Most of us from a long-in- the-tooth generation can readily recall a time when holiday trailers were hauled by cars.
It was easy to spot a car/trailer combination at night during the summer: a set of headlights aimed at roughly the same flight path as low-flying aircraft.
Headlights pointed skyward were the result of a lightly sprung car dragging along a very heavy holiday trailer.
A bumper hitch and plucky optimism were the main ingredients of a trailer- towing package in those days.
The idea of a transmission cooler, frame-mounted hitch, extra load suspension and oversized cooling system were as foreign as the idea of gas prices over 30 cents a gallon to highway vacationers during the time of baby-aged Baby Boomers.
Last summer we encountered a cross-country tour that included vintage cars-many of them were hauling vintage trailers. It was a very familiar sight from a bygone era for us; one that was a warm and welcome reminder of summer vacations as kids.
This was a comfortable blast from a past where Archie and Superman comics supplied the road entertainment, along with non-video games such as I Spy and name that make, model and year.
The road games forced us to actually look out the car windows to compete and we were lucky to have lived in a non-electronic world of actual contact with people, places and things while on vacation.
Vintage trailers behind vintage cars have their own built-in nostalgia appeal for those of us rapidly approaching the median age of dirt.
The sight of the car/trailer combination will compete very favorably with old songs in our fond memory catalog.
Golden oldie trailers are less common than old songs because most of the holiday trailers have long since passed on to that great campground in the sky.
We salute anybody who will combine an old car and trailer on the road in 2011. You are personal heroes to those of us who remember a summer place and time when both were very common.
Thanks for the memories-with all due respect to Bob Hope.
Jim Sutherland
More old car memories and pictures at https://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/
COMMENTS
BERNIE:”Cars, comics, holidays. It meant we were going somewhere. A new adventure, an escape from home”.
JENN:”haha, I kept the bumper hitch on my car, people tell me to take it off but seriously could a car now-a-days tow anything?! LOL! I love it!”