Land Speed Record Camper? 1970 Chinook 2200
Russell GlantzRussell Glantz
Speed is not something we usually equate with an RV, however, there is a land speed record for them, and it’s faster than you might think! This particular classic chassis is up for sale right now, here on craigslist from Canby, Oregon. It looks to be in nice shape, let’s thank reader Rocco while we check it out!
If you’re still with us, you probably know that RVs as we know them today were unheard-of in the early days. We tend to take for granted that air conditioning, running water, and entertainment programming that beams down from the heavens exists, but in 1938 when Sy and Rose Mair started Mair & Son (the early name of Chinook) in Orange County, California, they could not have dreamed what ups and downs their enterprise would endure over the next 80-odd years.
Fast-forward to 1965, when the brand name Chinook was copyrighted by the Mair family, and a competitor (and eventual owner) Don Lukehart, Sr., would be hot on their tails with the first conversions of regular vans into “camper-vans” Skipping ahead then to today, Chinook is is in new hands and doing business after a short hiatus in the 2010s, making rather nice machines once again. Our RV-knowledgeable readers will recall that the 2200 and 2500 series started rolling out soon after the devastating factory fire in 1967, as the company’s first fully self-contained models.
We look now at the example presented, and it’s built a Dodge truck chassis, with quite a bit of its fiberglass construction. The pictures are not as good as we would like, but we can work with what’s there.
The seller tells us that it has a 318 cubic inch Chrysler powerplant and automatic transmission, but doesn’t specify exactly how many miles it has seen. We are also told that it runs great, has an upgraded fuel tank, and has had some recent maintenance. We can see in the pictures that it looks as though one of the widows has been replaced by sheet metal, and the seller says that it could be used as a food-truck type of machine. They say that it’s very rare, but we at Barn Finds couldn’t authenticate that, or the land-speed claim in the seller’s description, on short deadlines.
Look at this thing! When was the last time you saw one, let alone one in nice shape? I know I’ve never seen one at all, so I was fascinated to learn the slightly complicated story of the company over the years. I will freely admit to appreciating old campers and RVs like this, ones that have been kept well and could possibly be turn-key. Fuel economy in the single digits be damned, I want to travel around the U.S.A. in this! Oh, and before I forget: The land speed record for an RV (as of the date of this publication) is 141.3 miles per hour, set by an Englishman in the U.K. in 2014
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