Who owns Airstream?
Airstream is an American brand of travel trailer easily recognized by the distinctive shape of its rounded and polished aluminum coachwork. This body shape dates back to the 1930s and is based on the Bowlus Road Chief, an earlier all-aluminum travel trailer designed and built by Hawley Bowlus, the same designer and engineer who also…
Airstream is an American brand of travel trailer easily recognized by the distinctive shape of its rounded and polished aluminum coachwork. This body shape dates back to the 1930s and is based on the Bowlus Road Chief, an earlier all-aluminum travel trailer designed and built by Hawley Bowlus, the same designer and engineer who also oversaw the construction of the Spirit of St. Louis.
Who owns Airstream?
Airstream trailers and recreational vehicles are manufactured in Jackson Center, Ohio, United States. The company, now a division of Thor Industries, employs more than 800 people and is the oldest in the industry. Thor Industries, Inc. is an American manufacturer of recreational vehicles. The company sells towable and motorized RVs through its subsidiaries brands including Airstream, Heartland RV, Jayco, Livin Lite RV, and others. The company’s headquarters is in Elkhart, Indiana.
The company was created by Wally Byam who began building trailers out of Masonite in his backyard in Los Angeles during the late 1920s. Byam published a magazine selling “how-to” kits to customers wishing to build their trailers. In 1936, Byam introduced the “Airstream Clipper”, which was essentially a rebadged 1935 Bowlus Road Chief, with the door relocated from the front to the side.
As of January 2015, Airstream was producing 50 trailers per week, or about 2,600 per year. The company was expanding its capacity with plans to increase production by at least 50% over 2014 levels. By April 2016, the Dayton Business Journal reported that Airstream was producing 72 trailers per week, an annual rate of 3,744 assuming consistent production all year.
