There’s something creepy about old neglected campers. Perhaps it’s the commonality they have with an abandoned home, or the fact that popular culture associates them with “I’ve got some candy in here for you”, but on the other hand, their styling and chassis are representative of the time in which they were built. In the 1950s and 1960s, when road trips were the main way for families to travel, and the mobile home industry was still relatively young, manufacturers tried out various innovative ways of providing a home on wheels. Some of those were the formats you’d still recognize today, and others were, how do you say, different. One of those was dropping a piggyback camper on a conventional sedan, like this 1964 Mercury Park Lane camper, for sale for $1800 in Surrey, BC.
You’ve probably seen poptop VW vans, maybe tents on top of Land Rovers and Land Cruisers, perhaps even heard of the Saab Toppola campers that fit in the trunk with the hatch removed. But these converted sedans are pretty obscure, and this one’s even more interesting for fitting in the reverse incline of the Breezeway rear window. Could you access the camper from the rear window? One popular mechanics article from 1965 suggests you can remove the camper once you arrive at your destination, but then what do you do with it, and is your trunk just open? So many questions. Searching a bit more shows this car has been for sale since early last year, and off the road since 2000. Nonetheless, here’s a picture of it at a car show – the other side is missing the same rear trim section. Said to have a 390, it should be powerful enough to schlep this rig along, plus your family.
Rusty But Trusty 
March 1, 2014 at 2:07 pm |
I wonder why that didn’t catch on…….