My Car is my Home

Arthur Thompson, the man who set one of the most beautiful camping vehicle on its wheels, must have been one who kept silent. Information about the watchmaker, in some reference sources listed as Walter J. Thompson, is almost not existent and it seems to be that nothing has survived up to the present.
 
In the 1930s he set a camper van on its wheels that captivated especially due to its mechanics. In his Californian domicile Ontario he sketched and tinkered for over seven years before he finally realized his idea. For his motorhome, he went for a Studebaker chassis with a six-cylinder engine. Onto the bare frame, he formed a car body, passenger and camper compartment, out of aluminum sheet. The idea with which the watchmaker came up was both simple and refined. Over the conventional, solid structure he fixed another almost identical structure, which could be lifted/ raised (similar to pop-up campers) through a combination of rods and a foldable fabric parts driven by an ingenious series of gears. Due to this identical; even both side windows were integrated; raised component it was possible for a grown person to stand upright.
 
As well nebulous as its creator Arthur Thompson is the number of camper vans built. An exact number of copies built cannot be proved beyond doubt. There is talk of “… a handful …” whereas other sources commit to four copies.