Long before there was Airbnb, and well before we expected holiday lodgings to include WiFi, a strange, short-lived, and ultimately charming vacation option presented itself to folks with at least a little wanderlust…and a full-size pickup truck. What was a Camper Special?
Slide-in Campers
They were called slide-in campers, and they were designed to fit in the bed of a pickup with little modification to the truck. Long-bed campers offered roughly 50-square feet of space, and depending on layout, sleeping accommodations for between 2 and 4 people. Many of the campers were fitted with self-contained toilets, and occasionally plug-in air conditioning, tough the latter was rare. A kitchenette was usually part of the deal, as well.
Camper Specials
Slide in campers became popular in the mid-Sixties, and remained so for roughly a decade. To meet the specific needs of slide-in camper owners, pickup-truck builders began offering specific camper packages and trim levels. Include among them:
- Chevrolet: Longhorn/Custom Camper
- Dodge: Camper Special/Adventurer Sport Camper
- Ford: Camper Special/Super Camper Special
- GMC: Custom Camper
- International: Campermobile
Broadly, these pickups were referred to as “camper specials,” and served well consumers looking to avoid hotels and tourist traps.
Equipment
These model/package names would change over time, but the general gist was that the trucks were specially upgraded to support operation with a slide-in camper. Surprisingly, perhaps, there was actually a great deal of equipment included on these camper-ready pickups. Here are some of the most-common bits:
- Extended wheelbases
- Reinforced frames
- Heavy-duty springs, shock absorbers, and stabilizer bars
- Upgraded electrical systems
- Dual batteries
- Dual fuel tanks
- Larger mirrors
- Tie-downs and exterior fasteners
- Special badges and/or decals
Suspension
Suspension upgrades served not only to accommodate the weight of the slide-in camper, but also to help maintain control in cornering. The camper’s mass, much of which was located near or above the cab, increased the likelihood of a rollover incident during hurried cornering. Chassis upgrades, such as heavy-duty stabilizer bars, helped to mitigate lateral weight transfer during aggressive handling maneuvers.
Prices
The “special” models and options packages did not add considerably to the price of a new pickup, generally on the order of $200-$500 depending on the equipment included. Because of the weight of the slide-in camper, camper-special equipment was largely confined to heavier-duty ¾-ton and 1-ton trucks, as ½-ton models were just a little under-built for mobile hotel-room duty.
Camper Makers
The slide-in camper units themselves were produced by a number of companies, the names of which you may recognize:
Alaskan Campers—Founded in the late 1950s; known for hard-side hydraulic pop-up designs suited to harsh conditions
Adventurer—Started 1969; longtime producer of hard-side campers
Lance—Established 1965; became one of the longest-running and most prominent hard-side slide-in camper producers
Starcraft—Partnered mostly with Ford on the “American Road” camper series
Travel Industries—Known mostly for the International Campermobile
Camper Prices
By the early Seventies, a nicely outfitted slide-in camper started around $3500, coming close to doubling the price of a bare-bones new pickup truck.
Note that many owners chose to remove the camper body for the off season, leaving the truck available for regular pickup-type work. It was not uncommon back in the day, especially in rural communities, to see slide-in camper units stored next to a driveway mounted on a purpose-built stand.
Sales Decline
Slide-in campers fell out of vogue by the end of the Seventies, and truck makers stopped producing camper specials around that time.
Whether for care-free holiday travel, or for temporary job-site housing, the slide-in camper was a unique, alternative-think solution to staying at pricey, and often inconveniently located, commercial lodging. This author is old enough to remember regularly seeing slide-in campers on a regular basis, even around Chicago.
Today
Note that several companies (Alaskan Camper and Lance, for example) still produce slide-in campers, though there are no published numbers as to how many are sold annually. We suspect the number is very small.
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Camper Special Pictures
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