35 ft.
- Birchwood Beauties Collection -
(Not For Sale)
The Road Master Trailer Company of El Monte, California was one of the earliest pioneers in the travel trailer field. It was 1929, (the same year that Arthur Sherman's Covered Wagon Co., considered by most to be the father of the modern travel trailer, began taking orders for their first trailer), when brothers Ken and Guy Strickler built their first coach.....a 35 footer that Ken and his family lived for several years. This trailer had many features that were still considered modern by the early fifties...including a fireplace! During the next few years the brothers constructed several more trailers in their spare time for sale to other travelers and in 1935 Guy traveled to California, in a trailer he'd built, where he landed a job with the Zimair Trailer Corporation and remained there until 1938. That same year Kend joined Guy in Los Angeles and together they founded the Road Master Trailer Company. From the onset the brothers were intent on building high quality
trailer coaches and, to support that effort, every buyer had the security of knowing that they had a one year guarantee on everything. A feature that was introduced in the early fifties, that helped to make that sort of guarantee possible, was the addition of a one-piece roof that wrapped around the edges of the skin on both sides. This was a big advantage in keeping the interior dry and, in fact, the company was apparently so confident of their quality that they began including two sky lights in the living room ceiling of all of their coaches in 1952.
This beautifully preserved specimen of a 1952 Road Master Model 35, the 35 designating it's length, was kept in its amazing original condition by a gentleman by the name of Robert Drosnick, pictured below. Bob purchased this trailer from its original owner in 1968,
then moved it from Bellflower, California, a suburb of Long Beach, to a small rv park near Eureka. CA....right across Hiway 101 from
the Pacific ocean....to use as a summer retreat. Bob was a very caring and thoughtful caretaker, as you can see by the condition
of this coach. This, and the fact that he had a roof built over the coach, (which took three people three hours to remove....one
of which was me), are the main reasons why the interior is still in such good condition. The coach was originally red and
white, however somewhere along the way Bob repainted it in its current blue & white color scheme....with a brush.
In the summer of 2006 Bob's daughter, Carol, contacted me to see if I might be interested in her father's trailer, as at 91
years old he'd apparently decided that it was time to let it go. So, after getting the low-down on its history and condition, then
after seeing only two photos of it, one of the exterior and one of the interior....and that was simply a partial shot of the living room
which was still full of furniture....I still knew immediately that I wanted to take a chance and purchase this trailer for the Birchwood
Beauties Collection, as it was definitely one of the nicest, original, larger, early fifties, caravan style trailer coaches I'd seen.
So, far, in fact, the only things that needed to done to this trailer have been to clean and polish the exterior paint, after first sealing
all of the skin, vent and window seams, replacing all of the old cast-iron plumbing with PVC, (some of which was rotten and leaking), replacing the old, original fuse box and power cord with new, safer stuff and the old, faded plastic clearance light lenses were exchanged
for glass lenses from the same period. However, there were tail light, or should I say, lack of tail light issues to deal with as well. From
the beginning....which was about 1930....travel trailers in the U.S. were only required to have one light at the rear, which acted as,
not only the tail and brake lights, but there was also a little window on the curved edge of the glass that lit up the license plate as
well. However, around 1950, the National Transportation Department brought out a ruling that all trailers had to have a set of two
individual lights at the back, one on each side of the trailer, not only as an addition to the "cyclops" tail/brake light, but to be wired for turn-signal use as well. Somehow, this coach made the trip from Southern California to Northern California in the late sixties without those additional lights being added, so, we installed a set of reproduction 1950 Pontiac tail lights that have LED bulbs, making them a lot easier to see. We also sand blasted the wheels and painted them white, and I was also able to score two, barely used original chrome baby
moon hubcaps for the curb side, while the two others that came with the trailer polished up very nicely for the street side. These
changes and additions, along with a full set of Firestone, bias ply, 8.20x15" tires from Coker Tire, with correct-for-the-period,
3 1/2"-wide white walls, a correct-for-the-period trailer California license plate from collector Dave Hineman, and a very cool,
vintage, horizontal propane tank that we repainted....pretty well finished off the look I had in mind for the exterior of this coach.
Then , there was the fun of getting to art direct the look of the interior, especially choosing the colors, fabrics, textures and patterns
for the period-correct furniture and furnishings. This included the fifties style sconce-shields I had custom made by Meteor Lights of San Francisco for the original chrome wall-light fixtures, the pale yellow, 2" aluminum venetian blinds from Burris Shades in Oakland, CA and the reproduction, flower print barkcloth fabric, with the cool faded red background from J&O Fabrics in Pennsauken, NJ that seamstress Arisha Brown of Oakland, CA sewed into curtains for the rest of the coach, to go with the bark cloth curtains in the living room....which, by the way, are original and I could see in the only photo I received initially of the interior. However, as cool as that mauve colored couch is, it's really more like from the little later 1955-1959 period. So, eventually, I'll have a custom, early-fifties style, armless couch made to replace it, and the put that one in another trailer in the collection, a 1957 Airfloat Landyacht. Soon, the exterior will be repainted to match the two-toned green of the 1953 Oldsmobile 98 shown below, which has also recently been added to the B.B. collection as a period tow car. (Except, considering that it only has a little over 18,000 original miles, it'll probably be used more as a prop.) In fact, the Road Master and Olds, were shown together in January 2007 at the Northern California Rod & Custom Show, which is held at the Cow Palace in South San Francisco, and Bob Drosnick, who was still very mobile despite his advanced age, actually drove up from Southern California with his significant other and some of his family to see the trailer in the show, meet me and see the restoration shop. That meeting, as well as trailer & car at the Cow Palace, are featured in the photos below. Also, if you click on the picture near the bottom of the Olds pulling the Road Master you'll be linked to a new page where you can see before and after photos of the Olds and read all about its history as well.
