Two years ago I got a call from a good friend of mine, Christian, about an amazing vintage trailer for sale at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As it turns out, the University has had a trailer park on the campus since it opened in 1965.
Christian calls me to tell me about this trailer he knows about for sale and he wants to get it into the vintage trailer crew. Because I restored a 1959 Shasta a few years earlier he wanted to know what to look for when considering buying. Well he sends pictures and it is a 1965 Streamline Duke. He then tells me he doesn’t have anywhere to store it and asked if I would like to talk to the owner about purchasing it. So, like any good vintage camper addict knowing it’s not on craigslist, I say absolutely.
The University trailer park was a great service to the few lucky students that lived there because it was roughly 1/3 of the price per month to live compared to anywhere in Santa Cruz County. However, the University had come to the conclusion that the trailers where too old and needed to be replaced with new trailers owned by the University. Up until then, the students had always owned the trailers and once a student graduated they would sell it to the next lucky student and so on.
This small trailer park on Campus is tucked back in the redwoods and the trees have grown a substantial amount around these relic trailers. The redwoods have grown so much, in a few situations there is no longer a way to get the trailer out and will need to be torn apart to leave the park.
Having family in Santa Cruz makes it easy to make a trip to visit. As I am talking with the current owner about selling the trailer, I am looking all around the trailer. There is a deck attached to the door side of the trailer. The redwood pine needles have taken over the roof and are sticking off the top of the trailer by about a foot. The metal is way past being oxidized, and the inside defiantly looked as if, it had been lived in by several college students! The current 18-year old owner of the trailer had no idea how long it had been in its spot. Even in its current state when I dug down past the pine needles on the ground to get underneath it, I looked at the brakes and brake lines, and they looked as if they were brand new!
With the massive amount of pine needles that were on and around it, the level of oxidation, and the super clean brakes and brake lines, my guess was that this trailer hardly ever saw the road, if ever. If my theory is true, then that would mean that it had a bunch of students that lived in it over decades while they were learning at university level – hence the “smartest trailer on the road”. I am still trying to find someone who has more info on exactly how long it was in its spot. My friend did talk to a few people that said the trailer had been there before they started working there 30 years ago.
Then comes the big day to pull it out of its home. My cousin Pete comes with to give me a hand. Luckily the deck had already been removed but there was still a lot to do. We had to take apart a small garden because it was in the path to get out. We had to wench it out straight because if we hooked up to it and pulled, the back end would hit a very full grown redwood tree. (Oh, and did I mention, it is raining hard during all of this.)
A few hours later it is free and ready to leave. We decide to take it to Pete’s house on the other side of Santa Cruz to grease the bearings. Driving down Highway 1 doing 65 mph, I am expecting the decades of pine needles to fly off, NO LUCK. Later, the needles would need to be scraped off by hand.
Once spring came, I brought it home to Truckee so I could start working on it. After restoring my 1959 Shasta and keeping it as original as possible, I decided to do this trailer a bit different. I absolutely love the rustic look but I also like a more contemporary look, and my wife requested more updated amenities. So I landed on a vintage meets modern theme.
I started with demo, flooring, and paint. I then talked to a friend of mine, Eric, who owns a metal shop with a very appropriate company name (Riveted). We then templated the old faux wood wall panels and replaced them with a matte finish light gauge stainless. Eric then made me an amazing stainless counter top and table to match. But before we put the wall panels back in I decided re-wiring the trailer was probably the right thing to do. I then made new benches out of rough sawn cedar. Upgraded the heater, fridge, stove, and AC.
During the restoration I am thinking to myself, “I really need to find time to polish the trailer.” But, between work, family, a baby due in two months and this trailer project, it’s not looking good for me to get to it. At this time I had a mountain bike I had listed for sale, and in the ad I put I was willing to trade for trailer polishing. I get a response from a great guy named, Nick. I ended up selling the bike to my neighbor but Nick asked if he could polish the trailer for cash. Nick was living in his Volkswagen bus and looking to get some cash to get back to New Hampshire. So he ended up living in the front yard or the woods close by and we fed him, had beers with him and it was like he was part of the family for three weeks while he knocked 50+ years of oxidation off the trailer. This is a dirty and hard job, but Nick was a champ and stayed until it was done! After Nick was done I told him he could make money wherever he went polishing trailers and he said, “I will never do it again.”
Restoring a vintage trailer takes a lot of time, money, and knowhow. And when you are on a time crunch and don’t have time to do everything by yourself it is good to have friends to help you out. I would like to thank a few friends and newfound friends for their help. Christian, Pete, Nick, Keith, Eric with Riveted.
