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My wife Michelle, and I, are the proud owners of a 1973 Ford F350 Super Camper Special truck that has been in our family since new. My dad special ordered it in the fall of ’72 to replace his ’69 C20 Chevrolet which couldn’t handle the weight or mass of his 11 1/2′ Travel Queen camper. The difference between the two trucks was nothing short of amazing. The Ford barely squatted when the camper was lowered into the bed. This was just one of the better features of the new truck. Later, my dad would replace the Travel Queen with a self-contained 11 1/2 foot Franklin, and then sell the Franklin when he bought a class A motorhome. When he gave me the F350 in 1994, it only had around 30,000 miles. I knew that one day, I would want another slide in camper for the F350. I recalled seeing a really cool and modern looking camper in the original ’73 Ford truck brochures. I did a little research and took a hard look at the old camper literature and discovered that the cool camper I remembered was none other than Ford’s own American Road camper, designed and built for Ford by Starcraft. I started searching for anything I could find about the American Road camper and soon realized they were not much more than a flash in the pan. From what I was able to find out, only 825-850 were produced in 1973-74. That was it. Rumors were that the energy crisis of ’74 killed people’s desire for the RV. Another suggested possibility was that the American Road may have had an issue with off-gassing from the fiberglass shell, which made them unpleasant to be in on a hot day and therefore unpopular. Another probable scenario was the fact they were a premium camper which carried a premium price. (around $4800-5000 in 1973) Whatever the reason, Ford pulled the plug and their original goal of selling a few thousand units was cut short and that was that. My next determination was to find one of these campers for our truck. I didn’t want anything else. It didn’t take long before I realized that after 40 years, very few of the 800+ campers built still existed. I heard/read horror stories of campers being sent to the landfill. Being turned into storage sheds. It seemed likely that most of them had no doubt ended in a similar way. I finally managed to locate one for sale, so Michelle, our 5 dogs, and I drove the F350 on a 1500 mile round trip to collect our “new” camper. That was a misadventure story for another time. I’ve posted pictures in the Owner’s Gallery. Our camper, like this site, will be a work in progress. This website is dedicated to all of the American Road campers. Ours, and the few that remain. I hope to hear from anyone who may have any interest or information regarding the American Road Camper.