1963 Airstream Bambi Travel Trailer

Wally Byam was born on the Fourth of July in 1896 in Baker City, Oregon. He loved the outdoors and had a keen sense of wanderlust. But his wife did NOT. So in the late 1920s, he had the notion to attach a tent contraption on top of a Model T chassis, in order to provide her with some more comfort on their trips. He eventually built a proper trailer, and in 1931 opened the first Airstream trailer factory in California.

The business survived the Great Depression and World War II, and business started to boom after the war. He pitched the trailers to the average person, "With no worry as to where you are going to stay or how the means are going to be when you get there . . . you have plenty of carefree time to see the sights instead of hurrying through them." He also led Airstream Caravans across the globe, traveling through Mexico and Central America, Europe, Canada, and from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. The Airstream Caravans produced a group of owners who formed a club to maintain the friendships they'd made during the trips. In 1955, the first Airstream Club was founded.

This 1963 Bambi was the company's smallest model, a single-axle trailer roughly the same length as the average passenger car. Its areodynamic body is all lightweight aluminum. Byam had worked in the areonautics industry, and took inspiration from airplanes in designing the Airstream body.

 

Wally Byam promoted his Airstreams with a rather beautifully idealistic manifesto, which reads in part:

In the heart of these words is an entire life's dream. To those of you who find in the promise of these words your promise, I bequeath this creed . . . my dream belongs to you.

• To place the great wide world at your doorstep for you who yearn to travel with all the comforts of home.
• To keep alive and make real an enduring promise of high adventure and faraway lands . . . of rediscovering old places and new interests.
• To open a whole world of new experiences . . . a new dimension in enjoyment where travel adventure and good fellowship are your constant companions.
• To encourage clubs and rallies that provide an endless source of friendships, travel fun and personal expressions.
• To lead caravans wherever the four winds blow . . . over twinkling boulevards, across trackless deserts . . . to the traveled and untraveled corners of the earth.
• To play some part in promoting international goodwill and understanding among the peoples of the world through person-to-person contact.
• To strive endlessly to stir the venturesome spirit that moves you to follow a rainbow to its end . . . and thus make your travel dreams come true.

This video gives a glimpse to the interior of an 1960s Airstream:

More history of Wally Byam and the Airstream: https://www.airstream.com/blog/the-creed/