The story goes something like this: Fidelis "Dale" Wasinger wanted a camper. In the 1960s, most campers were built on truck frames, and Wasinger couldn't drive a truck. He wanted a camper that drove like a car. But when he asked a Denver autobody shop to build a car camper for him, they declined. So he took matters into his own hands.
Having worked at local junk yards, Wasinger knew how to find damaged cars that still had life left in them. He found a partially wrecked 1961 Cadillac, cut it in half and welded it to a camper. Soon, Wasinger found another wreck and did it again. Then he did it again.
The Great Dale House Car was born.
Over the next several years, Wasinger would go on to build over 50 House Cars on the chassis of Cadillacs, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Dodges. The exact number of his creations is unclear because Colorado's Department of Motor Vehicles didn't assign a new VIN to the first cars.
Wasinger only built the vehicles for about four years; he appeared to stop fabricating the House Cars in 1966. But the ones he created were driven great distances: the campers went on trips through the Colorado mountains, to Alaska and back, and to the East Coast. One car even made it to Sweden.
The people who met Wasinger describe him as an eccentric man, who was ahead of his time. He lived to be 93 years old and died in Denver on July 5, 2010.
The campers have acquired devoted fans, with people from all over the world connecting over their shared love of the cars and the quirks of Wasinger's fabrication. CPR News visited two of those fans to see their cars and the details Wasinger left behind.
1965 Dodge Coronet 440
1966 Pontiac Catalina
