Cuddle Up in This
复古房车，令人着迷的时间胶囊
Sitting in a tiny room wrapped in birchwood the color of honey on a rainy afternoon last week, Kelle Arvay had a look of deep contentment. “It’s hard to describe the feeling of being inside here,” Ms. Arvay said. “It’s comfortable. It’s a real safe-feeling space.”
上周一个雨天的午后，克勒·阿尔沃伊(Kelle Arvay)坐在一间包裹着蜜色桦木的温馨小屋里，脸上流露出深深的满足。“我很难描述待在这里的感觉，”阿尔沃伊说，“这里很舒服，真的很有安全感。”
Ms. Arvay wasn’t describing her two-story house just north of Toledo, Ohio, which she said she finds too big. Instead, she had invited a visitor into her little domestic getaway: a 1955 Bellwood travel trailer. The 13-foot-long trailer sits under a carport in Ms. Arvay’s side yard, its rounded aluminum shell exemplifying all that is sleek and sturdy about midcentury design.
阿尔沃伊描述的，并不是她在俄亥俄州托莱多(Toledo)以北的那栋两层楼的房子，她说她觉得那里太大了。相反，她邀请访客来到了她的迷你家庭度假屋：一辆1955年产的Bellwood房车。这辆13英尺(约合4米)长的房车停靠在阿尔沃伊家侧院的一间无墙车棚里，它那圆弧形的全铝车身，彰显出复古而又结实的世纪中叶设计风格。
The only thing cuter than a tiny house is a tiny house on wheels.
只有一样东西比迷你小屋更可爱，那就是带轱辘的小屋。
“Sleeping in one of these is just great,” she said, nestled into the trailer’s dinette, which has booth seats and a foldable table that convert into a bed. “Especially at night, if it starts raining. It’s a great sound, the rain on the roof.”
“睡在这种车里的感觉真的很好，”她蜷身在房车的小餐厅里这样说，餐厅当中，有卡座沙发和一张已改装成床铺的折叠桌，“尤其是在晚上开始下雨的时候。雨点打在屋顶上的声音听起来很有气氛。”
Ms. Arvay, 44, bought the Bellwood for $3,500 from someone in Arizona and had it shipped to her home. Her interest in trailers started six years ago, when she purchased a 1968 Shasta Compact from a couple in Indiana. She had planned to buy a new R.V. to go camping with her husband and three children. But the Shasta’s diminutive size (just 10 feet long) and vintage styling, she said, “instantly spoke to me.”
阿尔沃伊现年44岁，她从亚利桑那的一个卖家那里花3500美元(约合人民币21675.5元)买下了这辆房车，把它运回家里。她对房车的兴趣始于六年前。当时，她从印第安纳州的一对夫妇那里买下一台1968年产的Shasta Compact。她本来是打算买一辆全新的露营车(RV)，以便跟丈夫和三个孩子去露营的。但是她说，那台Shasta的迷你尺寸(只有10英尺[约合3 米]长)和复古风格“一下子就吸引了我。”
It wasn’t long before she was buying more trailers to refurbish and decorate (and sometimes sell), and chronicling it all on her blog, littlevintagetrailer.com. Fellow trailer enthusiasts wrote to ask questions or share stories and post ads for models they were selling, and a community formed. Ms. Arvay, it turns out, was early to what has lately become a travel trailer craze.
没过多久，她就开始收购更多的房车，重新配备家具并加以装饰(有时也会卖掉)，同时，她会在自己的博客 littlevintagetrailer.com上记录整个过程。一些趣味相投的房车爱好者开始留言提问、分享故事，或者发布广告来宣传自己售卖的车型，由此形成了一个圈子。事实证明，阿尔沃伊是后来流行起来的“房车热”的先行者。
These days, design blogs are full of photos of vintage trailers gleaming in the sun, decorated in styles ranging from high-end modern to retro kitsch. On Pinterest, one trailer in particular, a 1957 Sprite painted green and white and photographed in an English garden, has achieved fantasy-object status, appearing on dozens of users’ pinboards.
在那段时间里，设计博客上到处都是复古房车的照片，这些房车闪耀在阳光下，展现出多种多样的装潢风格，有的高端现代，有的复古媚俗。在图片社交网站 Pinterest上，有一辆房车尤其引人瞩目，那是辆1957年产的Sprite，绿色和白色涂装，拍摄于一座英式花园里。这辆车已经成为一个带有梦幻色彩的事物，许多用户的pinboard页面上都转载了它的照片。
Originally intended for camping, vintage trailers are being repurposed in all kinds of ways: as a roadside bakery stand, as vacation homes on a rustic piece of land, as backyard writing or painting studios.
最初，复古房车只是用于露营的车型;而如今则被赋予了各式各样的用途：有的用作烘焙路边摊，有的用作乡村度假屋，有的用作后院写作室或画室。
J. Wes Yoder, a writer who lives in Nashville, bought a ’63 Shasta on eBay for $1,900, fixed it up and parked it in his backyard as a little guesthouse. He began renting the trailer on Airbnb, and it has been booked nearly every day this year, he said.
J·维斯·约德(J. Wes Yoder)是名居住在纳什维尔(Nashville)的作家，他以1900美元(约合人民币11640元)的价格在eBay上买了一辆63年产的 Shasta，将它装修好后，停在了自家后院里，作为一处小客房。他开始在Airbnb上出租这辆房车，据他说，这台车今年几乎每天都有人预定。
“A lot of people who stay here talk about how simple it is,” said Mr. Yoder, 35. “No TV, no Internet. It’s something different.”
“很多来这里住的人都说它很简约，”现年35岁的约德说，“没有电视，没有互联网，是一种不同的体验。”
Anna Scribner, 38, who runs Flyte Camp, a Bend, Ore.-based vintage trailer restoration shop with her husband, Justin, credits the Tiny House movement that grew out of the financial crisis for sparking the comeback, in part.
安娜·斯克里布纳(Anna Scribner)现年38岁，和丈夫在俄勒冈州的本德市(Bend)经营着一家房车翻新店——Flyte Camp。她认为，由于金融危机而兴起的小屋运动(Tiny House movement)，部分导致了房车的卷土重来。
"People love the idea that they own something that nobody can take away from them," Ms. Scribner said. No matter how small it is.
斯克里布纳说，“人们都希望自己能够拥有某样别人拿不走的东西，”不管这件东西有多小。
Ms. Arvay, who owns a vacation property in northern Michigan that contains three tiny houses, also sees similarities between them and travel trailers. "It has to do with the small, cozy feel they give you," she said.
阿尔沃伊在密歇根北部拥有一套包含三间小屋的度假房产，她也看到了小屋和房车之间的相似性。“它们都能给你以小巧玲珑而又温馨的感觉。”她说。
With their propane stoves, lofted beds and mini iceboxes, trailers make clever use of limited space. “Everything you would need if you were living in it is there,” she said.
配备了丙烷灶、悬空床和迷你冰箱后，房车一族就巧妙利用了有限的空间。“你生活所需的一切都在这里了。”阿尔沃伊说。
This fall, in one sign of the renewed popularity, Shasta reissued its 1961 AirFlyte, a model well known among trailer aficionados for its chrome wings and “canned ham” shape. The Indiana company has updated the appliances and added a bathroom (many older, smaller trailers lack a toilet), but has preserved the classic styling, said Mark Lucas, Shasta’s president.
今年秋，作为“房车热”再度流行的标志之一，Shasta重新推出了其1961年生产的AirFlyte。这是一款在房车发烧友当中非常有名的车型，因为它配备了镀铬翼板，而且形似“罐装火腿”。据Shastad的总裁马克·卢卡斯(Mark Lucas)说，这家位于印第安纳的汽车公司，更新了AirFlyte内的设备用具，还在车里增设了一间浴室(许多款式较老、规格较小的房车里没有厕所)，但仍保留了其经典的设计风格。
That’s because for many people, vintage trailers (or vintage-looking ones) are something of a time capsule. “They’re trying to replicate a lifestyle they grew up with,” Mr. Lucas said. “Or get back to a simpler time.”
(房车复兴)是因为，对于很多人来说，复古房车(或复古样式的房车)就像时间胶囊一般。“他们在试图再现自己成长过程中曾经体验过的生活方式，”卢卡斯说，“又或者是为了回归到一个更简单的年代。”
That was how Ms. Scribner and her husband found the trailer world. Mr. Scribner, 42, grew up camping with his family in trailers; soon after the couple married, in 1998, he surprised his wife with a ’58 Shasta AirFlyte.
斯克里布纳和丈夫就是这样看待他们的房车天地的。她的丈夫现年42岁，从小就跟家人在房车里露营;夫妇俩1998年结婚后不久，他就用58年产的Shasta AirFlyte给了妻子一个惊喜。
“I wasn’t sure if it was a good surprise or a bad surprise,” Ms. Scribner recalled. “I thought trailers were trashy.”
“我当时也不确定那个惊喜是好是坏，”斯克里布纳回忆道，“那时候我觉得房车挺没用的。”
But she had always appreciated vintage design, and very quickly, she said: “I fell in love with the cool lines. It had incredible drawer pulls, and the upholstery on the booth seats was original.”
但她一直很欣赏复古的设计，而且据她说，没过多久，“我就喜欢上了它那酷酷的线条。它的抽屉拉环很精巧，而且卡座沙发的垫子也很独特。”
In addition to owning Flyte Camp, the Scribners are the stars of “Flippin’ RVs,” a new reality show on the Great American Country network. Viewers follow the couple as they meticulously restore rare trailers for themselves and for clients. Like the 41-foot, double-decker trailer from 1956 that Ms. Scribner found languishing in a field and bought over her husband’s objections to its size. (She called it “a great party pad.”)
除了经营房车翻新店Flyte Camp以外，斯克里布纳夫妇还是乡村音乐电视网(Great American Country)新推出的真人秀《Flippin' RVs》的明星人物。观众们可以在节目中见证斯克里布纳夫妇一丝不苟地为自己和客户翻新稀有房车，比如那台1956年产的41英尺(约合12米)长双层房车。斯克里布纳当初在一片空地上看到它风雨飘摇的样子，便不顾丈夫反对，将它买了下来。她的丈夫觉得它太大(她把它称为“派对杀器”)。
The business and TV show grew out of the couple’s trailer-collecting hobby, Mr. Scribner said: “I was buying these things for $500 or $600, fixing them up and posting them online. They sold in two or three days. It dawned on us that other people appreciated these trailers, too. It’s amazing how fast it grew.”
夫妇俩之所以开店、上电视，都是源自收藏房车的爱好所致。斯克里布纳的丈夫说：“那时候，我花500到600美元(约合人民币3063到3675 元)买这些车，把它们翻新后放到网上卖，两、三天就卖出去了。于是我们意识到，其他人也喜欢这些车。房车业务发展壮大的速度十分令人惊叹。”
Now a new generation of fans is beginning to appreciate the same virtues that he and his wife recognized 15 years ago, Mr. Scribner said. “People are thinking: ‘Look how cool I can make it, and I can personalize it. And I can do it right in my driveway.’ ”
斯克里布纳说，如今，新一代的发烧友正开始像他和妻子15年前那样，从同样的角度欣赏房车的优点，“人们的想法是：‘看看我能把它造得多酷，我还能让它与众不同。而且，我还能在自家车道上做到这一点。’”
Refurbishing a vintage trailer can be fairly easy or a work-intensive grind. Pete Whitley discovered this after he saw a Craigslist ad for a 1964 Shasta AstroFlyte (which is similar to the AirFlyte, but with a cab-over bunk) and paid $1,000, sight-unseen.
翻新一辆复古房车可能很容易，也可能是件高强度的体力活。皮特·惠特利(Pete Whitley)对此深有体会。他在Craigslist网站上看到一则售卖1964年产Shasta AstroFlyte的广告(这个车型跟AirFlyte类似，但里面有一张悬空床)。于是，他在没有事先看过货的情况下，就花1000美元(约合人民币 6126元)买下了它。
Even well-preserved trailers can have body dents and water damage from sitting for years. But when Mr. Whitley’s new trailer arrived at his house near Atlanta, he said: “There were dead mice in the drawers and damage where water had leaked through the back window. I got a crowbar and started ripping into it, rotten piece of wood after rotten piece of wood. Next thing I know, I had the whole back end off.”
即使是保存完好的房车，也会因为长年累月的闲置而出现车身凹陷和水渍。但据惠特利回忆，当他的新房车运到位于亚特兰大(Atlanta)附近的家时，“抽屉里有死老鼠，还有水从后窗漏进去造成的损毁。我拿了根铁撬棍开始往里面挖，挖出一块又一块腐烂的木头。接着我就发现，自己竟把整个后部都卸了下来。”
Mr. Whitley, 50, a mechanic for Delta Air Lines, consulted online forums like Repairing Yesterday’s Trailers, and had the original aqua paint color matched at Sherwin-Williams. A year and a half and $6,000 later, he and his wife and two children were taking the trailer on camping trips to the north Georgia woods.
现年50岁的惠特利是达美航空(Delta Air Lines)的机械师，他在“修理旧日房车”(Repairing Yesterday's Trailers)这类在线论坛上求助了网友，然后在宣伟涂料公司(Sherwin-Williams)配到了原本的水绿色涂漆。在花费了一年半的时间和 6000美元(约合人民币36757元)之后，他带上妻子和两个孩子，开始坐着房车去乔治亚州的林间露营了。
In the end, Mr. Whitley said, his Shasta was cheaper to restore than a vintage car would have been, and turns more heads on the highway. “Trailers are like a little house — nothing is that expensive,” he said. And “you see a lot of vintage cars around. This is still an unusual piece.”
惠特利说，到头来，他翻新Shasta的开支还是要比翻新一辆复古轿车便宜，而且在高速公路上也能吸引更多目光。“房车就像一个小屋子——没什么特别贵的东西，”他说，而且“你平常总能看到很多复古汽车，但这一辆依然很出众。”
As with vintage cars, there seem to be two schools of thought about vintage trailers: keep them original or transform an old shell into something new.
谈到复古汽车，人们对复古房车的看法似乎分成了两派：一派认为应该保持原本的样子，另一派则支持旧貌换新颜。
Mandi Gubler took the latter approach with the 1972 Bell trailer that she bought last April and named the Nugget, because, as she put it, “It’s just so teeny and adorable.”
曼迪·居布莱(Mandi Gubler)采用后一种思路，改造了自己那辆1972年产的Bell房车。她是去年(2013年——译注)四月买下那辆车的，将它命名为“小东西”(the Nugget)，因为据她说，“它真的很小、很可爱。”
Ms. Gubler, 31, was captivated by the vintage trailers she saw on Pinterest, which evoked “a different time period and a life that seems really charming.” When she found the Bell after an extensive search, she was won over by its tiny house-like footprint and, on a practical level, its roadworthy condition.
现年31岁的居布莱，在Pinterest上一眼看中了这辆复古房车。它令她脑海里浮现出“一个不同的历史时期，和一种看起来真的很吸引人的生活。”当她经过大量搜索，找到这辆Bell时，就被它看似小屋的外形吸引了。而且从实用角度来说，它的状态也很好，可以开上街去。
Remaking the interior has been “pure excitement,” she said. “The pattern I did on the walls is this white-diamond geometric shape from the ’60s. I have penny tile in there. The stove I had painted in a two-toned color, white and cantaloupe. You walk in and it’s almost like you’re in another world.”
重新设计车厢内饰，“完全是件令人兴奋的事，”她说，“我设计的墙面图案，是一种60年代风格的白色钻石几何形状。我在里面铺上了小面砖。我把炉灶涂成了两种颜色，白色和蜜瓜色。你走进去后，就会觉得这里几乎是另一个世界。”
Since she writes a D.I.Y. blog, Vintage Revivals, Ms. Gubler was no stranger to renovation projects. Still, she said, the Nugget presented unfamiliar challenges. She had to be mindful not to add too much weight, which would make it unsafe to tow. “I handmade this amazing wood floor,” she said. “And instead of using a heavier type of wood, I used pine, because it’s lightweight.”
作为D.I.Y.博客“复古翻新”(Vintage Revivals)的作者，居布莱对装修项目并不陌生。不过她说，“小东西”还是给她带来了不甚熟悉的挑战。她必须小心不要让车身过重，否则拖起来就会不安全。“我手工制作了这些神奇的木地板，”她说，“我没有用更重的木材，而是用了松木，因为它很轻。”
For the last six months, the Nugget has been parked in Ms. Gubler’s driveway in Utah, but now that it’s done, she plans to take it to her family’s cabin and rent it for photo shoots: “I just want it to be available for whatever people can dream up using it for.”
近六个月里，“小东西”一直停放在居布莱在犹他州(Utah)的私家车道上。但现在既然已经翻新完了，她就打算把它带到自家的农场小屋去，将它出租，用于拍照。“我只是想让它能够派上用场，让别人用它做自己梦寐以求的任何事情。”
That adaptability explains much of the appeal. Consider what Marsha Heckman, a decorating writer in Mill Valley, Calif., dreamed up for the 29-foot 1969 Airstream International that she and her husband found in Northern California, way up a dirt road.
这种灵活适应性，就在很大程度上证明了其魅力所在。来自加州米尔谷(Mill Valley)的装饰/装修话题作家玛莎·赫克曼(Marsha Heckman)对自己的房车就抱有这样的期待。那是她和丈夫在加州北部一条土路上看到的一辆29英尺(约合9米)的1969年产Airstream International。
“It really came out of a creative way to expand the space in our home without building an addition,” Ms. Heckman, 68, said. “We were asking ourselves, ‘Should we add on? Go up with a dome?’ It was just so expensive.”
“这真的是种很有创意的方式，可以让我们在无需扩建的情况下增加家中的空间，”现年68岁的赫克曼说，“我们当时就在考虑，‘要不要扩建?要不要加盖一层圆顶房间?’可就是太贵了。”
One night at dinner, she recalled, “My son said, ‘We could put a trailer back there.’ ” Ms. Heckman had never owned a trailer and didn’t want to, she said, unless it met a specific condition: “I wanted an Airstream.”
据她回忆，一天晚上吃饭的时候，“我儿子说，‘我们可以在那里放一辆房车。’”赫克曼从没买过房车，也不想买。她说，除非它满足一个特定的条件：“我想要一辆Airstream。”
The Heckmans hired a crane to airlift their trailer over two neighboring houses and into their yard, and Ms. Heckman’s son and husband, Floyd, a retired contractor, gut renovated the dingy interior, while she handled the décor.
赫克曼夫妇叫了一辆起重机，吊着他们的房车从半空中越过两个邻居家，放到自家院里。赫克曼的丈夫、退休建筑承包商弗洛德(Floyd)带着儿子对邋遢的车内进行了彻底翻修，而赫克曼则负责内部装饰。
“I have decorated other people’s houses and I never, ever had so much fun,” Ms. Heckman said. “I could do exactly what I wanted. I did a red kitchen, because every girl wants red shoes and, once in her life, a red kitchen.”
“我装修过别人的房子，但是从没体会到过这么大的乐趣，”赫克曼说，“我可以完全按照自己的想法做。我装修了一间红色的厨房，因为每个女孩都想要红鞋子，而且一生当中也总有一次会想要个红厨房。”
Like Mr. Yoder, Ms. Heckman is now renting the trailer on Airbnb — in her case, for supplemental retirement income — and she couldn’t be happier with the sight of it in her yard. “It looks like a streamliner train pulling into a station,” she said. “The Airstream has so much movement in the design.”
和约德一样，赫克曼现在正在Airbnb上出租房车，以补贴自己的退休收入。每每看见它停在自己的院子里，她就感到喜不自胜。“它看起来就像一辆准备进站的流线型火车，”她说，“Airstream的设计太灵动了。”
Vintage trailers, Airstream or otherwise, can become addictive.
复古房车有可能让人上瘾，不管它是Airstream，还是其他品牌。
Ms. Scribner, who runs the restoration shop, estimates that she and her husband have owned some 50 trailers over the years (they’re currently at three, with six more waiting to be restored). Mr. Whitley is renovating his second, a 1956 Silver Dome, which is roomier and rarer than his Shasta.
房车翻新店店主斯克里布纳估计，她和丈夫这些年来购置过50多辆房车(现有的数量是三台，还有六台正待翻新)。惠特利也正在翻新他的第二辆房车——一台1956年产的Silver Dome，它比他那辆Shasta更宽敞，也更稀有。
And Ms. Arvay, the blogger who has bought, renovated and sold several trailers over the years, recently bought another, a ’63 Yellowstone. While she has kept her ’55 Bellwood spare and original-looking, she tricked out the slightly larger Yellowstone, installing a retro-style tile floor and filling it with kitschy accessories like a canned-ham tin.
而阿尔沃伊，也就是近年来购买、翻新、出售了好几辆房车的那位博主，最近又买了一辆63年产的Yellowstone。她虽然将55年产的 Bellwood留着备用，并保持了它原本的模样，但是对规格稍大的Yellowstone就做了些装饰，铺设了复古风格的地板砖，在车内放置了一些花里胡哨的配饰，比如一个火腿罐头。
