The ATW from Singapore to Portugal occurred in 1963 and 1964. Joe Peplinski writes about it in the October issue of the VAC Newsletter and the Summer 2009 issue of the Vintage Advantage. The VAC plans to celebrate the ATW's 50th anniversary in 2013 with several simultaneous rallies spread across the country. They will be linked in real-time through the internet. The time and locations have not been chosen, and the communication technology is now being investigated. We hope to have the participation of several trailers and people who were in the ATW caravan. This will be a historic Airstream event with high visibility. Instead of a typical rally with a few dozen VAC members, there could well be over a hundred members involved. It will be a grand time.

Now is the time to ask your questions and make your suggestions. Help us converge on the greatest VAC event ever. This could change the future of the VAC.

Jim Cooper
VAC President

all of the trailer owners want to be together in the upcomming ralley.

Thanks for your reply. This is the place to learn what our members would like to do with respect to the ATW.

I personally lean toward what best accommodates the owners of ATW trailers and anyone who participated in the ATW. At the same time, I would like to see the celebration available to the broadest range of VAC members.

Who else has opinions, questions, or suggestions?

Jim

Hi Jim,
Thanks for taking the initiative to begin discussions on the topic of a 2013 VAC Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1963-64 Around the World Caravan! I, for one, really appreciate it and know that we would not be having these discussions yet, had you not started asking questions. If we talk about ideas now, we should be able to start making plans in spring of 2012, which should give us a year to put something great together for 2013.

I will confirm that I have been talking with the other VAC owners of ATW Airstreams and we all seem to agree that we'd like to get our four ATW trailers together in one place in 2013, potentially for the first time in 50 years.

We also agree that some sort of "central location" would be best for us to gather, but we don't know what that means and we don't really have any preferences (yet). Some ideas that have been tossed out include:

• Bemidji, MN - The site of the 1963 International Rally, which included special parking for members of the upcoming ATW Caravan
• Jackson Center, OH - Home of Airstream
• Rapid City, SD (or nearby) - More or less central for the current VAC owners of ATW trailers, also site of the 1987, 1996, and 2002 International Rallies.
• Any other central location that anyone can recommend - I'm sure others will turn up as discussions progress.

I will eventually be attempting to locate and contact surviving ATW caravanners and family members to see if they'd like to participate in our celebration. Not sure how that might affect any decision on location(s) for the event(s).

I invite any VAC members (or potential VAC members) that are reading this thread to engage in this discussion and let us know what you think.

Jim and Joe, thanks for getting the ball rolling on this event and a special thanks to the person who fixed my post. I was left with the impression that things were going on in the back round that centered around fancy tech toys instead of an integrated event. I now know that these items are just good ideas being floated around for the planning stages. I think this can be a really wonderful rally+ whatever else we can create.

Bob