Saturday

The Motorhome goes, the Trailer arrives.




The 1978 Sovereign as found, and later after some work and clean up...
Airstream Classic motor homes are rare, and fun to own. But, after almost 5 years of owning and using ours, I got the itch to try something else.

I think the problem came from those winter months of non- use where I felt it important to keep the batteries up, the fluids fresh, and I was chained to starting the engine every week, and driving it around some to keep it all working well. And work well it did.

I started to think a trailer would be better for our needs, with the kids growing and losing some interest in the "camping with the family" thing. Now I could sell the Classic, and use the money to buy a trailer and a truck, and then have the truck for other uses too.

I advertised the motor home on the web, and in no time had loads of emails and calls. One was from someone in the UK who wanted to know if i could ship it over. First I was sceptical that they were for real, and then being less than experienced in shipping I declined.


I had numerous buying offers, and one guy who was going to "fly in" the next weekend to do the deal. His deposit never got to me in the mail, and then I had to track him down to see what he was thinking. "Changed my mind", so he said, and never thought to let me know while I was waiting to pick him up.

More buyers showed interest and one even came to do a walk through, but then a "broker" called, who claimed he had a buyer that was solid.
This deal got close and then stopped for a few weeks. Evidently the buyer had some kind of accident and needed time to get it back together. A few weeks after this we reestablished our lines of communication, and somewhat sadly the arrangements were made to meet and the deal was done. My 280 set off for Brunswick , GA to the port where it would be shipped over to the UK. Parting is such sweet sorrow, I knew it was the right move, but all the work I had done in cleaning and restoring and improving the motohrome made it a personal issue to see it go.

In speaking with the broker who handled the deal, he asked why we were selling such a nice unit. I explained that I thought a trailer would better suit our needs, and that I was looking for a 25-31 foot Airstream, preferably from the 70's...as they are plentiful and fair priced.
He offered to email me photos of one he had access to, a 1978 International Sovereign.

True to his word the photos arrived and the trailer description looked good. A bit on the granny and grandpa decor inside, but nothing that could not be redone. Besides, it was an 80+ year old couple that had owned it since new.
We struck a deal over the phone, next day the trailer was delivered to our driveway!
So within a weekend we had sold one Airstream, and bought another.
The new project began in earnest.