When the Housecar was built the RV industry was still in its infancy. In 1934, William Hawley Bowlus–the superintendent on construction of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis–created the aluminum Bowlus Road Chief.
That trailer borrowed techniques from aircraft construction. Wally Byam followed it up two years later with his own interpretation of an aluminum trailer, the Airstream Clipper. Motorhomes were around during this time, too, but they weren’t called motorhomes. In 1958, Raymond C. Frank launched his Frank Motor Home, and eventually would help popularize the term “motorhome” to describe a self-propelled camper. Before then, motorhomes were known as house cars.
Many house cars of the past looked like a trailer or boxcar tacked onto the back of a truck. Some looked ungainly or otherwise unappealing. And the trailers weren’t much different, either. That’s what made Bowlus and Airstream stand out. Another striking RV from the era is this, the Hunt Housecar, and there’s more to it than good looks. I got to see it at the RV/MH Hall of Fame during last week’s giant RV show.
The Housecar is the brainchild of J. Roy Hunt. Born in 1884 in Caperton, West Virginia, Hunt is not a household name. And if his name even rings a bell, it’s probably because you’re a film buff of some kind. Hunt made a career in cinematography lasting between the first World War through the 1950s. Hemmings notes his work: Hunt’s life wasn’t totally dedicated to film. Before his film career, Hunt raced cars and motorcycles. A car enthusiast, during his film career, Hunt worked on a steam-powered car design. And he also reportedly tried to buy Howard Hughes’ incredible Doble E20 steam-powered roadster. That’s pretty awesome by itself, but Hunt also had an offbeat hobby: he liked designing RVs.
As Hemmings writes, in 1935, Hunt took a Willys sedan delivery and threw a bed in it alongside a table, a generator, and a radio set. But two years later, Hunt would build this, the Housecar. It’s unclear what inspired this design, but it looks like streamliners of the era like the Stout Scarab and the Dymaxion. The story goes that Hunt acquired a 1937 Ford pickup. He then took it to a fabricator in Southern California to create its 16-gauge steel fuselage-like skin. The exterior is certainly striking and there isn’t a single modern RV that can come close to the elegance of this design. But as great as it is outside, the real magic is inside. The first thing that blew my mind was the deployable step. When you pull open the door, it pulls out a step that you’d use to climb into the interior.
Once inside, you immediately see the unit’s small kitchen. Despite the diminutive size, you get a two-burner stove, a sink with running water, pantry, a refrigerator, toaster, and even an electric razor. Historian Al Hesselbart from the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum notes that the razor was actually a standard feature. Yep, this RV wasn’t just a one-off built for Hunt, but a real production vehicle.
Towards the rear of the Housecar is the bedroom. There’s nothing much exciting going on back there, but it looks big enough for a comfy stay away from home. I do like the period decorations in there from the wood paneling to the stained glass shades for the lamps. Of course, since there’s a kitchen where a passenger seat would be, this is more of a camper for one, maybe two people.
And the features don’t end there. In the middle of the Housecar is a bathroom. Inside is a sink pulled from a Pullman railroad car and a toilet that swings out from the wall. As Hesselbart explains, you would fill the sink up with water, take a shower from it, then tilt the sink to drain the water. And the chamber pot toilet would have to be emptied after use. Sadly, the bathroom door was closed during the show.
This RV often gets called the first to have a functional shower, but I’m not sure if that’s true. A full 22 years before the Housecar, Roland R. Conklin built an RV to cross the country with his family. His RV featured hot water and a working shower. But while the Hunt Housecar may not be the first, it’s still plenty impressive. This has the core features of today’s small RVs, but was done a full 85 years ago.
Apparently, driving it can be a challenge. The driver seat and steering wheel were moved forward, but the gearshift was not. So, you get the awkward position of basically reaching behind you to shift gears. This particular Hunt Housecar was a part of an early RV collection owned by David Woodworth, a well-known RV historian. Woodworth found the Housecar in a scrapyard.
Somewhere in the RV’s history, it was converted into a van and painted black with orange tiger stripes. Inside were a bunch of mattresses and shag carpeting all over. The Housecar got a full restoration and Woodworth’s collection was purchased for the museum. As I said before, the Housecar was actually a production vehicle and Hunt made improvements on the design along the way. It isn’t said what’s under the steel of the 1937 model, but in 1940, Hunt made an update that involved pushing the wheels out for more interior space, a change in body to aluminum, and an upgrade to a 1939 Mercury flathead V8 making 95 HP. The updated Housecar is also said to weigh 2.5 tons. A year later the design would evolve further, and the 1941 Housecar would ditch the gasoline engines for steam power. It featured a two-cylinder White steam engine powered by fuel oil. Later, that engine would be replaced with a two-cylinder steam engine designed by steam enthusiast Roland Giroux. It’s not known exactly how many Hunt Housecars were made, but the number is believed to be as high as 50. Some examples, like the steam-powered Housecar, appear to have been lost to time.
As for Hunt, he continued to make films and RVs for decades. His filmography is long and as Hemmings notes, he did both until a short time before his death in 1972. Hunt’s legacy stands with his movies and a handful of weird RVs in a couple of museums in America. Also, it would be nice if clicking on a pic would open the larger (original?) version of the image in a new tab to allow us to savour the details! Eeeeexcellent!! One of the girls at my previous company drove an NB Miata, and I am pretty sure that her view down the road was through the steering wheel. And fuel oil to boot, giving you a perpetual chicken and egg issue in particularly cold environments. Now I want to see propulsion version 4, where he switched back to ICE, but with a wood gassifier. Just figured out how to Post pictures on The Autopian, ala 1880 by way of 1980 ascii. Here is a pic of the Hunt Housecar:
. . . . o o o o o * _____ o _______ * ____==== ]OO|_n_n__][. |Hunt| * [________]_|__|________)< |RV| * oo oo 'oo OOOO-| oo\\_ ~~~|~~~ * +–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+-$1-+–+–+–+–+. . . . o o o o o * _____ o * ____==== ]OO|_n_n__][. * [________]_|__|________)< * oo oo 'oo OOOO-| oo\\_ ~~~|~~~~~~|~~~~~|~~~~~|~~~~| * +–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+-$1-+–+–+–+–+
Better? 🙂 Water-tube boilers are the opposite – long intestinal metal tubing with water inside it, heated from the outside via a burner. They heat up a lot faster because they aren’t heating as much water at once. The Doble (that Mr. Hunt was so interested in) used a water-tube boiler which gave it quite the advantage over the fire-tube Stanley Steamers of the day. (Plus, if you overheated it or ran out of water you wouldn’t blow it up, you’d just f*ck up the tubing. Better to need a replacement boiler vs. a replacement torso.) Plus, a two-cylinder steam engine sounds awesome. It’s equivalent to a V8 four-stroke engine in terms of power per crank rotation so it’s always got torque. This is an awesome find, Mercedes! It’s sad to hear that none of the steam versions survived, I’m sure they’d have been a sight to see for the curious. Very cool addition, VH. I’m glad to have learned something today. 😉 https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a33490/this-experimental-69-chevelle-is-powered-by-steam/ The Hunt was theoretically a series production vehicle available for sale to consumers. There were some factory built steam rollers and traction engines built into the 1950s or even ’60s, but most of the late production ones were special orders by construction company owners realizing the steam age was waning and wanting a nostalgic collectable while they could still get one. And, of course, there’s been lots of homebuilt replicas made in the decades since, but, as far as a factory made, road legal, passenger carrying vehicle intended for consumer sale, the 1941 Hunt has almost certainly got to be the end of the line
