1972 Boles Aero XL: A Riveted Aluminum Time Capsule Hits the Market

A polished aluminum travel trailer from an era when RVs were built like airplanes has surfaced for sale in Fresno, California. This 1972 Boles Aero XL stretches just over 29 feet and asks $25,000 — a figure that buys you a slice of American manufacturing history as much as a place to sleep.

The shell is the headline act. Hand-riveted, aircraft-style aluminum, professionally polished until it throws back the sunlight. It’s a construction method the company’s founder didn’t invent so much as import straight from the Lockheed plant where he learned his trade.

From a One-Car Garage to 18,000 Trailers

Don Boles and his wife Jeanette launched Boles Manufacturing in Burbank, California, back in 1946. The origin story is almost too neat: Boles had picked up aircraft tooling and die-making skills at Lockheed during the war years, and after a Navy posting left his family without housing, they lived in a used trailer. When he towed it home to California and stuck a “For Sale” sign on it, it sold the same day — at a profit. More buyers kept knocking afterward.

That demand set everything in motion. The first Boles trailer was assembled in a single-car garage with money borrowed from his father, which capped the length at roughly nine and a half feet. Collectors now call those earliest units the “canned-ham” era — shiny aluminum outside, birch paneling inside.

Production climbed fast. By the close of 1946, output reportedly passed 300 trailers. The lineup expanded through the 1950s with models like the 28-foot Estrellita and the 19-foot Mira Mar, later adding gold-anodized panels and chrome detailing. Fifth-wheel designs arrived in 1974. The business ran until 1980, when the couple retired, leaving behind a reported 18,000-plus trailers built across three facilities.

What This One Comes With

The XL isn’t a stripped-down shell. The interior keeps much of its original period character, and the spec sheet reads like a small apartment on wheels:

• Sleeping: Room for four
• Kitchen: Four-burner stove, oven, refrigerator with separate freezer, dinette seating four
• Bathroom: Toilet and shower
• Chassis: Tandem axles with four-wheel electric brakes
• Comfort: Forced-air furnace, air conditioning, fresh and waste water tanks
• Electrical: Independent 12-volt and 110-volt systems

Recent work includes PEX plumbing, fresh mattresses, an electric tongue jack and a reversing camera — practical upgrades that don’t disturb the vintage look.

At a Glance: 29 ft 1 in overall · Sleeps four · Tandem axles · Four-wheel electric brakes · Asking $25,000 in Fresno, California

The Aircraft Connection

Boles never treated trailer building as a separate craft. His Lockheed years — he was among the first 37 apprentices selected for a government-backed tool and die program in 1939 — gave him a working knowledge of aluminum fabrication that most RV makers simply didn’t have. He even won awards for tooling designs that sped up aluminum part production.

That background shaped more than the trailers. During the Vietnam War the company built mobile photo labs for the U.S. Air Force, shipped east in cargo aircraft to develop aerial surveillance film. It also turned out mobile medical and dental clinics for civilian use in developing nations, and in the late 1960s Boles partnered with a German maker of small diesel chassis on a compact front-wheel-drive Type C motorhome.

Boles Aero never matched Airstream’s household-name status. But among collectors, those polished riveted shells carved out a following entirely their own. For anyone who wants a towable that looks like it rolled off an aircraft assembly line, this Fresno listing is a rare opening.