Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm a newb and don't really know what it is that followed me home yesterday. I hope ya'll can help me figure out what it is.It looks like a homer, but may be an old kit. Dimensions are 10' L x 4' W x 4' H at max. As best I can tell, skin thickness is 1/16" (sides and top). Skin fasteners are machine bolts and nuts. Windows/doors are matching, look like they belong there, and are not something scavenged from another source. Lower frame is steel angle iron. Tongue is boxed angle (welded on two corners). Center side trim is riveted and looks like a factory job. Fenders are aluminum. Floor and walls are plywood. Steel rods bolted through across the inside at the top for added strength along top corner. Door/hatch handles look like 40's or 50's automotive, but could also be original to an old kit. Hitch is old-school screw bolt (like and old U-Haul trailer). Single tail light looks like 40's or '50's. Whatcha think?

I'll make another post to add more pics. Thanks for your response.

Here's a few more pics:

And a few more:

Nice find! i cant help you with the IDing, but it looks sweet. I think i know where your time is going the next few months

No idea what it is except a thing of beauty.verry nice find

Nice find! It looks like it will clean up relatively easily too.

It looks like you bought yourself a wee bit of rolling work. It looks pretty old. Those can be treasures. Be sure to insulate the cabin or you will freeze your tail off. Aluminum conducts both heat and cold really well. But, you probably already know that....

It looks like a Modernaire.

Nice Modernistic/Modernaire/Cub.

http://www.nicksteardrop.com/photos.htm

Modernistic, Cub and Modernaire
Prefabricated Trailer Manufacturing and Modernistic Trailer Manufacturing, located in the Los Angeles area, made these shiny aluminum trailers in the late 1940s. National Trailer Stores, also based in Los Angeles, distributed them. Ads for the Modernistic, which were available as kits for $280 or fully assembled for $500, appeared regularly in popular handyman magazines throughout the 1940s.

Happy Trails

Len

Thanks, folks, for your responses. You nailed it. Now I just have to find the serial number. Any hints?

I'll also need to figure out how to deal with a few rips/cracks in the skin. I've searched the aircraft skin repair sites and all I come up with is drill a hole at each end of the tear and apply a patch. Any other sources or ideas? I'll never get to restore it to shiny aluminum because of the dents and I'll have to paint it. I can bang out dents and squirt the zinc chromate and enamel.

I'd like to keep it, but it's a little big for my 1500cc-powered MGA. I think the 2300cc, 140 RWHP motorcycle would do a better job of towing in a straight line, but it'd scare all sorts of bodily fluids out of me to hitch it up and let out the clutch. And the extra weight would negate the option of me dating a fat chick. The good part is it would fit my 6' 5" bod. The bad news is I'd have to find a 1947 car to go in front of it. Oh well. we all have to make sacrifices.

Thanks again. I'll let you know how things go. I have a camera and I'm not afraid to use it.

Nice ! very NICE !
Cecil

'rider,
I think it might be time for you to purchase an AC / DC tig welder. I believe that you could carefully hammer out the dents and weld the tears. The missing aluminum could be replaced. The skin repair would be a number one priority. There is a metal working forum that comes to mind, MetalMeet. Good Luck with the project.

BobH.

quote="gorgerider"]Thanks, folks, for your responses. You nailed it. Now I just have to find the serial number. Any hints?

I'll also need to figure out how to deal with a few rips/cracks in the skin. I've searched the aircraft skin repair sites and all I come up with is drill a hole at each end of the tear and apply a patch. Any other sources or ideas? I'll never get to restore it to shiny aluminum because of the dents and I'll have to paint it. I can bang out dents and squirt the zinc chromate and enamel.

I'd like to keep it, but it's a little big for my 1500cc-powered MGA. I think the 2300cc, 140 RWHP motorcycle would do a better job of towing in a straight line, but it'd scare all sorts of bodily fluids out of me to hitch it up and let out the clutch. And the extra weight would negate the option of me dating a fat chick. The good part is it would fit my 6' 5" bod. The bad news is I'd have to find a 1947 car to go in front of it. Oh well. we all have to make sacrifices.

Thanks again. I'll let you know how things go. I have a camera and I'm not afraid to use it.[/quote]

I wish I was closer to it than just a picture. I'd love to study that TD and see how it was made it looks to me like there's very little wood other than the deck involved. From the pics it looks like it's just a skin just riveted together. It must be made well or it never would have lasted this long. I hope I am around it some time to take a closer look.

Art

Very cool


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The Modernistic/Modernaire TD were aluminum skin over a flimsy steel framework. The only wood was the floor so they didn't have a wood rot problem like all the rest. Since the skin was stressed they all have cracks. I just count them as "character", and I do drill holes at the end at each.