My dad found my teardrop at the swap meet under the W-X Freeway in Sacramento back in 1987. I had always wanted a teardrop, and this one was in pretty good condition. The previous owners had replaced the wood floor, and the rest is all aluminum, so it can’t rot. The teardrop even came with the original tent that snaps onto the back to create a second room—I’ve only used that once. I paid $350, and since then, we’ve traveled all over the western states.
I didn’t even know what make it was until I’d owned it for many years. It’s registered as a ’71 SPCNS, which it obviously is not. This is no homemade trailer. Unlike most teardrops, it’s not built from wood—it’s all riveted aluminum, like an Airstream. It’s also a bit wider, with no external fenders and instead has fender wells. In my opinion, it’s probably the best teardrop trailer ever produced.
After owning the trailer for about 15 years, I was returning from a trip to the Grand Canyon when someone flagged me down on the highway. We both pulled over, and he told me he had the same trailer. He said it was a Tourette, built by the Universal Trailer & Manufacturing Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, in the 1940s and early 1950s. Later, he sent me a copy of an original advertisement, which confirmed it.
For years, I used the teardrop just as I got it. I didn’t even change a tire until I had a blowout on Hwy 101 late one miserable night. But we went everywhere—up and down the coast, through the Sierras, even stayed in the parking lot at Sierra Ski Ranch so we could hit the slopes early. Crossing the Nevada desert showed me how well it towed at high speeds. We cruised well over the speed limit on Hwy 50, and I could barely tell it was behind me.
We also went to a bunch of music festivals. The teardrop was always the center of the camp. Everyone else had tents, and I’d back the teardrop into the middle because it had the kitchen. At first, that kitchen was just a shelf for the Coleman stove, but by the ’90s, I did a full remodel—adding a stove, oven, refrigerator, and running water. When I bought the water tank, I told the guy at the trailer shop I was going to mount it above the sink and rely on gravity instead of a pump. He insisted I’d be back to buy the pump. I never did.
By the early 2000s, I finally got around to fixing up the exterior—replacing the taillights, door handles, and giving it a good polish. What a difference that made!
We continued to take it on many more trips, but in recent years, I started longing for some of the creature comforts of a full-size trailer—like a table and, especially, a toilet. So, I bought a ’71 Aristocrat Lo-Liner and sold the teardrop. At the time, I had the strange idea that I couldn’t own more than one trailer. I don’t know why—I’ve certainly never followed that rule with cars.
The Aristocrat was nice, but it just didn’t shine like the teardrop. So I sold it and bought a ’64 Airstream. I love my Airstream, but I’ve always regretted selling the teardrop. The Airstream is great, but the teardrop is the teardrop. It’s irreplaceable. I may not want to use it every time I go camping, but it’s still the ideal trailer for certain trips—and it’s just so cool. I’ve owned it for more than half my life, and it holds a lot of memories.
During the two years it was gone, I kept an eye on eBay and Craigslist and came to realize how rare and special my teardrop had been. The Tourette really is one of the best teardrops ever built, and mine was in great shape with some unique improvements.
Still, I figured it was gone for good—until one day I got a call from the woman I had sold it to. It turns out she never registered it in her name, and now she was moving and needed to sell it. But without a title, she had a problem.
When I sold it to her, I had signed a bill of sale and offered to sign whatever else she might need for registration. We hadn’t spoken since—until she called two years later. After a few weeks of back-and-forth and my efforts to get a duplicate title, I bought my teardrop back.
Now it’s home where it belongs, and I couldn’t be happier. I even took it to the state fair, towing it behind my ’35 Ford pickup, and it was the hit of the car show. It’s such a relief to have my teardrop back.
