Area 63 Productions » The Grand Reveal!

The Grand Reveal!

July 11th, 2009

It has been waaayyy to long since the last update, for this I apologize. My excuse is that it was the final weeks of completing a year long project, and every fragment of energy was used to complete this wonderful trailer, and complete it as perfect as it is humanly possible…wow, it’s done! The owners, Ed and Paula, have taken it to Malibu for a shakedown week of beachfront camping. I couldn’t have thought of a more fitting first outing…

But, surely you all want to see how it turned out, instead of my miscellaneous ramblings…
So here goes, the completed 1968 Airstream International Ambassador——-

Next to the Area’s 63 Overlander to the left – a 28ft Airstream, fully polished, ready to hit the road. This was taken during solar system testing.

The Airstream is equipped with Heliotrope’s 30A MPPT charge controller, and 2 of AM Solar’s 100W panels. The system is hard wired, and features a remote control panel. The panel shows true battery voltage, amps, and has numerous options to read battery condition and charge rate etc. Nice, but also very simple and user friendly. The panels supply 2ea. of Odyssey’s 2150 ( Group 31 equivalent) AGM batteries. During the year that it took to build this trailer, the batteries never lost more than 0.3V, even after month long periods of no charge. Asa matter of fact, they came out of their boxes charged to 12.7V. AGM batteries require a closely matched charging system, please bear that in mind when considering a switch from wet cells. The charging system was supplied by Randy at bestconverter.com, as is the Seelevel tank monitoring system.

The front room, with it’s dinette, under seat storage, and convertible table that folds down to make a large bed.

The space offers ample seating, and has storage drawers below on over-extending, high quality drawer slides. The vent patterns under the street side front seat are for the Bose surround subwoofer, and for the Precision temp heat exchanger.

The curb side galley installation features a one-piece stainless countertop with smoothed in Franke sink. The tropical wood cutting board is a Franke accessory. Faucet by LaToscana. 2-burner cooktop is an original Princess cooktop.

The galley cabinet also houses this access panel for the electric stabilizer controls, and a switch for exterior courtesy lights under all 4 corners. This system can be used while the main power to the trailer is off. The tongue jack is on the same hd circuit.

I imagined that this was a cool solution for heat and hot water…until I actually fired it up. This thing is beyond cool. 3 minutes to boiling hot water, and less than 5 minutes to heat from the coolant to air heat exchangers. A slight hum, and there’s instant heat, mellow and gentle as if it originated from one’s body within. OK, enough drama….Precision temp’s Twin Temp Jr.

The galley cabinets feature pullput drawers, ample storage, and automatic courtesy lighting.

The street side galley installation features a Norcold 6-cu ft RV fridge with matched door panels, and a princess oven. The counter top matches that from across the hall. We believe that his could qualify as a true gourmet galley.