The 1938 Vagabond with the Curtiss Aerocar wasn’t a camper.
It wasn’t a truck.
And it definitely wasn’t normal.
This machine was a rolling residence, engineered at a time when the idea of living on the road barely existed. Built around a custom REO cab-over tractor and paired with an aviation-inspired Curtiss Aerocar trailer, the Vagabond was designed to travel indefinitely — with comfort, dignity, and total independence.
Powered first by a White V12 gasoline engine, then later by a 300-horsepower Cummins diesel, this vehicle remained operational for more than 50 years, covering hundreds of thousands of miles. It didn’t evolve — it simply endured.
No copies were made. No replacements followed.
Just one machine that quietly proved the future… decades too early.
This is not a story about camping.
It’s a story about survival, excess, and imagination without limits.
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