Omaha, Nebraska's Frontier Homes Corporation was at the forefront of the mobile home industry in the early 1960s. Their revolutionary FRONTIER 200, a 10-wide rig, featured unique "swing out" extensions that created a huge 14 x 14 foot center living room.
On the FRONTIER 200 interior were several slanted walls. The front kitchen had a diagonal twin-bowl sink unit with angled overhead cabinets.
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The FIFTH AVENUE model, built by the Skyline Coach Company of Elkhart, Indiana.
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One can almost hear the cha-cha-cha music playing at this festive mobile home housewarming party!
Drawing from the Sarasota Journal
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The promotional buzzword for Skyline's 10 by 50 foot FIFTH AVENUE model was SLANT...as in "kitchen". The rig featured an angled bar and sink fixture which jutted into the living area. This provided ample space for the kitchen's custom 4-chair dinette. Other features included an 11 cubic foot refrigerator, available in yellow, turquoise, pink or white. The cathedral ceiling living room had wall-to-wall carpeting (house trailers of the era were usually floored entirely with linoleum).
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The PARK MANOR DELUXE TENWIDE was built by Southern California's Arrowhead Trailers. The rig came in four different floor plans; three being 50 footers and one being the "super-size" 55 foot unit.
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The floor plan of the "center kitchen" rig was a unique one. The living room was at its back end. The only problem with this plan is its apparent lack of closet space. There was a small one in the bedroom, whose built-in vanity was a bit too large in comparison to the closet. Apparently, the only other closet was a small linen cabinet in the bathroom.
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One of the final mobile home models built by Tulsa, Oklahoma's Spartan Aircraft Company was the CRESCENDO. This rig, and the CAROUSEL (its Spartan-built sibling), were 10 feet wide and 50 feet long. Both originally sold for over 9,500 dollars each. They were, obviously, top-of-the-line trailers!
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One of the unique attributes of the Spartan CAROUSEL model was its crescent-shaped kitchen. In the slightly higher-priced CRESCENDO, both the kitchen AND living room were crescent-shaped. This design created space for a second bathroom, a feature virtually unheard of in a 10 by 50 foot, single-level mobile home of the period.
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Named after the Michigan town of its origin, the Owosso Mobile Homes company was producing a unique and innovative 10-wide, front kitchen rig in 1960. Some of its exterior features were a recessed "Verand-ette" entry with flower box, jalousie (roll out) windows and window shutters.
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The interior design of the Owosso 10 by 55 footer was even more inventive. A second bedroom, enclosed by a retractable "swing-a-wall", could be opened up in a jiffy to provide expanded living room space. The room was also equipped with a "murphy bed", which folded up into the wall when not in use. In the kitchen, pastel shade appliances (in pink, yellow or turquoise) were available as an option, as was an automatic "frost-free" refrigerator.
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