Here’s a package deal that is likely to be a one-of-a-kind combination. It includes a 1962 AMC Rambler Classic Cross Country station wagon. And a 1962 Shasta Deluxe 19’ Camper. Both were restored in the same color scheme. They’ve had the same owners since 2004, but the restorations weren’t wrapped up for another 14 years. Located in Dixon, Illinois, this interesting duo is available here on Vintage Camper Trailers for $53,000 OBO. What a great tip from JDC!
American Motors replaced the mid-size (closer to compact) Rambler Six and Rambler V8 models with the Classic in 1962. That moniker carried the torch for this class of AMC automobile through 1966. As was the case with the American and Ambassador, the Classic station wagons were also dubbed the Cross Country. About 33,500 of the wagons were built in 1962 with seating for either six or eight (rear-facing rear seat). A 196 cubic inch inline-6 was standard, and that appears to be the one in the seller’s ’62 wagon.
Shasta Travel Trailers have been on the market for 85 years (launched in 1941). Shasta has focused on the pull-behind camper business, where they are lightweight and easy to maneuver. Also built in 1962, the seller’s camper is the Deluxe 19-footer. It’s a well-equipped unit with a bathroom, refrigerator, water heater, stove, and tables and chairs. Plus, some newer features like a microwave oven and air conditioning. We assume this set-up can accommodate four people.
The seller spent some time and money restoring this duo as twins. That includes using Rambler blue paint on both units. No detail was overlooked (or so it appears), and both seem to be ready for action on the road, if you choose. The car’s engine and transmission have been rebuilt, and it has new brakes and upgraded factory A/C (a rarity in this class in 1962). The pair has been to a few rallies, but we don’t know if they’ve been used much for outdoor outings yet. Another project has captured the couple’s attention, so this Rambler/Shasta package is now on the market.
Nice looking outfit, but that poor six trying to pull the trailer. When I was a kid my parents got a 19 ft Franklin. Now those early travel trailers had a lot of lumber and were heavy. The first tow vehicle was a 61 Olds 88 4 dr and it worked it hard on the highway even though it had that ultra high compression engine, and mountains were tough. Late 65 dad got a 66 Caprice wagon with the big 396 turbo 400 and air. It also came with wonderful fake wood, plus was A/C and that wonderful third seat. So yeah this will go to cars and coffee but more than a local trip might be a tough one. But it sure looks good!
I wrote this up in 2020 in Barn Finds, but I`ve changed it a bit due to new info.
Oct 13, 2020 5:14pm
My parents had an 1955 Airstream, a little shorter at 17′. They towed it all over Europe with Wally Byam Caravan Club, behind a 3-tone (color) 1955 Packard Clipper. The last vehicle they towed it with was a 1970 Olds 98.
The Olds was only used to pull this trailer. I still have the Olds with 108,000 miles on it. They then bought an RV.
They eventually wore out about 7 other cars and one pickup. The trailer was towed about 1.8 million miles. I now know they replaced the axle five times.
Cadmanls – Well, the Rambler won’t be struggling as hard as Desi Arnez’s ’53 Mercury in the classic cliff-hanger movie ‘The Long, Long Trailer.’
@Cadmanls
My father ordered a new 1964 Ford Fairlane with the smallest 6 banger available in September 1963. 3 on the tree, the absolute cheapest and least of options.
Used that vehicle to haul 5 people from NJ to AZ twice and down to FL a few times towing a Scotty teardrop trailer.
It can be done. Just not comfortably.
This looks phenomenal!! So much work had to have had gone into both the Car and the trailer. Just look at how beautiful that wood looks. Just like Cadmanls said above, a lot of wood goes into these they’re not light. I can imagine the crowd this draws ( I’d be one of them). Absolutely beautiful restoration on BOTH. Love it!!! Thanks for writing this up Russ, I enjoyed it.
Our family had a Mallard in the 60s. Mallard and Shastas were so similar, I always wondered if the came off the same production line.
Whoever gets this will have one thing I never experienced…. a toilet in the trailer. Lucky them.
Such a nice setup. Someone will have fun with this.
They may be nice, but the price is eye watering. I thought the camping life fad peaked a couple of years ago.
People like to complain about the prices of muscle cars, at least they have had a consistently strong following for decades, something like this would have a tiny following by comparison.
Steve R
Take a look at the vintage camper market….then get back to us on that.
I checked eBay, under Shasta camper and trailer, though there were several listed under each, none had sold.
Steve R
Yeah, because a few trailers on ebay tells the whole story. LOL
It’s an awesome looking rig/set up. That poor six cylinder, yes it is slightly overpriced.
Saw this rig in person at a vintage camper rally.
It is flawless. I have a Scotty teardrop, so I admire every small camper that people can Stand up in. The buyer will be from that hobby.
There is a buyer!
Last year I put my three teardrop campers in my yard to clean and organize. A couple came by and bought my highest price camper. No advertising, no for sale sign. They were on the way to pay cash for a little camper and called the seller for highway directions, seller told them he sold it 20 minutes ago.
This year I will do the same and sell the Scotty, keeping the tiny 5 by 7 foot until I get old, older…
My Tiny Mite is 3 feet tall inside and 700 pounds. I can pull it with a Falcon.
Agreed. Way overpriced on both sides, and they aren’t splitting the deal for each item. They should, since pulling with that car is only viable in flat country. Buyers who want both the trailer AND this wagon are going to be few and far between. Maybe someone from Kenosha.
We pull a similar weight, modern trailer with a Durango 5.7L Hemi with a tow package, and even it gets tested in the mountains. This combo would overheat (engine and brakes) all day long in Appalachia.
That large, heavy trailer would probably push that car all over the road. I am not driving this rig on a mountainous interstate or windy, steep, two lane mountain road, especially without a weight distribution/sway hitch unless you really appreciate constant white-knuckle driving.
Cute is nice, but modern camping is all about practicality once you get over the cuteness of these old things. Camping can get raw in the elements. Things get wet. Modern campers have retractable awnings, slide outs, A/C, modern appliances, reliable brakes, electric hitch jacks, solar panels, accessible battery boxes, pass through storage, on and on.
In addition, unless you are boondocking or going to festivals, many modern commercial campgrounds have “10 year” rules regarding the age of the camper. This is mainly to discourage a certain class of people who may be uninterested in the law but have “cheap housing on wheels”. So you need to beg for an exception at a lot of commercial campgrounds by submitting photos in advance. Another ongoing hassle.
Next is hunting down replacement stuff that breaks, (and everything breaks on a trailer), all of which adds another dimension to the vintage trailer experience.
With old cars, you show them off at the local cars and coffee. With old trailers, while there seems to be a modest vintage rally scene, mostly in CA and western states, with a handful of events (https://www.tickettailor.com/events/vintagecampertrailers), this hardly constitutes a trend or a culture
Occasionally, you see vintage trailers at festivals. They often look like they’ve been rather well-used by the owner, or bought very reasonably because they are not pristine. Restored vintage campers are the exception.
From what I see on very regular basis at festivals and campgrounds, 99% of the camping public buys modern gear, with modern reliability, and modern weight profiles. They’ll buy vintage rigs only if it is cheap and viable.
Oh, don’t sell that 6 popper short, that motor had a lot of torque. I read a trailer like this typically weighs about 1800-2000( with gear), and I’d think the car would pull it adequately, besides, 45-50 is all you should go with this setup anyway. While 45-50 was totally acceptable in 1962, today, it’s more of a safety hazard, and I’d get something else to pull the trailer.
The car itself, was the biggest selling Rambler, the wagon the most popular ( 28,800) and accounted for almost half of all Ramblers sold in 1962( almost 60,000). The car is a wonderful find, the trailer is a wonderful find, but just not together.
Howard, that is a 19 foot box trailer, and is likely in the 4000 to 5000 lb weight range (probably the latter), once it is loaded with all the necessities of camping.
Modern 19 foot travel trailers, using all manner of lightweight materials, are 3500 lb dry weight and 500 lbs ready to camp.
1800-2000 lb trailers are small pop-up campers and very small teardrops
really cool set up but i would want just the wagon you can keep the camper. my camping days ended 40yrs ago. i would not pull that camper with that wagon anyway why stress out the car. lot of money and most people don’t want them as a pair anyway. i would say 20-25k for the car maybe 10k on the camper.
6 cylinder Rambler pulling a self contained 19’ trailer… sounds like something I’d get stuck behind going up Chinook Pass. 😖
If you want to throw a big nasty pipe wrench into this fiasco:
The 1962 Rambler Station Wagon (available in the Rambler Classic and smaller Rambler American series) lacks a single published, standardized towing limit like modern vehicles. Because towing standards were established by the aftermarket hitches installed, its safe maximum limit is about 1,500 to 2,000 pounds, provided the trailer has its own independent brakes.
Then consider this:
Vintage 1950s/1960s (e.g., Shasta 1900 Deluxe): These lightweight campers have an original empty (dry) weight of roughly 2,540 lbs.
This one has additional appliances and equipment, plus, add at least 1000 lbs for gear/water/tanks, since nobody camps in a dry weight trailer.
At this point, you are at least 1500 LBS OVER THE TOW VEHICLE LIMIT for insurance purposes. So this rig is legally uninsurable in 2026. You can certainly hook it up and try it this way, but if you have a claim, expect to be denied.
There may even be fines and such, depending on the state.
Not that I am in the market of such combo, too old! but looking at the pictures and the description got me very excited, it’s truly a beautiful combination……then I read the comments, I woke up to the realities….too bad, you spoiled my excitement…..oh well…..GLWTS
I lived in a trailer just like that a half century ago when I was young and single and just starting out in my civil engineering career. I pulled it around the Appalachians with my 71 Plymouth Fury III 360. It had all it wanted. I loved that trailer, thō. It even had porcelain bathroom fixtures. I wouldn’t sell that Rambler old 6 banger short. Back in that day, many truck engines weren’t much bigger, pulling bigger loads. That said, I wouldn’t want to do any freeway work in that rig, and I’d want at least a load equalizing hitch and an automatic transmission with a transmission cooler to move it any distance
I lived in a 22 foot for three Florida college years.
Did not have many people for beers.
Remember fondly.
Hi Angel 😇! I didn’t know you were into campers too! For this combo, I have a very soft spot indeed. When I first met my wife
in 1982, I had a ’62 Classic custom 2-door sedan after my ex
wife took my nearly finished ’73 Ford Ranchero and ran off to Florida with her boyfriend. The only reason she left me the Rambler was that the reverse gear in the transmission was out to lunch and needed to be fixed. No problem there, my wife and I
drove the car anyway. And honey,
you should’ve seen me back then
with all those muscles I developed pushing that car out of
a parking space LOL! it was the
ONLY ’62 Rambler in town with
manual reverse LMAO! We drove it like that until we saved up enough money ($273) to get the
tranny fixed. We enjoyed that old
Rambler for the next 2 1/2 years
until I had my first heart attack in
1984 and had to sell it to help pay
my hospital bills. And now for the camper. Dad bought a Shasta similar to this one from
someone he knew back in ’64. Mom and my sister redid the seat
cushions and made made curtains to match the seats. And since the wood was in good shape, Dad and I sanded it down
and re varnished it to make it look
like new. I was 10 years old then
and so proud of the work I put in
that I showed it off to some of my friends when they would come by the house to play football with me. Then, Dad and I
took it over to Don Grimm”s house to have it painted butter yellow and white with a maroon
Z stripe on the sides. And all that
coolness was towed behind a light
blue ’51 Chevy 3/4 ton pickup with a 4-speed and a 5 window cab with a metal topper over the bed. My sister and I slept in the
truck bed with our Chihuahua while Mom and Dad slept in the
trailer. Now THAT was adventure
sleeping at it’s finest! Did a lot of
camping 🏕️ when Dad got a weekend off from the police department. We went to places
like Starved Rock State Park for
hiking and fishing 🎣 and up to
Timberline State Park 🏞️ for horseback riding. Felt like Clint Eastwood on Rawhide after I learned how to sit a horse 🐎 and
the right way and how to steer him with the reins. So yeah, if I had $53K burning a hole 🕳️ in my
pocket this rig would be coming
with me to sunny 😎 Florida. Although I think I’d be living in it if
my neice and SIL didn’t like it!
Hey Ken,
I thought I mentioned a few times my parents had an old teardrop trailer we took to Arizona and Florida with the ’64 Ford Fairlane and the ’67 Checker. Got a similar Shasta they towed around with the ’62 Buick Invicta convertible and the ’70 Checker.
Ex hubby and I had a 18′ trailer in the early 90s that we actually lived in for awhile with our two cats on my fathers property. At the time I had the 1972 Buick Riviera and he had a 1972 Jeep Wagoneer which we used to move the trailer around and go places with.
You did, but I only think of you driving Cadillacs or Buicks. I can
just see you now, pulling one of these behind a ’60s/’70s Cadillac
wagon conversion as your mobile
palace! Or maybe a nicely done
Superior hearse like the one we all talked about last year. The Gold ’57 that blew up the comments section last Summer?
I remember seeing a few of them
that the owners converted into a
camper by removing the rear half
of the hearse and the replacing that with a slide in unit from a pickup truck. The end result was
something akin to one of those
Cadillac or Lincoln House cars
we’ve seen here on BF. Some of
them were well done while others
we’re not. The one that sticks out
in my memory the most was a ’39
La Salle that had been done up like that. The front half of it was
completely restored outside with a ’50s era Cadillac V-8 and Hydra
Matic tranny for power. The rear
half was a slide in truck camper.
(Fleetwood I think) that was so
skillfully done that you’d think it
was a factory job. The guy even
grafted the rear fenders onto it to
make it look even better. And to
cap it all off, he was pulling a mid
’50s Carver Captain boat behind it! Talk about Wow factor, that rig
had it in spades! Even almost 60
years on, if I closed my eyes 👀
right now, I can still see it. And BTW, who kissed the front of your
Riviera?
And the equivalent version overseas-
https://youtube.com/shorts/ooqwpF4L4E0?si=kiuE6CnHm5vPPSl8
Are you referring to the 1972 teal Riviera?
As I pointed out, we took the Wagoneer with trailer in tow on an excursion. That didn’t do wonders for the transmission on the Jeep so we put it in the shop.
While it was there my ex was using the Riviera to go back and forth to work. One morning he stopped for gas, after filling, pulled out onto the road. About an 1/8 of a mile down some bimbo in her 20s made a left turn right in front of him. She had some sort of small Dodge. Totalled both cars. Thank God ex wasnt going any faster than 25/30 mph or it could have been worse.
Sold both Rivieras to some guy in upstate NY.
Yeah, I remember you posted the
photo on BF some time back. I always wondered what happened
to the car and how it got that way. Thankfully, your ex wasn’t hurt in the accident. Curiosity killed that cat and I was dying to
find out. Thanks for telling the story.
I could have elaborated and made it a long story but I know some people wouldn’t have liked that. Like, how hard i cried over the car and not so much for my ex. LOL
I mean, that was my first classic and we put so much work and sweat into it. Shopping junkyards for parts. Had to order a passenger side front fender from Idaho. We bought a parts car for $200 and switched the hoods. Sold the trunk lid for $100. Took all the chrome trim pieces off. Tires from Coker. New duel exhaust, brakes, shocks. Everything worked on that car including freeze your face off air conditioning. It had a column shift and a bench seat. All my other Rivs had buckets, console and floor shift.
Ex Wagoneer license plate read DEAD 1
License plate on the Riv was. DEAD 2
We were somewhat into the macabre