Please give me a guess as to when slides were introduced

We had a 1986 King of the Road, and it came with the brochure for that year, and they had models with slides.

lgarcia wrote:
silvercorvette - I ended up with a hardsided tt, but when first started looking, I said no to canvas pop-ups. Based on my parents 1966 Bethany, there was no way I wanted something with no AC, no sink or bathroom, endless snaps etc. Felt kinda embarrassed that I had made that snap judgment based on a 40 year old experience when I actually got inside a 2012 version that was nicer than my first apartment.

The 2009 5th I got one month ago is bigger and nicer than my first apartment

Each manufacturer introduced slides when they were comfortable with the technology, and were convinced it would enhance their line of vehicles.
Some more progressive manufacturers introduced them early on, but some manufacturers were very cautious, thinking they were just a problem waiting to happen.
For instance, Safari motor home did not introduce a slide until 1997, well after almost all others had them. As you can see from previous posts, their design and introduction into production lasted over many years.

While building our home, we lived in a 196X's-era Budger mobile home that slid out along it's entire length to transform into a parked square footage literally twice as large as it's towed square footage. You pulled out and anchored a couple of frame rails, then cranked a handle so cables would pull out a slide that spanned the mobile home's entire length.

silvercorvette - I ended up with a hardsided tt, but when first started looking, I said no to canvas pop-ups. Based on my parents 1966 Bethany, there was no way I wanted something with no AC, no sink or bathroom, endless snaps etc. Felt kinda embarrassed that I had made that snap judgment based on a 40 year old experience when I actually got inside a 2012 version that was nicer than my first apartment.

I own a 1978 Prairie Schooner 40 fter that has 2 slides.

Some of the new units now have slides within slides! The future will be interesting! :)

In 1987, Carriage Corp sold fifth wheels with slideouts and we know that for a fact as our friends who purchased a 1.1 acre parcel with and RV site from us put the new Carriage on the site and it's still there today. Doesn't leak a bit and they keep it clean and well maintained. We've been in the 5th wheel dozens of times as they are friends and we still own the sites around them. It's our owned and deeded land and acreage.

However, the refrigerator bit the dust over the winter as it doesn't work now. Would need to be replaced. They said that due to the high cost of a new refrigerator, they are thinking about finally just getting a newer 5th wheel to put on the site as their 1987 is 26 years old now and the frige may be the first of many other costly things to fail.

The predecessor to slideouts was the hinged tip-out room in volume production trailers and dates back to the early 1960's. Sure, there was several attempts to build RV units with a form of a expandable side room but it really didn't catch on until the tip-out room and later the slideout rooms.

In 1993 & 1994 we were looking for a new RV. We came across a 30ft TT with a living room slideout it was the first I had ever seen in a TT. I wish I could remember the brand. I believe it was one of the Skyline brands (Nomad, Layton...etc).

We ended up buying our 1994 38ft Alfa See-Ya 5th wheel. It was the first year they had a living room super slide (14ft long X 4ft deep) and a bedroom slide.

Our friends had a 40ft 5th wheel in the 80s with a manual slideout, they got rid of it and bought a 1989 NuWa with a living room slideout (couch sized).

Mahlon Miller designed the first power slideout. We get by with just 3 slideouts.

linky