A "Tear Drop" that's NOT a teardrop - HELP!

[gregbciitv]

Tear Drop badge.jpg (65.91 KiB) Viewed 1194 times

teardrop after 2.jpg (111.51 KiB) Viewed 1194 times

teardrop before.jpg (148.84 KiB) Viewed 1194 times

Need help from the group - here are photos of a 1962 Tear Drop Travel Trailer, both before and after restoration, along with a photo of the actual manufacturer badge.
As you can see, the model is Tear Drop, even through the shape is much more Cardinal-esque.
The company was in El Monte, California - rumor is that this may have been a brand of the King Richards dealership.
Does anyone know anything about this brand of trailer?

NOTE: the ENTIRE restoration will be on TV THIS WEDNESDAY night on Flippin' RVs on Great American Country - GAC at 8 p.m. ET - so you can see the tear down and the build from start to finish.

Hope someone knows the story here!

Greg Glass
Burbank, CA

[Racquetman]

I don't know anything about the trailer, but I grew in El Monte, Ca. in the 50's & 60's and went to El Monte High School, brings back memories! But I don't remember the manufacturer or the name of that trailer.

[Gage]

Talking with Roy Greenwood (co-fonder of Benroy) in the late 90's, he showed me one of those as kind of a joke. I was looking for a teardrop he he pointed me to a small travel trailer which was like the one you have pictured. Roy had an RV repair business in Canyon Country. Like that he said it was built down in El Monte by the Tear Drop Trailer Company. That's about all I know about it.

A little trivia: Did you know that there were 4 or 5 small standup travel trailers made by and carry the name Benroy. Non known to exist today. What is known is one was wrecked and replaced and one was shipped to Texas with 3 teardrops on a flat bed rail car.

[grant whipp]

The story of the Tear Drop RV company was printed in my old newsletter, Tales & Trails, the Teardrop Times may years ago ... I'll have to dig into my archives to retrieve it, but if anyone out there has a reasonable complete collection of the newsletter, you'll find it there.

The owner's name was Ravenscroft (if my memory serves me), and the company never actually built a teardrop trailer as we know them, but small travel trailers and slide-in pick-up campers. In the early years of their marriage, the Ravenscrofts had an older "real" teardrop and would take it on outings and fishing trips quite regularly ... the gentleman loved it so much, he named his company Tear Drop.

When I can find the issue, I'll post an update.

CHEERS!

[banjokitties]

This 1964 (not 1962) Tear Drop trailer was manufactured by Tear Drop Trailer MFG, Inc. in El Monte Ca. Although the company was incorporated in late 1961, it had begun building both slide in truck campers and travel trailers in the City of Industry (CA) in the late '50s. Production moved to El Monte in the early sixties and once again to Phoenix in the mid sixties where the Tear Drop model was produced under the All Star Coach, Inc. parent name. At the time of its production in Arizona, the Tear Drop came in four sizes, 18' being the largest, in addition to the pick-up bed version.

The City of Industry production Tear Drops had rear kitchens and were not manufactured with knotty cedar. The El Monte trailer interiors were knotty cedar.

Tear Drop Trailer Manufacturing, Inc., was built by Ron Ravenscroft. He'd owned a traditional teardrop in the early '50s and had so enjoyed it that he named (and copyrighted) his own company after the style yet never produced a trailer that resembled it. He sold the company in the early '70s and passed away in 1977.