Indiana Family Restores Antique Camper

Photo/s courtesy of Coachmen Industries

This 1962 Shasta travel trailer was recently refurbished by the Michael Dragoo family of Goshen, Indiana. Dragoo is an employee of Coachmen Industries, Inc. The Shasta sports the famous wings on its upper rear panels and weighs in at only 1,115 pounds. The unit originally featured a butane tank and a butane lamp. With two luxury lounges (sofas) and a double upper bunk, the roomy little trailer easily sleeps four. (l to r: Rosie, Molly, Michael & Elizabeth Dragoo)

    by Andrea Brown

The Michael Dragoo family used to contend with raccoons and black bears barging into their tent on camping trips. These days the visitors are curious humans, and Dragoo welcomes the chance to show off his restored 1962 Shasta.

The retro travel trailer, with its unique shape and charm, is the center of nostalgic attention wherever it goes. "I really enjoy seeing people's faces change when they see the trailer," says Dragoo. "They all have a story, and just start blurting it out. It's always a tale of fondness and travel."

The memories are rich in detail. Dragoo hears recollections of the swimsuits hung to dry on the pointy rear wings, for years the symbol of Shasta-induced wanderlust. Baby boomers get a faraway look in their eyes and ramble on about Shasta summer vacations of their youth. Dads might recount how their daughter always bonked her head on the low-hanging cabinet. Dragoo can relate: his daughter bonks her head on that corner, too.

Unlike many Shasta buffs, Dragoo's bonding with Shasta trailers goes back only one year. That's when he bought what he affectionately calls "the winged thing." It looks a bit like a giant, old-fashioned toaster... with wings.

What's ironic is that Dragoo is a newcomer to the recreational vehicle circuit. The 44-year-old Goshen, Indiana, man has worked in the recreation industry since he was 20, and is a corporate advertising manager at Coachmen Industries, Inc., a leading manufacturer of RVs and the parent company of Shasta.

Over the years, a tent was his choice of lodging on numerous primitive camping trips with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two daughters, Molly, 12, and Rosie, 15. It wasn't all that long ago the down-to-earth family started using cots. Dragoo was so avid about tents that he admits he would poke fun at the pampered RV lifestyle.

Then, it happened. "I got the bug through osmosis," he says.

It began when he devised an advertising campaign to connect the future to the past for Shasta, the oldest continuous producer of RVs. The founding California company made "buildings on wheels" in 1941 for the military, and this paved the way for the travel trailer boom after World War II when families answered the call of the open road. Back then, strangers waved to each other on the highway, and Shasta's wings were as recognizable as McDonald's golden arches.

Today's sleek Shastas, which are made in Indiana, bear little resemblance to early models, having long ago shed the trademark wings, boxy body and dark den interior. Still, Dragoo wanted to revive the old identity, so he brought back Shasta's old-time logo to its new line of products and materials. "I saw a nostalgic opportunity that could be expanded," he says.

Already in place was the Wings of Shasta Travel Club, a dedicated group of Shasta owners who organize gatherings to travel, play and talk shop. Dragoo was about to become one of the Shasta gang.

He and Elizabeth had long enjoyed restoring houses and furniture to its original condition. "We have a soft spot for old homes that need love," he says. "We're used to looking through the surface and seeing potential."

He convinced Elizabeth an old Shasta would be a good project, but most models they found had been gutted and modernized. Finally, last June while on a joy ride without the kids, on a road they don't normally take, they rounded a curve and there it was: A '62 Shasta, parked by the road, a scribbled "For Sale" sign taped to its side.

Fifteen-year-old Rosie Dragoo (l) and her sister Molly, 12, say their recently acquired 1962 Shasta "house trailer" provides a much warmer and drier sleeping environment than the tent the family camped in for years. The girls' father, Michael, refurbished the 6-ft by 9-ft antique RV last year. The travel trailer features the original persimmon wood paneling on the inside and the famed pointy wings on the outside.

The Shasta had seen better days. The aluminum trim had oxidized. The cushions were worn and frayed. The persimmon paneling was intact, but dreadfully dry. The dinette table was missing, but the Shasta had most of its parts including the original globes on the lights. Best of all, it had its wings!

The Shasta had one longtime owner, who sold it to a man intending to gut it and use it to haul stuff. But the man decided it was cheaper to buy a new, smaller trailer, and put the Shasta up for sale.

After minor haggling, Dragoo got the 6-by-9-foot house-on-wheels for $1,000 which came out to about a dollar a pound.

He says his daughters were "leaping about" when he towed it into the driveway. Rosie did in fact give it the nod. "It had cool little wing-things on it," she says.

Molly gave it the benefit of the doubt. "I didn't know what it was," she says. "It was a big white thing with silver things. It was kind of gross-looking inside."

Dragoo says bringing the Shasta back to life was a labor of love. He hand-rubbed linseed oil into the wood interior. He scrubbed the oxidized aluminum gutters, wings and side stripes until all gleamed. He polished the baby-moon hubcaps. Elizabeth and Molly scraped off the avocado and gold contact paper lining the cabinets and put down new. And Rosie's contribution? "I stayed out of the way," she says.

The fuel had already been changed from butane to propane. Dragoo replaced the electrical wiring, which is powered from a connection on top of the roof. He made a replica of the missing dinette table from blueprints in the Shasta company archives. He plans to resurface the floor with close to the original tile.

Some authenticity was chucked to the wind. The space once housing an oven now sports a little microwave, an indulgence for this campfire clan. The cushions are reupholstered in Route 66 and old license plate fabric. When an awning is located, the family's treasured string of trout-shaped patio lights will shine outside the shrine.

The Shasta's TV antenna won't be put to use -- and the kids aren't complaining. "As long as I'm going to be camping, I might as well read or sit outside," says Rosie.

The art deco lights give the trailer a certain warmth, as does the ceramic heater. Cozy also applies to bedtime: Mom and Dad sleep lengthwise on the dinette; the girls sleep widthwise above them in canvas pipe berths. "It's quite a compression of humanity," says Dragoo.

"I was afraid the first night I'd fall on my mother," says Molly. She has since discovered how much fun it is to drop Beanie Babies on the parental units below.

The Dragoos have made themselves at home in the compact Shasta, even though it is half the size of their tent. They spent Thanksgiving on a scenic Tennessee mountainside, camped inside their winged wonder.

The trailer has changed how the family views the great outdoors compared to their tent days.

"It's certainly much warmer," says Rosie.

"It's dryer," adds Molly.

"Having a sink. I can't tell you how exciting that is. I feel like I've died and gone to heaven," says Elizabeth.

"It's a blast to get up and go, and be spontaneous," says Dragoo. "We don't care about the weather anymore."

Nor do they have to worry about pesky visits from raccoons or black bears. Two-legged comrades, of course, are always welcome.

RVN