1989 Squarestream
If a company has been around long enough, sooner or later it will have its Edsel or new Coke™. For Airstream, that moment lasted throughout the 1989 to 1991 model years. Since the mid 1960's, other manufacturers slowly abandoned the ovid shapes of travel trailers and adopted a more space efficient and economical boxy design. Airstream, heeding the words of its founder Wally Byam "let's not change things; only improve them", kept its signature shape. Then, some genius at the company decided to change the one thing that truly separated Airstream from its competitors: its shape. The resultant new form was almost universally panned and soon after its introduction, was dubbed the "Squarestream" by its critics. Functionally, this new breed of Airstreams was little different than its predecessors or other trailers on the market, but in the world of design, perception is the most important element. And the public's perception of the squarestreams was that the company was cutting corners and had become a slave to the proverbial bottom dollar.

Kris and Donna Hylton's 1989 29 foot Twin Bed "Squarestream" Land Yacht photographed in Bellingham, Washington.