Well, the pleasure was in seeing this rig and it was all mine. I was in line at the junkyard with a few baubles to pay for and the owner of the truck was ahead of me; apparently the junkyard will let you pay them to take an old unwanted camper off your hands, or, in reality, off your truck.
I followed them out into the lot to make sure they weren’t getting rid of the whole kit and kaboodle including the truck, no, no, the truck will live on, the camper has just served out its useful life, for this owner anyway. Too bad, as I had a little change in my pocket…
The truck is a honey of a 1972 Ford F-250 Camper Special with Explorer package which I believe means it’s based on a Custom or Custom Sport trim level. This one has the lower bedside tool storage compartment option as well.
There were four packages if you opted to go the Explorer route, all stacking atop each other, i.e. you started at Package A, or upgraded to Package B which included A and some other items, or Package C included both A and B and even more stuff, etc. I didn’t look into the cab of this F-250 but it appears that it would have come with this splendid yellow and green plaid motif.
The Camper Special package meant you got the 390c.i. V8 amongst other stuff, and when this one fired up, yup, that’s a 390. It fired fast, sounded good, and likely delivers whatever goods need delivering. Other included items were a 55-amp alternator, 70amp-hr battery, oil pressure gauge and ammeter, bigger mirrors, better cooling, rear shock absorbers, and a wiring harness for the camper.
I was surprised to learn that if you wanted the Explorer package in 1972, you were limited to three otherwise not available color choices; those being Durango Tan, Bright Blue, or Avocado as by default this one has to be. Avocado would have to be the color for me, both back in 1972 and today in 2023, although I’m guessing sometime around 1978 it would have seemed to be far too common. But time has a way of healing such wounds, style is ever (r)evolving. The interior combination is especially inspired as the bench seat really is the color of the inside of an Avocado. The kids would constantly be stopping to make toast.
Those hubcaps look quite good on the truck, and I don’t recall the last time I saw a set of Pirelli Norseman tires. Or ever for that matter.
The Mitchell camper has the quilted aluminum bits that I love so on a topper or a camper or an RV, and the trim color matching the truck leads me to think that it dates to not much newer than the truck itself, or most likely was purchased as a package within the same week or so. The owners were in a bit of a hurry (or simply tired of me, I can’t deny the possibility) and so that’s it for the pictures I was able to get while chatting with them. They fired it up and wheeled down the ramp to where the claw was going to lift the camper off their truck for good. I wonder how different it will feel to all of a sudden not have an extra thousand pounds or more of dead weight on the back after five decades with it on there.
Related Reading:
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: 1972 Ford F-250 – Solid as a Dutch Brick House
It is kind of sad that the camper is going away. Although I am not a camper and would not have any interest in owning it. And I could certainly see how there are a hundred new possibilities on what to do with the truck after the camper has been removed.
I am amazed at the condition of this truck – these started getting rusty around here in the late 1970s. And I can only imagine the like-new paint on the roof and in the bed, with those areas never having been exposed to sun or weather.
Whenever there’s a CC on a slide-in, I’m always reminded of one of the earliest (and most famous): John Steinbeck’s 1960 GMC with a Wolverine camper that he used for his non-fiction travelogue novel Travels With Charley.
After a bit of research, it seems that Wolverine slide-in campers went out of business after 1981. Maybe we can get a follow-up CC on them (and the slide-in camper industry history, as whole)?
Would like to have seen some pictures of the inside of the camper. Wish he’d let you take them since he was getting rid of it. Do manufacturers still make truck bed campers nowadays? They were all the rage in the mid-60s to the late 70s.
They do still make em, and at utterly STAGGERING prices!
They’re probably “gluten free”.
They are actually experiencing a big resurgence with a lot of new brands over the last 5-10 years. The overlanding trend and van life seems to have bled over as these are one of the few ways to get a 4wd RV. I have always liked these because I like the idea of towing a boat behind the camper and this is a practical way to do it, but pricing has gone a bit crazy on them, a conventional travel trailer is much cheaper now a days.
What a great find, of a beautiful Ford. Perfect timing as well, with the end of the school year for many, and the start of peak camping season. Really is a ’70s summer icon. This specific shade of yellow green always looked great, when parked in a natural setting, like a campsite. GM and Chev campers were popular in that colour as well.
I grew up only a few kilometres from Murphy’s Point Provincial Park. We’d bicycle there regularly to camp, and these would pass us. Thanks for this!
Bright green and olive green, so iconically representative of various ’70s outdoors/camping products.
I’m reasonably certain there are still new slide-in campers available. It’s just that their numbers have dimished with all the other options available today.
Besides just hooking up a conventional, smallish trailer, I’m going to guess that one of the alternatives that have cut into the slide-in business is the advent of the small campervan that includes many amenities unavailable on slide-ins.
Consider that, to use the truck bed with a slide-in, the camper has to be removed and stowed somewhere. That’s a bit of a process compared to a conventional, small motorhome that simply gets parked. Yeah, it’s more costly, but a whole lot more convenient to have an RV and truck, as opposed to just the truck with a slide-in that has to be removed.
The feature article seems to highlight this dilemma. It’s likely the owner of the Ford Camper Special simply has nowhere to store the slide-in and/or it’s simply outlived its usefullness. As another commenter pointed out, it’s a shame we couldn’t get any shots of the camper interior to see what kind of shape it was in and if it was worth saving.
If it wasn’t too bad, you’d think the owner would have been able to find a taker for it (particularly for free) rather than the junkyard yanking it off with a claw. OTOH, it certainly would be a lot easier getting rid of it that way.
Slide-in campers are still very much a thing and are available in fixed versions like the ones here or also pop-up ones that look more like a blocky camper shell when retracted.
They can also be stored anywhere that you can store an RV for a (varied) monthly fee or on your own land. Often there are legs that they can stand on (or jacked up on) that facilitates relatively simple removal, i.e the truck just drives out from under it.
They can be FAR cheaper than a dedicated RV or even many trailers but as with anything, the sky is the limit The bonus is you can drive relatively normally and you can use the truck for the rest of the year if you remove the camper.
Thanks for the update. Drawbacks would seem to be the (relatively) tight living quarters and the high center of gravity, making driving a pickup so equipped somewhat daunting in windy conditions.
Plus, as is typical with any RV-type living quarters, construction can be quite dicey with the lower-end manufacturers using hastily pop-riveted aluminum sheets over cheap wood instead of aluminum framing.
As another commenter points out, there are frequently leaks which result in the cheap wood rotting and collecting hidden mold, rendering the whole thing virtually useless (and somewhat dangerous to breath in the moldy air).
There’s a good chance this is the reason the owner of the feature vehicle just wrote the camper off as a loss.
Having slept comfortably enough in the back of a 2-door Wrangler for a week this would be a palatial amount of space. 🙂 Slowish and steady gets you there, the wind isn’t any better on a high roof van or with a trailer. 50 years would seem to be quite a good run for something like this, plenty of stuff gets end-of-life’d far earlier in our society!
They have become more popular partly due to van life. You see a lot of van life people that want 4wd but are turned off by the high prices of vans so equipped going the truck camper route. They are also popular with fisherman and horse owners as they can tow much easier than most motorhomes, while still having a truck the rest of the year.
Sales have increased a lot in the last 5 years. the data I can find shows about 2500 sold in 2017 vs 5700 last year. That’s about half the number of van RVs sold but only about 15% less than the number of pop up campers.
That camper looks to be in quite good shape; hardly surprising given the truck’s good condition.
I have a real soft spot for rigs like this, despite never owning one. Before we bought the ’77 Didge Chinook, I entertained the idea of finding a cheap old slide-in for my ’66 F100. But the lack of amenities in the truck, its 240 six and somewhat limited load capacity finally put me off on that idea. But if I’d had an F250, I would almost certainly have gone that route.
The camper looks good -but- they often have roof leaks and this ruins them B.E.R. in short order because most campers were built with close to balsa wood frames .
Seems a shame but that’s life .
Nice truck ! my stove is Avocado green, in 1988 when I bought it it was near impossible to sell any appliance in this color, it was new and 40% of so I grabbed it and the Harvest Gold refri next to it at the SEARS outlet .
-Nate
We have an outfitted van for camping, and the friends we travel with most often have a lightweight slide-in camper on an F150. The van is nice, as one can access everything including kitchen, bed, fridge and toilet by just getting up and walking back between the front seats. That’s great for quick roadside stops or in inclement weather. The truck is slightly more capable off-road, and the camper contents can rattle around on rough roads without driving the driver and passenger nuts. Those two features enable them to go a lot faster off pavement than us. But we make up for it with almost zero setup when we get to our campsite.
Very nice brief summation of the pros and cons between a slide-in camper/truck and campervan, with the higher ground clearance of the former being more suited to off-road venturing, while the latter more comfortable for mostly paved-surface travel.
Yeah, my mom and her friend used a series of Toyota Tundras and slide-ins for their summers in Alaska and a few years ago ordered a 4WD MB Sprinter Sportsmobile to replace that setup, the longer one. It’s exactly as you say, takes less time to set up and convenient when actually traveling, but it slightly less capable when really off the beaten track, however on normal rough unpaved Alaska roads doesn’t seem to be that different. And everything is self-contained. The downside is that it’s not a Toyota and it’s a full on camping rig, so becomes an extra vehicle to maintain, insure, etc whereas the slide-in camper could be mounted or dismounted at will and stood next to the garage in rural Morrison, CO.
Dad had a ’73 F350 with a flatbed stakebody he used for his side hustle landscaping business. When that ended he kept the truck and in about 1977 or so he found a slide-in camper that fit perfectly on the flatbed; he fastened it with some eyebolts and made two locking cabinets that fit in the cavities where the fenders would have been. We drove it all the way out to California and back in the summer of ’81 with no A/C. The pictures of this truck just brought back all the feels.
I think my Dad had the same hat (I think everyone’s Dad had the same hat…), except he’d have the wrench in the other hand while crouched at the back of the VW Bus camper we had while adjusting something en route vs under the front of the Ford….
Great picture!
My first truck was a ’66 F250 Camper Special I bought in 2007. The owner had bought it from U Haul and put a camper on it that stayed there for over 35 years. It had power brakes but no power steering, and the owner just got too old to deal with the Armstrong steering. He was in his mid 70’s. Luckily for me he had removed the old cab over camper, though he showed me a few pictures.
I remember seeing stored campers sitting on their jacks alongside many garages in our neighborhood back in the ’70’s.
I’ve posted this picture before, but it sure looked good after being painted. A beautiful truck in my eyes.
Pirelli Norseman tires would have been an asset during the slalom test.
“Marvin, the raccoon! The raccoon!”
So what pops up on Craigslist for sale in Alameda but this
This strongly reminds me of one of my favorite video games of my childhood, Vigilante 8, a retro car combat game on Nintendo 64 where one of the characters you could play as had a green pickup with a camper. On one hand I’m saddened to see it lose its camper, but on the other hand I wish it had machine guns, rocket launchers and a radioactive bee hive attached to it
In “1981-82”, my uncle/aunt were traveling the country in a “67 Ford p/u” (blue). It kinda looked like this body style.
The camper on the back was like this; not so large “up/over” the cab that I remember.
They were towing a large trailer as well.
As the vehicles had been AZ cars/campers, all their existence; their condition was quite good. I remember the truck had about “77K” on the odometer.
They had retired and were spending “roughly two years” , “seeing the USA”.
The truck was not equipped with p/s, or an auto transmission. I imagine when they docked at those “KOA” campsites, they were fair tired.
It was first/last time I ever met them. Once back in “AZ” they did not venture east again. He, I believe passed in the mid “90’s”.She did so in about “2000”.
What a bummer that they took the camper to be junked! Seems like no imagination. The camper did not look bad at all and you read all the time of folks updating and refurbishing RVs all the time.
I think the camper could have been saved. The truck and camper made a great pair.
My 1994 vintage Four Wheel rig. Location is Ocotillo Wells in Anza Borrego, CA. Has taken us to Death Valley back country and other adventures.
Mine is about 1000 lbs, light load for the K2500HD, but that Mitchell is well over a ton on that F250. Lance currently makes that style today, but top quality and price. Travel trailers are cheap, but so is quality.