These awe-inspiring vehicles were designed by the legendary Harley Earl. Their story begins in 1933, when General Motors was persuaded to create a traveling technology roadshow. The first ‘Parade of Progress’ hit the road in 1936, and in 1940 twelve ‘first generation’ Futurliners appeared.

Are they still around? Fo’ shizzle. In 2006, one sold for a cool US$4m at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Arizona, and earlier this year, another was delivered to a new owner in Sweden.

The Futurliners carried up to 90 gallons of gas—oh, those were the days—but the first incarnations only had four-cylinder diesels for motive power.

World War II put the brakes on the Parade, and the Futurliners were mothballed. After the war, they resurfaced in Detroit for another parade, this time commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the automobile.

In ’53, no doubt embarrassed by the lethargic performance of its dream machines, the General sent the Futurliners back into the workshop. They were rebuilt and upgraded, and the Parade of Progress started up again. This time, the Futurliners had a more appropriate 302 cubes, and four-speed Hydramatics to drive through. But three years later, television provided a better window on the world than the Parade, and GM sold or gave away its Futurliners.

For some of these vehicles, the history is a little murky: most are accounted for, but four are apparently beyond restoration. Much as we like originality, we’d love to see one of these RV forerunners given a modern drivetrain, and a chassis to match the extraordinary looks—top speed in original trim is only around 40mph (65kph). And then perhaps Airstream interior design guru Christopher Deam could weave his magic on the interior …

In fact, one Futurliner has already been converted into a motorhome by a guy called Bob Valdez, who did most of the work himself. Bob put his rig up for sale earlier this year, and if you’ve got more than a million in the bank and a taste for leather, chrome and maroon velvet, it might not be too late to call him.

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GM stunned the RV world again in 1972 with the GMC Motorhome. It’s Thunderbirds and The A-Team rolled into one, a low and sleek sportscoach that was also years ahead of its time.

Sopranos actor and long time cigar nut Frank Vincent (below) is a fan of the Mobile Cigar Lounge, and rolled up last Father’s Day puffing on his own ‘Frank Vincent Signature Cigar‘. But it’s not just a Man Thing: the Florida-based Lounge is also pitched at laydeez who want to ‘learn how to handle a cigar like a pro.’

Yes, it’s the ultimate tailgater, and if you live in the south-eastern states, it could be at a stadium near you—thanks to a couple of cigar-mad hockey stars.

The original idea came from Juan Guillen, a 20-year veteran of the US cigar industry. Guillen built a prototype in Tallahassee, Florida, using a vintage Airstream that was completely gutted down to the aluminum skin.

He got the sub-floor reinforced and re-welded to withstand heavy traffic, and then removed the interior walls, leaving two support poles to distribute the weight and prop up the roof.

Then Guillen showed his prototype to retired NHL players Stanislav ‘Stan’ Neckar and Dave Andreychuk, and he was ready to roll.

Like most cigar fans, Stan and Dave were annoyed by the USA’s increasingly strict anti-smoking laws. Czech-born defenseman Neckar recalls one particular evening after winning the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. “Half the team was standing outside having celebratory cigars, and I was thinking, there has got to be a better way.”

So the three wiseguys turned the Airstream into an upscale cigar lounge on wheels. They added two rooftop air conditioning units and—smart move, fellas—a heavy-duty filtration unit. In went five flat screen TVs, each with its own satellite receiver, plus a wet bar and a wine cooler.

Seats were covered with ostrich leather. Woodworkers installed cherry wood cabinetry, cedar ceilings and walls, and a hand-hammered copper sink. On the outside, a complete polish brought back the original mirror shine. The new humidor is, of course, simply enormous.

The Mobile Cigar Lounge is now available for hire, along with the pretty Cigaristas, and proving popular on the party circuit. It comfortably seats up to 20 inside and minimum hire is just three hours, enough time to comfortably smoke a Gran Corona before the big game.

Sounds good, and there’s only one more decision to make if you’re tempted: are you going to give that stogie a V-Cut, or a Straight Cut, as Frank likes it?

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If you like Airstreams, check out our guide to The 7 Essential Airstream Websites. Airstream’s latest model is the PanAmerica toy hauler, and we’ve got the pictures.

A strange regulatory quirk means the ancient Type 2 Kombi can still be imported into the UK as a new vehicle. These fresh-out-of-the-box campervans look like the originals from the 70s, but there’s a big difference at the back—VW has swapped the air-cooled motor for its new water-cooled 1.4 liter ‘Total Flex’ fuel-injected engine.

The largest (and only ‘Official’) VW Kombi converter in the UK is Danbury, the 70-year-old Bristol company famous for creating the six-wheel-drive Land Rover. Your new Kombi comes with a comforting 3-year warranty, and Danbury told us it’s “the only company in the world that can convert these vehicles to right hand drive using new parts.”

So far, so good. But then there’s the small issue of price. In Brasil, your average Juan can buy a new Kombi for around £11,000 ($18,000). But when it’s been shipped to the UK, modified to meet local regulations, given a lick of paint, and fitted with a campervan interior, the price doubles.

Danbury charges £18,999 (US$31,500) for its basic ‘Amigo’ model. For the top-of-the-range SE, the well-heeled English hippie will need £31,354 ($50,000). Which is enough to put a 2009 Airstream Flying Cloud 19 on your driveway.

And that’s before you’ve perused the massive accessories list—which includes an elevating roof, and will soon feature power steering too. (If you want that conversion to right-hand-drive, add another grand on top.)

Another UK specialist is VW DownUnder, a younger British company that imports Kombis via VW Heritage, the UK’s largest supplier of VW parts. They’re offering kitted out campervans for just under £25,000, and they also stock new ‘old stock’ air-cooled models and secondhand buses.

VW DownUnder’s buses are mostly custom-built: “The vans we convert for our customers are 100% bespoke,” they tell us. “Each one is totally unique and tailored to our clients’ individual needs and requirements. Our big thing is quality–we won’t allow any van to leave the workshop unless it is 100% perfect, something our customers have commented on time and again.”

No matter where you get your ‘new’ Kombi from, the base vehicle is the same. The water-cooled motor is hardly a fireball–it splutters out 80 bhp at an asthmatic 4800 rpm–but it does meet the UK emissions regulations. Top speed has crept up to 130 km/h (80 mph) and it takes a slightly stoned 16 seconds to reach 100 km/h.

Unfortunately VW Brasil fits a new plastic grille on the front of the Type 2 body, and it’s an abomination. It’s needed to supply airflow to the radiator, but the chunky design jars badly with the otherwise smooth, timeless lines of the Type 2. Danbury and VW DownUnder fix this by color-coding the grille to match the body, and Danbury also offers a dummy ‘spare wheel cover’ that allows air to pass through.

Most bodies roll off the South American production line in white, which has a cool, minimalist vibe. But the UK converters can respray your new vehicle in almost any color you want—whether it’s just the lower half, or an all-over tan.

That’s enough for us: we’re sold. We’ll take one in a flat sandy beige with hi-gloss chrome hubcaps. We’ll slap on a couple of discreet Coop decals, cut a loop off the springs, and then take it straight to the neighborhood engine shop for some light head work.

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It’s rumored that VW is going to build a new Microbus in the USA soon. But if the lure of oldtimer camping is too strong, get an instant fix with the rustic Tonke Camper from Holland. (Oh, and thanks to Steven from the VW camper hire outfit Snail Trail for helping with this article.)

The GMC is the muscle car of the RV world. It holds the land speed record for motorhomes, clocking 106mph at Bonneville last year. It’s been immortalized several times as a Hot Wheels toy.

It’s even had a movie career, starring in the 1981 Bill Murray comedy Stripes. But for those of you who grew up in the 70s, the GMC will always be known as Captain America’s van.

That’s pretty remarkable for an RV that only had a six-year production run. But there are many, many remarkable things about the GMC. For starters, it was the first RV created and built by an automaker—and to this day, no other automaker has taken that risk.

GM called the project TVS-4 (‘Travel Vehicle Streamlined, model 4’). For maximum grunt, it dropped in a mighty 455ci V8—an engine that also powered the ’68 Toronado. A claimed 260 horses were fed through a three-speed gearbox to the front wheels; with no driveshaft running to the back axle, this gave the living area an extra-low floor and lots of headroom.

The GMC looked sharp from the start, sitting low on its haunches. But the front wheel drive gave traction problems on uphill grades, especially in heavy rain or snow. Handling was otherwise decent, helped by a low center of gravity and an air spring setup for the four wheels at the back.

You got the choice of a six-berth 26-foot or a (relatively rare) four-berth 23-foot. The sleek styling gave an amazingly low drag coefficient of 0.31, fractionally lower than the contemporary Corvette. And the interior was funky even by 70s standards, designed with the help of House and Garden magazine. The wraparound glass looked cool, but in hot weather the large windows put a huge strain on the roof-mounted air conditioner.

At launch, the recommended prices (sans options) were $14,569 for the 26-foot, and $13,569 for the 23-foot. And what a launch it was: the stock prices of all the other major RV manufacturers fell the very next day. Their vehicles suddenly looked very old. As the GMC sales brochure said, you could now buy a “motorhome that doesn’t look like a box or ride like a truck.”

GM originally envisioned its project as a ‘multi-purpose vehicle’ for extended living. This notion was dropped once the Motorhome was launched, but in 1975 GM did launch an unfurnished Transmode model. Soon, GMCs were being turned into everything from mobile recording studios to laboratories. The Transmode shells were farmed to conventional coachbuilders such as Coachmen.

Towards the end of the production run, limited editions proliferated. Rather strangely, two ‘Coca-Cola’ models also appeared: a standard model in Cameo White with a red horizontal stripe, and a specc’d-up version called the GadAbout.

And then, suddenly, the wheels came off the bus. The fuel crisis may have played a part, but the GMC’s 8 to 10 mpg thirst was actually pretty good for a Class A with a big V8. The bigger problems were rising production costs and the impending demise of the Toronado drivetrain. Major surgery would be required to install a replacement, and GM didn’t have the stomach for it.

In 1977 GM shrank the engine to 403 cubes, but the sticker price by then had soared to $38,000. There was no place for the world’s coolest RV any more: in 1978, the production line in Pontiac, Michigan was shut down.

Some 13,000 GMCs were made in all, and many are still on the road today. Winnebago released a thinly-veiled copy in the late 80s called the Spectrum 2000, and GMC body parts were combined with Revcon mechanicals to create a strange hybrid replica produced by Silver Motor Coach.

Today, thirty years on, the originals are relatively easy to keep on the road. Rebuilt engines are available for around $6,000, and the bodies are made from long-lasting aluminum and fiberglass.

Some owners restore their GMCs to showroom condition, while others update the interiors in superyacht or Airstream CCD style. The only real bugbear is the underlying frame—which could cost up to $10,000 to fix if decayed. But a thriving restoration industry makes it easy to keep the mechanicals in good running order, led by specialists such as Cooperative Motor Works.

GM itself briefly raised hopes for a Mk II Motorhome with the award-winning GMC Pad design concept in 2005 (pictures below). But nothing more has been heard of this. The future of modern RV design probably lies more in the direction of VW’s acclaimed 2001 Microbus Concept.

There are plenty of GMC links to stoke your appetite, from Flickr sets to extensive histories. The best GMC fansite of all is probably bdub, with its archive of GMC brochure eyecandy and a thorough GMC FAQ for newbies. If you’re hankering after a GMC for yourself, keep an eye on eBay or the big RV classifieds such as rvt.com.

Just remember to set aside $20,000 on top of the purchase price, and then you can create a personalized RV that looks like it’s just rolled off the set of The Jetsons. A much better—and cheaper—proposition than a 40-foot white box with cheesy graphics.

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Almost three decades earlier, GM released the mind-boggling Futurliner. A restored example sold for a cool US$4m at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Arizona in 2006, and you can see why.

Yes, the Shasta brand is back and it’s making waves. The 3-berth Airflyte 12 may be a new model, but the exterior is as authentic as they come. The distinctive wings on the flanks are still there, the Z-stripes on the sides are still there, and the wheels still sport cute little chrome moon hubcaps.

The new Shasta is all-electric, which has prompted an outbreak of tut-tutting amongst some traditionalists. There are no propane appliances, and because you need to hook up to an electrical supply, you won’t want to head off the beaten track. Then again, you can solve that problem by slinging a super-quiet generator into the back of the El Camino.

Shasta is one of the oldest names in the RV business, dating back to the early 1940s, but the interior spec of its new travel trailer is bang up to date. The look is sleek and modern, with space-efficient design and a choice of three colorways. You also get a 19-inch LCD (HD ready) TV—with a bracket for inside or outside viewing—and a DVD player. The options list even includes an iPod docking station.

The 17’4″ Shasta is nice ‘n’ light: the base weight of this trailer comes in at just 2,385 lbs. You won’t need something with a Hemi at the front and two axles at the back to tow this puppy. Extra attention has been paid to saving weight, and conventional air-conditioning has been ditched—the Shasta uses a thoroughly modern Duo-Therm ‘Cool Cat’ heat pump that cools and heats much more efficiently.

Coachmen is reportedly planning to release another two Shasta travel trailers over the next few months, and we’ll report on those as soon as they roll out of the factory. In the meantime, get the full Airflyte specs from the cute Coachmen website, or find out more about the glorious originals from the 1940s and 50s at Chris Strohm’s definitive and most excellent Vintage Shastas site.

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The VW Microbus Type 2 is another reincarnated classic: VW Brasil is shipping ‘new’ old Kombis to the UK to be kitted out as campervans. A more modern take on the retro travel trailer is the T@B XL, with its leather-and-wood ‘American Way of Life’ interior.

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Real-world prices have fallen in the past few months, but buying an Airstream trailer is still a complicated business. If style is your main thing, you’ll need to pass on the Classic models and pony up between $35,000 and $70,000 (MRSP) for a new International CCD Signature with a smart, modernist interior—or better still, the seriously desirable $50,000 Design Within Reach variant.

The cheaper option is to dip a toe into the murkier waters of the used market. Recent Airstreams are well built, so it’s not a huge risk buying secondhand. But it’s easy to become unstuck with high-maintenance older models: as with classic cars, the purchase price is often just the first downpayment.

So before you part with your dollars, you need to do some research. Grab your NADA Guide and become an instant expert with our guide to the essential Airstream websites.

1. The Vintage Airstream Resources Index is probably the leading online guide and extremely comprehensive. The Price vs. Condition section is especially useful, pointing out the vital difference between ‘restored’ and ‘renovated’, and giving you pointers on how to negotiate an accurate price.

2. The well-frequented Airforums contain over half a million posts. This site also has listings of Airstream Inspectors, enthusiasts who are willing to examine a used travel trailer if it’s too far away for you to visit.

3. The largest Airstream recreational vehicle club, the Wally Byam Caravan Club International, has around 14,000 members and is a good place to start researching, especially when it comes to articles on maintenance.

4. If you’re the owner of an Airstream 25 or more years old, you’re eligible for full membership of the Vintage Airstream Club, which is part of the WBCCI. Even if you don’t have an old Airstream it’s still a good place for research, with plenty of old ads, photos and documents to browse and a small classifieds section. Best of all, it’s got a complete PDF archive of the wonderful Vintage Advantage Newsletter.

5. Dan Burke’s airstreamtrailers.com has probably the largest selection of Airstream links on the net, and deserves a higher profile. It’s especially good if you’re looking for sites offering restoration advice.

6. Try airstreamclassifieds when looking for used Airstream travel trailers, or parts and appliances. (There’s also eBay, but at last count it only listed around 40 trailers for sale.) Bear in mind that the asking price is where you start negotiating, and eBay is likely to be the most expensive option because it attracts a wide audience.

7. There’s a treasure trove of 10,000 Airstream images on Flickr. There’s also an Airstream group with over 150 members, and if you’re not too picky about your vintage porn, a terrific Trailer Trash group packed with shots of old travel trailers.

One last point: Many Airstream dealers will knock 15% to 20% off the MRSP if you negotiate. If you’re thinking of buying a fully renovated vintage trailer, factor this in. The gap between the classic and the current might be smaller than you think.

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Airstream’s latest model is the PanAmerica toy hauler, and we’ve got the pictures.