How many did you look at?

[Sugarfoot]

I had been looking over two years on and off. I researched, saw many online, looked at dozens of pics, talked to sellers, etc. This summer I turned my efforts into a hard-hitting daily process, scouring classifieds from nearly anywhere east of the Mississippi, reviewing tons of privately mailed pics, phone calls, discussions, etc. I knew exactly what I wanted, how much I could spend, and I wasn't going to drive any distance unless it met my requirements. After two months of this, and being told by a reseller that I was "unreasonable" and "you'll never find one", I found one 150 miles from home for sale by an individual. I felt it was worth the drive, seeing was believing, and the following weekend I towed my TW home. I looked at A LOT of toad's portfolios, but the first one I kissed was a prince!

[safari57]

Ours is a sad tale. Saw a perfect one in '79 but didn't really sink in that I could actually buy it and it sold in a couple of days. That got me looking, and looking, and looking, but could never find just the right vintage unit that was also within reason for price and to repair. Finally, 2004, we found just the right one and snapped it up. How many did we look at in between? We figure close to three dozen over the years and made offers on a couple only to be outbide, fortunately, or we'd of not ended up with the one we have now and we love it. In the meantime we waded through several SOB's, enjoying them all but realizing that we would never be happy until we found our vintage Airstream.
Barry

[dmaiden]

Bought the first one I looked at. I put a little ad on the work classified and someone called me about a 61 Bambi. It turned out to be a 63 flying cloud and I just picked it up today. Went directly to the car wash and got rid of 20 years of crap and now it's getting its wheel bearings packed ready to make the long drive to Phoenix. It's a mess, but I got a good price and don't regret it.

At least not yet.
Dave

[Neophyte]

We found our first (1966 Tradewind) on ebay, sent deposit and brother in law and I drove St. Louis - Detroit - St. Louis (1,100 miles total) in 23 hours, bringing back the "trophy". Didn't really look at it in detail until the following weekend. Lots of things wrong but it was really cool; I mean really cool. We loved the space, the construction, the looks . . . all of it. We gutted it in prep for the full monte when wife found a 1967 Tradewind within 50 miles of home. Bought that one too. Net result is that we "looked" at two Airstreams and bought them both.

Sold the first as a "project trailer" for 1/2 of what we paid for it (not big dollars here), spruced up the '67 and are proud to be Airstreamin'.

[JStanley]

Look at several new & used. Difficult decision knowing that you really don’t know all that you need to know. Finally bought new to minimize some risks. Still it’s was a compromise that appears to be working out OK.

[Wabbiteer]

Looked at seven Airstreams and literally fourty of fifty SOB's - A dose of MN cabin fever coupled w/ classic spring fever made me pay far too much for a wounded AS that I am still grieving NOT forfieting my deposit on. About $8500 invested in a trailer worth perhaps $4500. I will have to full-time at least six months to feel I've earned back some of those dollars!!

[~flutterbee~]

We drove 2500 miles to see 4 toads before we found ours 70 miles away. We bought one of them on ebay & the seller kindly offered us an out, but we lost some money because we had arranged a shipper and had to pay ebay fees. I had seen a few new ones, too.
I'm having some regrets about our purchase, it was much more than we wanted to spend initially and much newer.. annnnnnnnd about 6' shorter... but we were getting so anxious, fall was upon us I NEEDed to get out to camp. This one was almost ready to go, we had to put in laminate but it was fully functional.

Now I have "vintage envy".
But don't get me wrong, I still love my Airstream! Just wish I would've been more patient (easy to say that now, I'm pretty relaxed after spending 10 days down in the woods!). We're hoping to find a vintage unit in the spring & sell this one. We'll see how it goes! It's luck of the draw.

[brunoffrance]

Hi there;
From FRANCE, it was'nt easy to find the good model because only one "dealer" sold 3 models from the 70's and when we decided to get one, the guy increased the price... (after having driven 800 km in July 2002).
So we decided to find one in USA, on the classifieds on vintage A/S websites but pictures were limited and , the time to reply, the A/S was sold...
So we have decided to post a announce with what we wanted and Billy ( see details in my blog ) replied us and sent us a lot of pictures on paper;
With what we have seen , we planned to go, from FRANCE, to North Carolina, to check the condition and there, we 've bought it and towed it immediately to Jacksonville, Fl.
It was on November 2002 and we 'weren't disappointed at all. OK, always some surprises when arrived in FRANCE, so not catastrophic.That 's the rule when you buy vintage .

Bruno.

[Janet H]

Our first purchase: We looked at loads of SOBs and then stumbled on AS. Then we looked high and low for a used one. We only actually LOOKED as a handful, as we just couldn't find any! We looked at a neighbors minuet - but it was not for sale. We looked at a mid seventies Avon that was billed as an AS, we drove to S. CAL on a memorable round trip marathon to look at a junker Argosy 24 - walked away after 5 minutes and a 2 day drive.

Our Second purchase was an impulse! We saw it listed on ebay and only 2.5. hours up the road. We called the owner on a Sunday at 2PM, drove up to Spokane and closed the deal before dinner. He graciously agreed to end the auction early. Funny how Airstreams appear when you aren't really looking for them!

[Steve & Susan]

We bought a new one after looking at 6 or 7 AS from 19' to 30' and hundreds of SOB's at 2 RV shows. Drove to the factory TWICE - once before buying and that sold us, and once to see OURS on the production line.

[Aria]

We searched on Travel In Style and Airstream Forums and Ad Digest all on internet. Searching for two years. Airstream is unknown in New York State. We found some but could not take the time to drive 2 to 3,000 miles.

We finally located one on internet about 100 miles from us. We were lucky. Needed some work. We purchased it in July 2006 and are still working. We wanted something small 19 or 20ft. The one we found now named Aria Ruscello is a Globetrotter 20ft. Anne

[overlander64]

When I decided that it was time to purchase an Airstream, I knew that it was going to be an older previously owned unit and that meant a relatively long search in 1995. My search spanned approximately nine months, covered six states, with trips to inspect 30 Airstream trailers from model years 1957 through 1982. My shortest inspection trip was 80 miles one-way, and the longest was just in excess of 700 miles one-way. These were the days before the explosion of interest in restoring Vintage Airstreams so I encountered few (only three) that were truly great dissappointments due to condition being much below that described either in advertisements or via the owner. This was also the during the time before the Internet became a prime resource for such searches so most of my finds were via local newspapers and trader publications. I suspect that subconsciously, I was searching for the Airstream that would replicate the one that I went on my first camping trip in as a five-year-old as I passed on at least two attractively priced early 1980s coaches that were floorplans that I could live with and in excellent condition. The 30th coach that I inspected turned out to be that coach -- the '64 Overlander that I still own today (and by some strange quirk of coincidence, I learned months later that it was the coach that I remembered from 1964).

Kevin