America’s metallic gem

Neanderthals who link the word trailer with the word trash are way out of date, and out of line. In fact, they’d be lucky to own any of the sensational Airstream trailers shown in this sparkly, photo-filled gift book that highlights new interior design for these classic icons of America on the road.

Poets, artists, fashion designers, actors and just plain travel buffs have refurbished their Airstreams to resemble highly efficient and often opulent yachts.

There’s something contagious about just looking at the simple but elegant innards of the silvery, bullet-shaped trailers -- and imagining how it would feel to take off for points unknown. You’d have every amenity of home -- downsized and encapsulated into something mobile and easy to maintain.

The Airstream originated in an L.A. backyard in 1936, the brainchild of outdoorsman Wally Byam, whose wife refused to go camping with him unless she had access to a kitchen. He created the lightweight metal and futuristic-shape as a cozy home away from home for her. It was so successful that he started making the trailers to sell -- and though he’s now gone, the Airstream is still produced in America. By hand.

Now it’s a status symbol, with even the smallest (16-foot) models selling for around $25,000. (Unrefurbished and in poor condition, they can sell for just a few hundred dollars.)

Other Airstream vintage models are up to 31 feet long -- and renovated models can cost a few hundred thousand dollars.

Author Littlefield says travel was the original idea, but now it’s just one of the Airstream’s many uses. He bought his in 2002, and retrofitted it as a bar that sits in the garden of his Catskill Mountains restaurant.

Other Airstreamers have turned their trailers into high-tech offices, either stationary or on the move. As the world propels ever faster forward, the Airstream remains what it has always been: a womb-like space within a timeless shell.

-- Bettijane Levine