Laurence Jones just took us on Breezeway Tour. But here’s the real benefit of Mercury slant backs: A slide-in camper with 23% more floor space, and as well as the access from car to camper via the lowered window. No wonder these were such big sellers. Mercury should have made a Camper Special version.
craigslist hat tip to Adam Browne!
Clever, but those leaf springs must have suffered.
Unless a towing package was ordered.
Back in the day having a couple of extra leafs added at your local spring shop was really cheap. I know, my ’60 Plymouth ate up rear springs on a regular basis. Drive in service too. Out in less than 45 min. Try finding a spring shop today.
This makes me think of Red Green, except then it would have involved more Duck Tape.
HMMMM… Hard to tell from the picture if the trunk lid is still there. I also wish the seller had posted some interior shots. Maybe it’s set up so you can use the breezeway window as a pass-through? This is some pretty interesting stuff! The ad says it’s located in Surrey, which would be British Columbia, where it tends to rain a wee bit. I bet the inside of that camper is a little slice of Mold and Mildew Hell.
Trunk lid is certainly gone.
I saw something like this billed up in Popular Mechanics in the early 1970s. It was a small company making a camper that was to drop in the trunk area of late-1960s Fords; the model in the photo series was a 1966. Trunk lid was removed and they gave a cost estimate on removing the trunk prior to mounting camper body.
But, building one for a Breezeway…there weren’t that many Breezeways to start with; I’m surprised they bothered.
Few knew that McGarrett had a shady less acomplished brother, Ted McGarrett that decided to live off the grid after Nixon was re-elected in 1972……
. .. . and living the life of a Marauder. 🙂
This makes my day – the rare M-250 Camper Special. Seriously, this is positively mind-blowing. And I love it. I really would go camping if I had one of these. I imagine that if the car had air conditioning, you just let it run with the back window down and you sleep cool and comfy in the back.
I’m sure this went down well at the owners club!
I hope that’s a Photoshopped April Fools joke….
Reminds me of a 59 Galaxie I saw years ago that had suffered a rear-end shunt early in its life, and was subsequently converted to a camper with pop-top, kitchenette, seats and a fold out/up bed of some sort. It also had air conditioning with the condenser unit mounted above the sole section of roof remaining above the front seat, which also housed two spare tires.
It also had a huge gas tank held my memory tells me 100 imperial gallons (450L or 120 USgal), but I may be mistaken. This was in order to drive at 70-80 mph roughly 800 miles from Melbourne to Queensland (where fuel was significantly cheaper), avoiding the need to refuel while travelling through New South Wales.
Looks like someone saw a swedish SAAB-camper add-on Toppola:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toppola
But the idea of an “american full-size cruiser under a Winnebago” sounds a lot more quirky… 😉
…or the GM version.
Back in the day this was more commonly done on a Cadillac commercial chassis vehicle (i.e. former hearse or ambulance), which is beefy enough to handle it, and also longer in the wheelbase allowing a roomier RV body.
Interesting – there was an early 50s Cadillac-based camper for sale here in NZ late last year. It was a very old conversion, and I wondered why on earth someone would ruin such a rare car (here at least). But your comment re using the commercial chassis means it makes sense now.
I live close by, I’m tempted to go see it just to see what was done to it.