Is it a motorhome? Is it just a car and trailer caravan? Well,
although it comprises a motive unit and a living unit, this outfit
was conceived and developed as a whole. The objective was to achieve
the ultimate in streamlining or, as we’d say today, it was
all about drag coefficients. So, we are stretching a point and
opting to classify inventor Angelo Novo’s creation a motorhome.
Novo, from Guadalupe, California, designed and built his ‘vacation
equipment’ in the late 1930s and his friends named it the
‘Ritz of the Road’. The tractor unit is based on a Chevrolet
chassis with the Chevy engine - probably their 3.2-litre ohv six-cylinder
‘Cast Iron Wonder’ engine designed in the late twenties
and in use until the fifties - at the rear. The body consists
of a steel frame clad with thin plywood and the vehicle is just
a two-seater. It was able to reach 80mph.
The caravan unit - 16ft long by 6ft wide and 7ft high - was on
a special low chassis; the sidewalls were of plywood again and
the top was aeroplane fabric over a structure of quarter inch
laths. Two doors on the right open to a kitchen and lounge/diner
at the front and a bedroom at the rear.
Streamlining had more merit in the USA where higher towing speeds
were permitted than the 30mph maximum for caravans here in the
’30s. Contemporary comment in ‘Caravan World’,
in which this outfit featured in 1937, drew attention to the space
limitation imposed by the streamlined style and showed a hankering
for the old ‘box-type’ ’vans. The sentiment perhaps
lingered on for a good many years and resulted in some of those
rather brick-shaped motorhomes which we still remember well.
|
|
