Our Airstream hunt

OK, I didn't start out looking for a T@B. I wanted an Airstream, the iconic aluminium "Cadillac of trailers." (Well, maybe now the "Lexus of trailers" would be more fitting.)

So we started looking. Juliet wasn't convinced, but I got her to come with me to Bates RV, a massive Airstream dealer in Florida. (I think she gave me a time limit - maybe 45 minutes max.) Turns out she really liked them too. We narrowed down the search to a specific floorplan - the 16' Bambi CCD - that could be towed with our Odyssey. (Well, just barely.)

Well, there's a problem. Airstreams are massively expensive new, and Bambis are in high demand used. (They are a popular Craigslist scam target.) The best we could find was a $22k trailer at an Ohio dealer that sold in 4 hours. (This was pre-recession.) Not good.

Move on to used Airstreams. Something like 70% of all Airstreams are on the road, but like the story goes about George Washington's axe (the one with 3 new handles and 2 new heads), it doesn't mean they didn't need work to get there. Lots of folks restore old Airstreams, but they often need a new floor (they rot from roof leaks) and axles (the rubber hardens up and they "sag.")

This is complicated by Airstream having a big hiatus in their small trailer offerings. They built small (18' or so) trailers up to 1971, then didn't offer any until 2001. That limited my options.

So I spent hours searching online. We found a rare Argosy Minuet 20' in Pennsylvania, but it sold 20 hours before we could get to it. (The buyer paid for it sight unseen!) Then we found this trailer, a 2001 Airstream Bambi 16'. Turns out they only built 16 of them, yet we found one right up the road in Connecticut!



Well, the floor was rotten, it was wet behind the dinette, and there were mildew spots on the side walls. Plus, it had one tiny bed, plus an overhead bunk. (The owner told me that her adult daughter slept there, but I'm skeptical.) I was done looking in 10 minutes, even before Jules could show up. (The trailer sat for another 8 months, and was just recently listed on eBay.)

Sad, I spent an evening surfing the web for alternatives. Someone on a thread on Airforums (titled "What would you buy if you didn't buy an Airstream?) mentioned T@B. I went to the website and was smitten. Jules was travelling for business, so I sent off a hyper email to her, all excited. She was wary about their size, but a trip together to the dealer (I went by myself to the local dealer the next day) convinced us it could work.

And another search began. (As you can see, it turned out OK.)