Tear drop trailers a fad, my parents, lived in a tear drop trailer in the 40's when they first got married, not for long, but that's still along fad. Your use is great and from the look of those fenders, do you have my parents tear drop?
I would agree with your sarcasm if you could provide a manufacturer of a significant number of teardrop trailers building models between 1955 and 2000. The first teardrops were homebuilts, usually on junk car frames, usually the front half of the frame with the stock suspension and the crosslink cut in the middle and welded to the axle to keep the wheels pointed right. Then a tongue and hitch was welded to the frame. Often the tongue and hitch replaced the rear of the frame and the auto frame was pulled backwards, which allowed the wells to be well aft of the side door. This explains the tradition of car-sized tires on teardrop trailers.
These first teardrops needed to be light since the cars that pulled them generally had very limited horsepower. Therefore, aircraft building techniques were adopted by the early builders. No, not space-frame aluminum, think older--wooden frames, fabric (usually muslin), and dope. The oldest teardrop I ever saw was covered with old canvas potato sacks sewn together. Spruce and redwood were the premium framing materials--light and strong--but other woods were also used, availability dependent on geographical location. The canvas and dope trailers were originally built like a Connestoga wagon, the shape chosen for easy building more than anything else--steam bending wood was a common practice back then, virtually every man knew how to do it--but the resulting flat front was prone to damage from wind when towing on the highway. The arch of the Connestoga was turned sideways, but that limited the length of the trailer. The teardrop shape evolved as a means of lengthening the Connestoga linear section. The improved aerodynamics was an unexpected bonus.
All this development happened with troops returning from WWI with a desire to see the country. It wasn't unusual for several young men to form a partnership to buy a car and build a trailer, then take turns using the rig on weekends and for vacations, either traveling together, then later with their families.
Plywood became commercially available during the 1920s and by 1930 was cheaper than muslin and dope, and much more durable. In 1936,
Outdoor Life magazine published a series of articles on building and outfitting a plywood teardrop trailer. Economy of acquiring and operation was paramount--this was in the middle of the great depression.
After WWII was when teardrops saw their hey-day. Thousands of young men with wanderlust had a few years military wages in their pockets and a desire to travel. Pre-war rolling wrecks could be had for a song, and plenty of military surplus aluminum was available for even less, so the building material shifted to aluminum. Kit Kamper, the first known commercial manufacturer of teardrop trailers, got its start about when the war ended.
1946 was the year the rear hatch kitchen gained big popularity, as the idea was a feature of a Popular Science construction article. For the next few years, seems like every DIY and outdoor magazine carried construction articles on teardops. The trend was towards larger and larger teardrops, the biggest featuring a tent enclosure of the rear hatch, which provided a lighter, smaller trailer on the road, able to be easily garaged to protect it from the weather, and stand-up headroom at the campsite.
By 1955, though, the teardrop hey-day was over. Those wayfaring young men who came home from the war and drove the demand for the commercial teardrops now had wives and children, and needed more beds and a bathtub. The horsepower race in Detroit was rounding the first corner and people were able to tow bigger, less aerodynamic trailers with more luxurious accommodations with ease. Innovations in the enginneering and construction of pop-up campers, which towed as easily as teardrops but had many times more beds and volume on the campsite replaced teardrops as the lightweight towable of choice in most areas. The exception being folks who traveled in areas where bears were common--soft walls do not discourage hungry bears. Homemade teardrops were still the norm in such places, especially in the west. Later, by the late 1960s van conversions had pretty much replaced teardrops even in these areas.
I know of no article about teardrops and no commercial manufacturers between 1960 and 1995. Teardrops were for all practical purposes non-existent in the RV market.
About 1996 or so I started seeing people, mostly from the west coast, posting on the internet about their budget minimalist camping trailer builds. Many chose the ease of building a wood-framed plywood sided teardrop to pull behind their econobox cars--the few ultra-light hard-side trailers on the market were simply too expensive. Along with the teardrop postings were those of people who found a good used enclosed cargo trailer to convert for camping. Most of the people pursuing these minimalist camping trailers were young couples with small children for whom a tent did not provide adequate protection from the vagaries of the environment. They were long on creativity but short on budget.
From this '90s revival of minimalist camping trailers suitable for towing behind low-powered cars has grown the modern micro-lite trailer industry. Teardrops, for all their cuteness, simply do not compare with other trailer designs for efficient use of space vs. weight and towing ease. They are kind of like TWs--not really best at anything, but good at everything. There will always be a few around, but there characteristics appeal to an entry-level market, and owners will likely move up to bigger rigs over time. There is already a trend away from teardrops in the market. Fortunately, and also like TWs, teardrops' unique set of attributes will always appeal to a few free thinkers with tons of experience who realize that for their personal use, the configuration is ideal. Teardops, like TWs, will never go away.
