The Curtiss Aerocar was a multi-purpose, fifth-wheeled trailer designed by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and built in Opa-locka and Coral Gables, Florida and Detroit, Michigan in the US between 1928 and 1940.
The Curtiss Aerocar is the first-known production travel trailer built in the US and the first-known production travel trailer in the world to use a fifth wheel coupling.
The Curtiss Aerocar was designed on aircraft principles using lightweight materials and aerodynamic styling. It was both fast and stable, reaching speeds in excess of 70 mph under tow. The Curtiss Aerocar was used for public transport, mobile commerce and haulage purposes as well as recreation during the late 1920s and 1930s.from Aerocar brochures held at the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum
Called by Fortune Magazine in 1937 "the Rolls-Royce of the trailers", Florida-built Aerocar models cost $2,500 and above in 1929 and were custom-built for the wealthy. Lower-priced production models of the Aerocar ($1,000 to $1,500 in 1929) were manufactured under licence in Detroit. Prices increased at both locations during the 1930s.
The Aerocar's fully-enclosed cabin furnished with luxury amenities enabled owners to take recreational vehicle vacations in hitherto unknown levels of comfort. In facilitating fast and safe long-distance travel by road it offered a viable alternative to interstate railroad and air travel and played a leading role in the development of the US travel trailer industry.
The Curtiss Camp Car (1919) The Curtiss Camp Car (1919) was the first recreational vehicle known to have been built by Curtiss for private use. It was an early fifth-wheeled RV that was the prototype of the Aerocar.
As well as being an aviator and motorcyclist Curtiss was also a keen hunter and camper. In 1919 he developed in association with his half-brother G. Carl Adams at least one prototype camping trailer for use on private vacations in New York and Florida. Curtiss' aim in building a recreational vehicle was to create a camping experience comfortable enough for the whole family. The prototype vehicle was conceived as a fifth-wheel trailer and named the Camp Car. Its design and key features would be replicated in the Curtiss Aerocar eight years later.
A patent for the Camp Car (US Pat. No. 1437172) was filed on 28 April 1921 and issued on 28 November 1922. Although the Curtiss Camp Car patent referred to a second forthcoming patent application for a Curtiss-designed fifth-wheel coupling, no such patent was submitted. Images of the Camp Car held in the archives of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum indicate that the fifth-wheel hitch used was the commercially available Martin Rocking Fifth Wheel.
The Adams Motorbungalo (1920-22) The Adams Motorbungalo was the first recreational vehicle designed by Curtiss in 1920 that went into production.
Although Adams wrote in 1921 that the Camp Car weighed over two tons and was too heavy to navigate sandy or swampy ground,from p1 of an Adams Motorbungalo brochure (1922) held in the archives of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum there was sufficient interest in the idea from other campers for Curtiss and Adams to refine the design and go into limited production. It came in several variants costing up to $1,200 and was manufactured by the Adams Trailer Corporation at Hammondsport and Long Island, New York.
The revised camping trailer was known as The Adams Motorbungalo (also "Adams Motorbungalow" and "Adams Motor Bungalo") named after Carl Adams. The Adams Motorbungalo was a shorter, lighter trailer than the Camp Car featuring space-saving 'pullman' (drop-down) beds rather than fold-outs. It used a conventional ball hitch in order to suit a wide range of tow vehicles. The chassis was based on a small goods trailer originally used in Curtiss aircraft factories to transport aircraft engines and machinery. Both the goods trailer and Adams Motorbungalo were patented in Canada (CA222,875 issued on 22 August 1922 and CA 221,009 issued on 18 July 1922).
Despite strong initial demand for the Adams Motorbungalo, it was too expensive for the average auto camper and only about 100 units were produced between 1920 and 1922. Manufacturing ceased when Carl Adams left New York to join Curtiss in Florida in 1922. The Adams Trailer Corporation was dissolved in December 1922.
The Brighton Trailer (1927) From 1920 until his death on 23 July 1930 Curtiss was heavily involved in community and real estate development in south Florida. In partnership with local cattle farmer and agricultural innovator James H. Bright, Curtiss developed the new cities of Hialeah (1921), Country Club Estates (1924, renamed Miami Springs in 1930) and Opa-locka (1926), collectively known as the Curtiss-Bright Cities. To support these new communities Curtiss and Bright became patrons of Miami's backcountry and undertook agricultural, farm animal, irrigation, drainage and even aerial seeding trials in the Miami region with the goal of improving agricultural resilience, long-term employment and year-round commercial activity in an otherwise winter-focused, tourist-driven economy.
In about 1927 truck farmers who worked on Curtiss-Bright-owned land at Brighton in Florida under a co-operative farming model were provided by Curtiss with one or more basic fifth-wheel goods trailers designed by Curtiss and probably built by former aviator and Aerocar engineer Hugh Robinson to deliver their farming produce to retail, restaurant and hotel customers in Miami. The farming trailer bore a close resemblance to the Curtiss Camp Car.
In April 1928 entrepreneur and Miami Beach developer Carl G. Fisher was given a ride in the farming trailer. Fisher was so taken by the experience that he persuaded Curtiss to patent the trailer and develop it for broader commercial and recreational use.Letter from Fisher to Curtiss dated 30 April 1928 from the Clement Melville Keys Papers at the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives Fisher used his extensive contacts among the "gasoline aristocracy" of Detroit to drum up interest in the trailer while Curtiss produced an improved prototype that would become known as the Aerocar. In August 1928 one of the Curtiss farm trailers was repainted, rebadged as an Aerocar and used as a rolling billboard to advertise Curtiss properties to northern farmers.
In a letter dated 30 April 1928 to Roy D. Chapin, chairman of the Hudson Motor Car Company, Fisher wrote that "Glenn Curtiss has the greatest trailer that was ever made in America."letter from the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum archives Following the prototype's much-publicized 39-hour trip from Miami to New York between 5 and 8 August 1928 to demonstrate the Aerocar could outpace the railroads, orders started flowing. The Aerocar Corporation was formed on 14 September 1928. Aerocars went into limited production in a vacant workshop at 1170 Sharazad, Opa-locka, Florida in late 1928.
Design Although the Adams Motorbungalo used a conventional ball hitch, Curtiss reverted to the fifth wheel concept used in the Curtiss Camp Car for the Aerocar but used this time a fifth wheel hitch of his own design. In an article in the December 1930 edition of U.S. Air Services magazine, Curtiss' Florida acquaintance Colonel James Prentice of the US Army stated that Curtiss had remarked to him that during his flying days he had noticed how stable aircraft were when towed backwards between factory and airfield with their rear landing skid resting on top of a tow truck. The towing experience was reputed to be so comfortable that men who rode on aircraft under tow in this way would sometimes fall asleep. Curtiss sought to duplicate this effect using the Aerocar's fifth wheel configuration.
Curtiss detested the cramped space, noise and vibration transferred to passengers in a standard automobile, claiming they led to a form of "auto-intoxication". He was scathing of automobile design of the 1920s and offered his own solutions to these issues by using triangulated suspension, aerodynamic design and in later years, front-wheel drive (see Curtiss Automobiles below). Separating the engine from passengers by using a tow vehicle and trailer combination was a simple solution to the problem of road and engine noise and vibration affecting passenger comfort and explains Curtiss' preference for trailers over motorhomes when designing leisure vehicles.
The chassis of the Aerocar was of monocoque design and used a lightweight wooden frame held together by struts, wires and turnbuckles similar to those used in the Curtiss JN "Jenny" airplane of 1915. The frame was lined with Celotex, a Florida-produced insulation board made from sugar cane and waterproofed with RubRos, another Florida product made of rubber and rosin.
The Aero Coupler (1928)
For the Aerocar Curtiss invented a new type of shock-absorbing fifth wheel hitch called the Aero Coupler (sometimes "Aerocoupler"). A similar hitch was used in The Brighton Trailer and may have been the hitch referred to (but not patented) in the Curtiss Camp Car patent of 1921. It consisted of a pneumatic aircraft wheel mounted horizontally within a square wooden (later aluminum) frame that was bolted to the rear of the tow vehicle (usually a modified coupe to accommodate the hitch) above its rear axle. A king pin mounted at the front of the Aerocar was inserted into the center of the wheel. Under tow the Aero Coupler's tire was inflated to a low pressure and would absorb shocks and vibrations from all directions. A patent for the "Curtiss Flexible Coupling" (US1916967) was applied for on 8 June 1928 and granted on 4 July 1933, three years after Curtiss' death.
As with all fifth-wheel hitches, mounting the hitch over the rear axle of the tow vehicle reduced both sway and the risk of rollover compared to conventional hitches mounted to the tow bar at the rear of the tow vehicle.
Aerocar Manufacturing (1928-30) Although the Aerocar's main customers would be located in wealthy northern states, it was Curtiss' wish that the Aerocar be manufactured in the Miami region to help support the southern Florida economy.letter from Curtiss to C.M. Keys dated 7 May 1928 held in the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum archives Curtiss did however yield to other Aerocar shareholders by agreeing that the Aerocar should also be manufactured under license in Detroit by the Aerocar Company of Detroit. This was a company established to build Aerocars by Briggs Manufacturing Co., Detroit automobile and body manufacturers and close contacts of Fisher. The Detroit Aerocar factory was located at 7425 Melville St., Detroit and later at 4815 Cabot Ave., Detroit. Parts, labor and customers were closer at hand in Detroit than in Miami.
The first Aerocars were built for a range of buyers including leisure travelers, resort owners and travelling salesmen. At Curtiss' suggestion,Letter from Curtiss to C.M. Keys dated 28 June 1928 in the Clement Melvin Keys Papers at the Smithsonian Institution. Aerocars were developed as ground transportation for newly emerging airlines including Southwest Air Fast Express (SAFE), Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) and Pan American Airways (Pan Am). In December 1929 four Aerocars were delivered to Cuba including one gifted to Cuban President Gerardo Machiado to help foster closer business ties between Florida and Cuba.
Early Aerocars were spacious and elaborately fitted out but lacked attention to detail. Fisher (who ordered four Aerocars for use at his proposed development in Montauk, New York) complained in 1929 of a lack of wind-down windows, that no jacks were provided and that the toilet was noisy.Letter from Carl G. Fisher to H. Sayre Wheeler dated 17 June 1929 from the Carl Fisher Papers at History Miami Museum, Florida Quality improved as orders increased, however.