Early dawning, Sunday morning........

It's just the wasted years so close behind you......

Early morning start, outside our home in Gloucestershire -

Early morning arrival, central London -

I spent the best part of my late teens waking up on Sunday m

ornings in London with a hangover, red eyes and the urge to blast a bit of Lou

Reed and wake up my long suffering next

door neighbours.

Some things change, but then again some things don't, I found myself driving into London last Sunday morning, with hangover, red eyes and you guessed the same urge to play Lou Reed at a reasonable level.

This time it was work, I was delivering a vintage trailer converted to a

coffee shop to the Oxo Tower SW1.

With the kids in the back I decided we had time to do a little sightseeing. 10 Downing Street above, then onto Trafalgar Sq and Nelson's column.

A quick drive by Harrods -

Never one to miss an opportunity I pulled over on the mall and started serving a few Aussie tourists......

Quick stop in Covent Garden, I worked nightshift in the Gardening Club/Rock Garden on the Plaza. It's been taken over

by apple.

It really turned out a 'Perfect Day'. With the Trailer delivered on time and on budget and with very impressed clients we headed to Belgo for

some hair of the dog...

excape

it's in the name......

This was very amusing little find. I was alerted about this little girl, an extremely rare mid 50's whale tail bubble.

When I got the pictures I really did think it was a wind up considering my surname is Harkness

Making ribs in the hot weather

It's been a hectic few months with Airstreams to say the least.





With our workshop running a little behind schedule weekends and weekdays have merged into one just for the moment.


Hopefully things will adjust back to normal in time for the kids breaking up for summer so we can do a little exploring ourselves.


We managed to make time to meet some of our fellow airstream bloggers. Tracy and Pete who are currently full time airstreamers popped by and we spoke about the possibility of bringing over aa founding member of the WBCCI at a future meet. We also had Chris who is doing up his flying cloud drop by and pick up some left over goodies from the 50's. It was great meeting everyone and wish I had more time to hangout.

We decided to move over a bit more inventory from the states and among the newcomers are two whaletails, little and large. It's a paradise for whale watchers -



The task of making ribs for a 50's trailer resulted in a few failed attempts before hitting the right formula -


This particular project is due to be delivered into central London early next month and could well be on the way to becoming a central London landmark. More to come on the delivery in the next few weeks.

My dear wife Hazel has been kind enough to knit us an office tea cosy, I think if weather continues we will be asking for knitted drinks coolers -

exploration works begin on wally and stellas little bubble

I've started to get under the covers of Wally and Stellas little bubble to see what makes her tick.

Time just disappears so quickly.



When I first started working on these trailers I started to notice a little red mark under the rivet heads. I quickly realized that this was just mark for drilling the rivet holes. The workers at airstream seem to use it for marking out the interior fixings also.
Byam Hooks are dotted all around the inside of this trailer and are very handy. I have a small collection of them already, so I may even add a few more.

The front plate is aluminum not steel. The four steel bolts had all snapped along with the weld on the front cross member which was why she had front movement.

At some stage there had been a small fire under the front near side floor



Overall the chassis is solid but there are a couple of broken weld seems. I'm going to send a sample off to a lab and have the alloy identified


Here's a quick video to give you idea of the condition of the chassis -




Another rainy day in Gloucestershire. I have a number of parts that I need to replace including this roof vent. Someone has rigged up a very crude clear cover with is letting in a good bit of rain.


The original floor was screwed to the chassis and outriggers, not bolted like normal. Around the C channel the floor had blots all around and no screws.

55 years on from 1955 the #1 trailer is back safe and sound

Many thanks to all that helped bring this little beauty back for me. I've got a very nice historic potting shed for the moment but at some stage we will hopefully have a very nice vintage camper also.

Having acquired the #1 Airstream I also seem to have acquired the #0 if there was such a thing. I've been advised there was a #00 owned by the Andy Anderson family, personal friends of the Byams and the Schwamborns but can't find anything on a single zero. The number was very old and clearly there was just one digit front and back. They had been covered over by a few layers of other stickers.

manhattan transfer

escape from the country

every so often i need to get away from day to day life and do something a little different. when i lived in the city i'd escape to the country and since i moved to the country i tend to like escaping to the city.
the plan was to hit a few watering holes in manhattan then hit the fresh snow dumps in breckenridge co. but at the last minute i cancelled the ski trip and instead opted to hang out a bit longer in the city. i had a few trailers on the move that week, two on the lower east coast that i co-ordinated the moves over the internet/phone but also had a 56 custom sitting up in new england ready to move plus i had the insides of a 1950's redbird subway carriage to pickup and ship.



all was set for an easy trip down to manhattan with the 56 custom ready to load up with my subway stuff and head to port. the custom is kinda like half caravanner / half flying clould, a very interesting yolk.






i got to visit andrea the owner of the famous airstream top dog bambi, at his home near middletown ct, he's been serving hotdogs from this 'vending' trailer for 25 years. i think he's started a craze for airstream vending in europe.




but things came to a very quick halt near westport ct, the state troopers pulled the trailer over because the plate that was out of date . i was told they should have impounded the trailer and tow car, but with the luck of the irish we got away with driving to the next gas station and got told to basically magic up a dealer/transfer plate . again with the luck of the irish the gas station owner gave me unlimited time for parking there , amazing. having worked in westport for a while i knew a little bit about the area and within 3 hours we had the trailer back on the road and heading towards SoHo in Manhattan via an overnight sleep in white plains.












as you can see she has a very nice body, but needs a good clean up.












quick holiday snap with friends on crosby st.















we drove by paul mccartneys daughters shop in the meat packing district










We gate crashed a photo shoot with an old new york city bus.







we got a good view of the empire state building.

















then on arrival at port we got greeted by pk ryan, he was 100% irish. twic approval was not an issue. that's his family crest tattooed on his right arm. great guy and look forward to seeing him again.













the drop went well and i had a good look around that the other bits in the yard.







i'm a big fan of fury dice but maybe not pink ones......
















the gwb was nice n empty on the way back into town.


















back in the hood i decided to head straight to sullivan st for a 60 mins back rub and then of to the bakery for a splice of potato pizza, i guess it's kinda like irish pizza.

then i got back to my city vacation and hit a few more watering holes.