Teardrops are not Lonesome

The Second International Teardrop Gathering, scheduled June 16 to 17 at Pioneer Village, a campground in Minden, Neb., was a convention neither for people with contact lenses, hay fever, nor depressing stories to tell. Rather, it was a gathering of more than 100 camping trailers dubbed teardrops.

Teardrops are atavists, tokens of a time when individuals got by on less, because they were flat broke. Teardrops were the aftermath of the Great Depression milieu. They are compact, lightweight, convenient travel trailer, which gets its name from its teardrop profile.

Teardrops first became famous in the 1930s and remained so until the mid 1970s, when they were overshadowed by bigger recreational trailers. As baby boomers begin to approach retirement, teardrops have made resurgence and are burgeoning in the present time.

Most teardrops measure from four to six feet in width and from eight to ten feet in length. They are usually from four to five feet in height. Wheels and tires are usually outside the body and are covered by distinctive fenders. Additionally, bigger teardrop trailers can have the wheels inside the body.

Compared with the ordinary car, teardrops are queer yet striking. It may not be featuring the enhanced Subaru Baja parts but its captivating appeal has endured with time. Teardrops have a room for two people to sleep contentedly. They also feature storage for clothes and other items. In addition, they usually have ‘galley,’ an area for cooking found in the rear under a hatch.

Although factory-made models like the Kit Kamper, built by a Norwalk, Calif., company and launched in 1945, the earliest teardrops were home-built. The first recognized specification for a small teardrop trailer was published by Outdoor Life magazine in its 1936 issue.

Teardrops transformed into a more practical solution to sleeping while traveling instead of spending the night in the car or camping out. They were a way of avoiding the cost of a night in a motel or rooming house as people began to migrate across the country in search of work during the Depression.

Cliff Parker of Canoga Park, Calif., who normally uses a restored 1940 Ford woody wagon to haul an elaborate mahogany-and-ash teardrop trailer, missed this year’s Minden gathering due to teardrop trouble.

“I blew up the transmission going over to Yosemite earlier this year,” he said. He towed his teardrop to a smaller meet in June in Newport Beach, Calif., with his modern pickup. Regardless of what is towing it, the trailer is great for overnight trips, Parker said. But for long distances, “we’ve got to stop and get a room every other night, for a hot shower, if nothing else.”

Jacqueline Winters of Costa Mesa, Calif., brought her hand-built teardrop trailer to the same Newport Beach meet. “We don’t go very far because we only have vintage cars to pull them with,” she said. “But they’re perfect for two people.”

Chris Hart of Glendale, Calif., owns a 1936-vintage trailer built of plywood, with tin and aluminum overlays. He found it a few years ago, rotting for decades in a field in Beaumont, Calif. “I went shopping over fences while my wife went shopping at the outlet mall,” Hart said. He has added touches such as a period-correct icebox and camp stove.

Homegrown teardrops bred until at least the 1950s. But then came a generation of more powerful and larger travel trailers. By comparison, teardrops are in essence frill-free. But they continue to be appreciated by back-to-basics nostalgia buffs. Countries which have active teardrop builders and owners include Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.