Tin Can Tourists marks the trailer phenomenon as a major segment of American consciousness and history.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
This book has a fine combination of beautiful photos and well written text about an American niche. There are stories and examples from all over America that give a glimpse of the joy of seeing the world from a home away from home.
Rated by buyers -
I have a weakness for books on architecture and interior decorating anyway. But this is the one I turn to again and again. For those of us with Champaign tastes and beer budgets, a vintage trailer is ulimately doable. Own your own piece of modernist archeture, albeit on wheels, even though you could never touch a Mies or Wright. When ever I try to figure out what to do with my 1957 Sportcraft (a classic silver-clad "canned ham"), I flip through these pages. I always find something inspiring.
Rated by buyers 
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This is an incredible wealth of information for anyone interested in architecture, travel trailers, and Americana in general. Lovely photography is augmented by nicely coordinated text. Some redundancy is my only criticism.
Bob
Rated by buyers -
An architect and a photographer co-authored this classic mix of pix and text that rolls us down the American back roads in high style. From the early almost-train cars manufactured for the wealthy, to the poor man's alternative --- "Sleep in Your Car," one ad suggests --- we are drawn along by the fantasy of life fully lived away from home, a fantasy that could only have taken root in America, where roads and cars grew up together in serendipitous symbiosis.
Before the metal bodies and custom interiors, there had been the Conestoga wagons and, before that, the wooden gypsy vardos of old Europe. Sheepherders had "arks" made for crawling across the lonesome prairie, precursors to "tin can tourism" that attracted freedom-loving Americans almost as soon as they discovered the practicality of the auto itself.
From the 1930s onward, the question was not if they would buy it but what shape they would purchase, as independent companies vied for a market share, assembling campers shaped like teardrops, bread loaves and fantastical avian forms lifted from the burgeoning airplane industry.
Today's RVers owe much to Wally Byam, a true fanatic whose conception of a trailer accessible to the average middle-class family resulted in the Airstream, arguably the finest development of the pull-along format. With fibre paneled mod cons within and an aerodynamic metal bullet exterior, the Airstream divorced trailering from the Oakie image and spawned many imitators. While confections like the Curtiss Aerocar and Pierce Arrow's faux railcar sought the aristocratic end of the market, and utilitarian itsy-bitsy tent-trailer combos attracted the low budget traveler, Airstream sat doggedly in the middle, offering class, ease of hauling and fine workmanship at an affordable price. "Today, more than four decades after his death in 1962, Byam's basic Airstream design continues to roll off the Jackson Center production lines, still widely regarded as the Rolls-Royce of trailers, and still inspiring imitations."
For nearly fifty years in the heyday of over-the-road vacationing, there was a Very Large Array of metal boxes on wheels, with names like Comet, Gypsy Wagon, Spartanette and Airfloat, and some more durable brands like Shasta. Because these ephemeral blips on the trailering screen were often handcrafted and built, remarkably, to last, many are still rolling or at least set up on blocks in mint condition, alluringly photogenic.
Gellner and Keister sought them out and tastefully snapped their innards and their outer skins, along with the cars that pull them. Where the snowbirds flock, these metal bubbles proliferate, often hauled by cars of equal interest to collectors. Now there's a new craze, and why are we not surprised --- that of building "vintage" campers, look-alikes to the old timey road runners of the early 20th century. Is this true "camp" or what?
Peering inside these metal marvels, via the camera's eye, we get a feeling for what was considered essential to the traveler in times past: parquet flooring, lounge chairs, recessed doors and plastic laminate kitchen counters, the latest thing. Beginning as a simple imitation of home interior design, trailer construction soon became a playground for experimentation in the technology of the tiny, the art of making things work smoothly in cramped quarters without skinning knuckles or having to sleep in a ball.
Like millions of Americans, I've followed the camper craze, the boondoggling and midnight interstate rest area getaways. I've moved with the carnival where homes on wheels have to be durable for the weekly hops. Maybe when I retire I'll look for a campsite at Slab City in California or Quartzite, Arizona.
If you love this book, then you're the guy for me. You and I could hit the high spots --- starting at Braden's Castle in Reno (that's where we'll get married), then on to Shady Dell in Bisbee, Arizona, where overnight guests can stay in vintage trailers. We'll honeymoon there in the Spartan Royal Mansion.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott
Rated by buyers -
Ready to Roll: A celebration of the Classic American Travel Trailer
Although I am admittedly a bit biased because of Tin Can Tourists' association with Dough Keister and this project, I found the book to be top notch. The blend of Arrol Gellner's text with Doug's pictures provides the reader with much more than a typical "coffee table" book.
I believe it deserves a place with Galloping Bungalows and Wheel Estate as a must for those that require a fuller understanding of the RV evolution from the Tin Can Tourists to Airstream Founder, Wally Byam.
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