Airstream production in the early 1970s

My May 28 blog post, and an accompanying Air Forums post this past weekend yielded some answers about the historic Airstream production numbers that I was curious about.

Joe Peplinski, the historian for the Wally Byam Caravan Club International (WBCCI), responded with information regarding production in the early 1970s. Airstream was producing a total of 175 trailers per week (in Ohio and California), or about 8,750 per year based on a 50 week production schedule. These are his estimates, not official numbers, but I suspect they put us very much in the ballpark of Airstream production circa 1971.

That's substantially more than are being produced in the current boom. It seems like Airstream must be producing 3,500 to 4,000 trailers this year (my estimate based on the sources I found for my previous post, and consistent with what I was told at the Idaho dealer last Saturday).

Joe's information came from interviewing two longtime Airstream employees for "Airstream Plant Tour Guides," an article he wrote for Blue Beret, March 2016. If you follow that link scroll to page 21. Blue Beret is WBBCI's monthly magazine.

Thanks Joe for this information! This still leaves the 1950s and 1960s as a big void regarding the production numbers I'd love to see. Peplinski makes reference to 1980s production numbers in his Blue Beret article too.

It would also be great to see yearly totals for Airstream's full history. It's fun to piece together what we can all the same.

My 1973 Airstream Trade Wind, photographed in Nevada. December 2007.