 World War II ends companies that used to make airplanes need a new project. How about camping trailers, checking out the Fleet Cabin Car in this edition of Science Alive. And I'm with Emily Gan, she's an assistant curator here at the museum. Hello Emily. Hi. So what are we standing in front of? So we're in front of here a 1947 Fleet Cabin Car. And what's special about the Fleet Cabin Car? Well this one's special for a number of reasons. So Fleet used to manufacture aircraft and after the war, the Second World War, it bridged over into the civilian market and started manufacturing trailers. Because the war ended, nobody needed their aircraft anymore? Yeah, so well I mean the demand for aircraft wasn't as high. Fleet had a large staff with lots of skills so it decided to transfer that skill into making the Cabin Car. And when you look at it, there is kind of an aircraft look to it. Yeah, you can sort of envision this being almost like a wing. Right, and made of wood? Yes, so teardrops, which is what this trailer is designed to look like, made use of sort of like the four by eight piece of plywood, was really lightweight, it was marketed as being really roomy inside, and then it sold for a third of the price of comparable trailers in the late 40s. So you're talking about being roomy inside, you still couldn't stand up in it? No, and I think someone like your height would probably be really uncomfortable, whereas someone my height would sort of day at the spa. I think you just find it cozy. Yeah, I mean yeah. So it has room, lots of room for storage, it was sort of multi-purpose, we've got ads showing people sort of sitting up and reading or knitting, and then also two people laying in the bed. So you could sort of live in the space and also sleep in the space. Cool, and how many of these did they make? So Fleet thought that they would have the market for about 50,000 of these, and at one point they were turning out about 20 a day. Yeah, but the big bar that they hoped for didn't have the financial backing to do the buying that they had hoped for, and Fleet had invested so much that they sort of had to stop production right away. Now this one is the 477th, we have that on the cereal plate, and the donor who gave this to the museum actually wasn't able to find any that were in this good of a condition. Wow, and made of wood outdoors a lot? Yeah, so there's that sort of conundrum that something that's made of wood in the rain or even on the roads isn't going to really withstand that sort of environment. I read something that said it had to be lacquered every year, so that's a lot of time and commitment. That'd be quite a family project. Yeah, so that was sort of one of the big downfalls. Another was that in the 1950s you saw this boom in big trailers, so a small teardrop trailer really wasn't what people were looking for. Now the teardrop design, is it stuck in the 40s and 50s? Are we ever going to see this again? Yeah, luckily we're actually seeing a resurgence of teardrops. So those same factors that made it really marketable in the 40s, that it was easy to maintain, lightweight, that's what people are looking for today in some of their trailers. Absolutely. Emily Gann is just a curator here at the museum. Thank you for telling us about the fleet car. Thank you very much.