About the Silver Streak

Here is a Nice series about the restoration of an Avion truck camper.

In December of 2005 we loaded up the Streak in Trinidad, Calif to sortie au Lake Havasu, Ariz. To visit Auntie Bernice and Uncle Everette Cole. That is a long haul with a little Dodge Dakota pulling a 26 foot Streak. A three day trip actually, over highway 299 to Redding then down Interstate 5 to Bakersfield and across the high desert to Needles, then down. We camped along I-5, then in Bakersfield along the way. The third day we made it to the new Interstate parallelling Route 66 heading towards the River. At Ludlow I decided to take a stretch of the Mother Road again. To a section of Route 66.

Well, poor old Route 66 has really deteriorated in the 5 years since I was along there. Huge sections of pavement have chunked out. I thought I would take the bumps like I do a Haitian road in my Haytian Jeep. Bad idea. I broke loose a spring four miles out of Ludlow. The axle broke off the bottom of the spring and the right rear wheel jammed back into the beautiful anodized body work of the Streak.

Here are some pictures of the damage and repairs.

I purchased this 1975 26 foot Silver Streak trailer on April 30, 02001 in San Jose, California from Paul Jones, who inherited it from his father, Paul H. Jones. The plaque beside the front door announces that this coach was built for "Mr and Mrs Paul H. Jones". This interior shot for an advertizement shows off the kul 70's interior.

The original owner took it on one long trip to Canada behind a Chrysler Newport and a few other short trips. The rest of the time it has been in storage. If you do not know about American streamline trailers, Silver Streak was one of the few remaining competitors to Airstream that lasted past the late 70's. The streak was built in El Monte, California up until those late 70's. After that the Silver Streak was assembled in small numbers in Chico. Apparently they were built to order up until 1996; this according to the Silver Streak history at Tom Patterson's site, and Randall Reynolds.

Avion continued on into the late 80's and still exists today, as a unit of Holiday Rambler, but they are no longer of aluminum aircraft style construction. They are fifth wheel trailers. Airstream now stands alone as a conventional pull along, aircraft construction trailer.

The Streak was a very expensive unit to build. They have more interior room than Airstreams, having a flatter roof and more squared off corners, as you can see.

Tom Patterson has a web site with pages about the aircraft construction trailers. He covers the Airstream, Silver Streak and Streamline trailers. The Silver Streak and Streamline look basically identical to me at this point.

The Silver Streak was one of the aero travel trailer models which began being produced in the USA after the big war. Many aviation engineers looking for new jobs created numerous travel trailer models for the leisure boom. The Boles Aero is a famous one. My sister pamela has a Boles. The first Silver Streaks were much more streamlined than this one, with hardly any flat roof at all. This particular 1975 model was built in El Monte, California. Sometime after this the company was moved to Chico, California, where production continued into the 1990's. I found some pictures of the 1995 model Sterling with the radius of the roof drastically reduced yet again. This progressive squaring off of the body corners was to increase storage room inside at the expense of wind resistance. As todays monster fifth wheel trailers demonstrate, towing economy is no longer of interest to owners of four door pickup trucks with 500 foot-pound diesel engines. I have seen a Silver Streak motor home built on a Dodge 2500 van chassis.

Other streamline trailers include the Avion, Curtiss Wright and Airstream of course. Curtiss Wright was an aircraft manufacturer between the wars. The Airstream is the only one to survive in classic form. In Bisbee Arizona there is a little trailer park with a nice collection of restored aluminum travel trailers fitted out for nightly rentals. It is a motel as well as a travel trailer park. A nice 50's style diner is en place as well.

Of the photos below, the top photos are at the Beach RV Park on Portola in Santa Cruz. This is just a kilometer or so from my old Pleasure Point house. Some photos from my desert wanderings include in front of the Bagdad Cafe in the Mojave, Hackberry in Arizona and US 95 in Nevada with a torn up Streamline trailer in the background.

Here is a version of a brochure for a Silver Streak, probably from the 70's. I obtained these photos thru email from another Silver Streak owner.
And Here is part of a brochure for the 1995 model Sterling. These came with a rear bedroom finally, like the Airstream.

Cleaning the anodized aluminum of the Silver Streak is a problem. It is not intended to shine, but over years the micro surface of the anodizing becomes discolored with grime from the air and water deposits. Zep Aluma clean is an acid bath which will clear it up considerably. The manuals recommend washing with turpentine solution. I sprayed WD-40 over it to get the following photo.

The Silver Streak

Continental