It was the summer of 1970, and I was stationed at a very small and obsolete US Army missile base near the southern tip of lake Michigan just north of Chesterton in Porter County, Indiana. Marcia and I were married in early May of that year. I was a twenty year old Army private and she was 19 years old. Along with radar and guided missiles, the base had a Starcraft Pop Up camper that was available for recreational purposes to the GIs stationed there. Fortunately for Marcia and me, the camper wasn’t used much by others and we got to use it during that first summer. We were soon hooked on the RV lifestyle once we started camping on the shores of Lake Michigan.
By the fall of that year, I had orders for Viet Nam, and the missile base would close and be deactivated within a year of our first summer. In a twist of fate, the missile base located at 1100 N. Mineral Springs Road which introduced us to the RV lifestyle went on to become the headquarters for the Indiana Dunes National Park. Isn’t it funny how those things go.
Over the next fifteen years our family grew to four and we would buy and sell three more pop up campers; two of them Starcraft and the last a Coleman. The most memorable of the three was the second Starcraft Pop Up shown below.
In the spring of 1977 I came across and add in the South Bend Tribune for a four year old Starcraft Camper for sale by a bank in Bremen Indiana for only $500. I drove to the bank to look at the camper but didn’t see it in the parking lot. When I inquired inside about it, they said there was one small catch. The bank was in the process of repossessing it but hadn’t done so yet. Then I was told if I wanted to pick it up they would knock off a $100. The camper was only four years old and $400 was a good price. I was young, eager, and maybe a little ignorant. I agreed to buy it, but wanted to drive by and see it first. I drove the the address they gave me. There it was sitting in the driveway folded down and ready to travel with the hitch facing the street. The camper was dirty and covered with years of leaves and grime on the outside, but it was only four years old, how bad could it be? I drove back to the bank and completed the deal. The bank gave me a bill of sale and a clear title. To my surprise they also had a key to the door. In hindsight I suspect the previous owners dropped off the keys and said come and get it.
I drove back to South Bend to pick up a friend who I needed to help if I wanted to get it out of that driveway quickly. By the time we got back to Bremen it was late in the day and we only had an hour of daylight left. It was about this time I started to think about all the things that could go wrong and started questioning my earlier judgement. But it was too late and we proceeded as planned. Fortunately for us we had no problems. I backed into the driveway, my friend jumped out, guided me back, connected the hitch to the receiver ball on my car, jumped back in, and off we went in less than three minutes. We waited to connect the safety chain and lights until we were down the road a couple of miles. Then I had another sobering thought, we hadn’t confirmed the serial number on the camper with the title the bank gave us. We stopped again to check, and the serial numbers matched which was a good thing for us.
The next morning I took a closer look at what I bought. The first major item I notice wrong was the cranking system used to raise and lower the top. One of the four lifting cables was severed and crank was only lifting three sides. My friend returned, and with his help I was able to get the top raised. I cranked while he lifted the corner that wouldn’t come up. The other three cables weren’t in very good shape either, and half of the pulleys were not turning. On the inside we saw that the ceiling of the roof was delaminating and drooping down, one of the corners of the roof was separating and the plywood in that corner was wet and spongy. Also in very bad shape was the side canvas which was dry rotted and torn, and the see through plastic side windows (part of the canvas side assembly) were yellowed to the point of not being transparent anymore. Surprisingly, the bottom shell of the camper was in good shape with only a little surface rust on the steel tubular frame. The exterior painted aluminum on the lower box cleaned up well too. There was no reason a camper just four years old should be in such bad shape unless it was totally neglected from day one. My thinking was it was put away wet for some time (for winter may be), and left cranked up for long periods of time as well (during the summer). In any case it needed a new roof, canvas, lifting cables and pulleys, and two wheels and wheel bearing that later revealed to rusted to the point of not being safe.
I priced the needed items from the local RV dealer who sold Starcraft campers, and the cost totaled more than it would be worth once fixed. Next I checked the Starcraft factory in Topeka, Indiana. I convinced them I was just starting out as an RV repairman, and this four year old pop up was my first job. I also mentioned how surprised I was at how poorly it had held up, and it must have been a case of abuse rather than poor workmanship at the factory. The Starcraft factory in Topeka sold me nearly all the items I needed to get my camper back on the road again for $700. At this point my total investment was eleven hundred dollars, less than half of what a new Starcraft was selling for at the time. For the next two days I removed the top, side canvas, and cable system. I then sanded and painted the black trailer frame with gloss black Rustoleum, sanded and painted the LP gas bottle white, replaced and rigged the lifting cables and pulleys, installed the new top, and hung the new side canvas. My sister made new cushion covers, and I replaced the tires, wheels and wheel bearing. Later I bought a canvas side awning for it. When I was finished it looked like a new camper, everything worked on it, and it was easy to pull behind our 1975 six cylinder Dodge Dart.
We kept this camper for about three years, and it served our family well. We had taken a couple trips to Florida with it, and for three summers camped on Lake Michigan and at other state parks in the northern Indiana area. Eventually I sold it to a friend at work for $1,500 and soon regretted selling it.