interior of the teardrop with its carpeted
floor and patterned plywood walls. The
trailer doesn’t have the kitchen in the
back so often seen in other teardrops,
but it does sport an awning made from a
late 1970s “Sandman” panel van. At only
eight feet by four feet it is a compact
space but as one wry fan apparently
pointed out to Blue: “It only needs to be
one butt wide and two butts high.”
On the road since 1997, “Schwing”, as
Blue has named the teardrop, made its
biggest trip in 2001 when it carried the
engine of the first plane to cross the
English Channel to Tasmania so it
could be placed into
a replica of Louis
Bleriot’s 1909 aircraft
that is now housed in
Launceston’s Queen
Victoria Museum in
Tasmania.
The very impressive
tow car is another
one of Blue’s unique
creations. His incredible silver
“Airborne Eight” is the result
of eight and a half years of work and
is made from the pieces of more than
sixty cars. Dedicated to the memory of
Blue’s “Uncle” Billy Swillborne, it was
constructed using parts from cars made
between 1933 and 1967 – the length of
Billy’s lifetime. Built using all of Blue’s
“favourite bits” from a variety of cars,
something like the Cadillac in the Johnny
cash song, the cars components range in
age from parts built in the 1930s right up
to the 1960s. Billy jokingly called himself
“The Scar: The greatest crime fighter
the world has ever seen” and keeneyed
observers can see a tribute to this
superhero in the form of a scar, complete
with stitches, on the roof of the car. But
the fun doesn’t stop there as the Airborne
Eight also has three backs and two fronts
– making it both a hot rod and a concept
car, and a real life “Transformer”.
Blue says that he “wanted to create
something different, as if someone in the
1930s had imagined what the future of
automotives might look like”.
There can be no doubt that this incredible
car and tiny trailer truly are the stuff of
every boy’s comic book hero dreams.
14 | vintagetrailermagazine