Re: [A/S] Airstream purchase and general advice wanted

["nickcrowhurst"]

---Paul, I am an English owner of an Excella 25 ft Airstream. The 
Airstream is a wonderful American icon, and I wouldn't dream of 
owning any other trailer. However,althogh I live in England, I keep 
the Airstream in the USA, and would not consider bringing it to the 
U.K. Buying a 30 foot Airstream and shipping it to the UK would be 
easy, and just involve a fistful of dollars, but would it be smart, 
or fun? I make a few comments:
1. Electric brakes are not legal in the UK. You could get away with 
it until you had an accident, when the insurance would not pay out. 
You could convert, expensively, to hydraulics. A few Airstreams had 
hydraulics.
2. Airstreams of that size are very heavy, and require a large heavy 
tow vehicle. The Land Rover family and Toyota Land Cruiser would be 
insufficient. Even my 25 ft weighs 6500 pounds.
3. We Brits just don't do serious heavy recreational towing like in 
the USA, where load distribution hitches, sway control devices and 
powerful tow trucks are commonplace, and vital.
4. The trailer is too wide and too long for our roads. My rig, with a 
full-size long bed threequarter ton pick-up with a 5.9 litre turbo-
charged Cummins diesel is about 50 feet long, so yours would be about 
55 feet. The width is from 8 foot to 8 foot 6inches for the later 
models. Check with your local police, but I think that puts you in 
the Abnormal Load category, requiring red and white marker boards, at 
least. Just imagine hauling that around English and French roads! The 
best sites are often at the end of country lanes. Think of Cornwall, 
Devon, and the Lake District.

Too sum up, the Airstream is a superb design, perfectly adapted to 
the USA, where there are thousands of great RV (caravan in Enlish) 
sites, wide roads, huge tow vehicles, cheap petrol (gas) and diesel, 
and millions of friendly Americans to help you have a great time. I 
could bring my Airstream over the pond next month, but I won't, as I 
don't think it would be fun, or safe, or smart. Best wishes, from 
Nick.