This is a 1965 Ford F-250 Custom Camper Special fitted with a period correct Mitchell & Sons Camper. Both the truck and the camper were refurbished by the current owner (and now seller), and they’re being offered for sale as a matched pair out of Tucson, Arizona.
The camper has sleeping space for two, and it has a two-burner propane stove, a sink with running water, a Hydro Flame heater, a Coleman cooler, overhead lighting, a ventilation fan, wooden cabinetry, a 12 volt electrical system, and a portable toilet stored beneath the sink.
This is a 1965 Ford F-250 Custom Camper Special finished in its factory-style Caribbean Turquoise and Wimbledon White color combination, and it’s fitted with a Mitchell & Sons “Fishing Hut Delux” slide-in camper built in 1976. The current owner bought the truck in 2014 and the camper in 2018, after which both underwent substantial refurbishment to get them up to their current condition.
History Speedrun: Mitchell & Sons Campers
At its peak in the early 1970s, Mitchell & Sons was building seven campers a day at its factory on East 64th Avenue in Commerce City, Colorado, and selling them factory-direct to customers right across the country. The firm spent just over two decades in the RV business, from 1958 to the 1980 model year, and in that time they went from a single camper advertised in a newspaper to what was described as the largest RV builder in the Centennial State. Interestingly, the family company still trades from the same address, but it now sells decking.
The Mitchells were carpenters before they were camper builders, Harry B. Mitchell Sr. raised his family in Derby, Colorado, during The Great Depression, learned the trade in the carpentry shop at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal during the Second World War, and built and sold houses in Commerce City afterward. He trained his two sons, Harry B. “Mick” Mitchell and Charles R. “Bud” Mitchell, in the same line of work.
The first camper was Bud’s design, he built it for his own use in 1957 and sold it because he was out of work and needed the money. Astonishingly, 36 people turned up on a snowy spring day to buy the one camper he had advertised in the paper. He quickly realized there was a major untapped market and so he built another, then another.
The company’s history dates the start of camper building to the fall of 1958, with father and sons working on the side, and puts incorporation as Mitchell & Sons in 1960, the same year the business moved from Henderson to 64th Avenue in Commerce City. Mick ran the company. Bud, whom the family called the “Camper King of Colorado,” ran sales and was its public face.
The Mitchell Camper Lineup
Mitchell built slide-in pickup campers first and kept building them to the end, but by the early 1970s the catalog had expanded to cover most of the RV market. At one point they had 8 cabover truck campers including the 8 foot Fish Hut, Mountaineer, Prospector, and Renegade, the 9 foot Blazer, the 9 foot 6 inch Ranger, the 10 foot 6 inch Deluxe and the 11 foot Caravaneer. Alongside them were two chassis-mount cabover units, travel trailers of 21 feet and 25 feet 9 inches, and a 19 foot Class C mini motorhome called the “Funmobile.”
The camper has sleeping space for two, and it has a two-burner propane stove, a sink with running water, a Hydro Flame heater, a Coleman cooler, overhead lighting, a ventilation fan, wooden cabinetry, a 12 volt electrical system, and a portable toilet stored beneath the sink.
The product line shifted as the 1970s progressed, new models with new names were introduced, and by all accounts sales were strong. The recreational boom of the era was lifting all boats so to speak, and this was the high point for Mitchell as they fielded orders from coast to coast.
Selling direct gave the company a close relationship with its owners, and it organized them well – The Big Horn Caravan, which the company called one of the leading caravan clubs in the country, held a wildly popular annual steak fry. Bud’s obituary spoke of a Denver newspaper feature in which a line of Mitchell campers four miles long crossed the Continental Divide on the way to the campsite for the event.
Around this time an Executive Mini Motorhome was built in orange and blue for Denver Broncos coach Red Miller, a major celebrity in the state at the time. At its peak, the company is said to have employed over 200 Coloradans.
Leaving The RV Business
The end of the company’s time building RVs and campers came largely due to the 1979 Energy Crisis, the market for recreational vehicles dried up almost overnight and it took many manufacturers by surprise.
That year it turned part of its Commerce City plant over to the manufacturing of modular buildings, many of them were condominiums for use in the Colorado ski areas. By mid-1980 modular demand was strong and RV sales were not, and the family stopped building campers altogether to build modular buildings full time.
Modular housing manufacturing carried the company through until the late-1980s when the housing bust hit. In late 1991 Steve Mitchell, Harry Sr.’s grandson, put together a redwood deck kit for factory-built homes called the “Quickporch.” It became an overnight success, and The Deck Superstore followed in the year 2000.
This is a 1965 Ford F-250 Custom Camper Special fitted with a period correct Mitchell & Sons Camper. Both the truck and the camper were refurbished by the current owner (and now seller), and they’re being offered for sale as a matched pair out of Tucson, Arizona.
Mitchell & Sons, Inc. still operates from 5961 East 64th Avenue, now in its fourth generation. In its own history, written around the company’s 50th year, the family said Mitchell RVs could still be seen all over Colorado, that one had even been spotted in Hawaii, and that it had shipped a few to Europe.
The 1965 Ford F-250 + Mitchell & Sons Camper Shown Here
This is a 1965 Ford F-250 Custom Camper Special finished in its factory-style Caribbean Turquoise and Wimbledon White color combination, and it’s fitted with a Mitchell & Sons “Fishing Hut Delux” slide-in camper built in 1976. The current owner bought the truck in 2014 and the camper in 2018, after which both underwent substantial refurbishment to get them up to their current condition.
The Styleside body was removed from the frame and repainted, while the camper received structural and electrical repairs, new insulation, flooring, upholstery, seals, gaskets, and additional storage.
Power comes from a 352 cubic inch V8, factory rated at 208 bhp and 315 lb ft of torque – the engine was machined and rebuilt in 2014 and it’s now fitted with an Edelbrock intake manifold, a Holley four-barrel carburetor, and electronic ignition. Its 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission and limited-slip Dana 60 rear axle with 4.10:1 gearing were also reportedly overhauled around the same time, and a transmission cooler has been added.
The truck rides on 16 inch steel wheels with Michelin LTX tires and keeps its original four-wheel drum brakes, now using a safer dual-reservoir master cylinder.
Inside, the cab has been retrimmed in turquoise and cream vinyl, with a refurbished bench seat, three-point belts, center console, AM/FM radio, and refreshed heater and wiring. The odometer shows 78,000 miles, around 6,000 of which were added by the current owner, and the oil-pressure gauge is currently inoperative.
Power comes from a 352 cubic inch V8, factory rated at 208 bhp and 315 lb ft of torque – the engine was machined and rebuilt in 2014 and it’s now fitted with an Edelbrock intake manifold, a Holley four-barrel carburetor, and electronic ignition.
The camper is equipped for simple overnight travel with a two-burner propane stove, sink, Hydro Flame heater, Coleman cooler, overhead lighting, ventilation fan, wooden cabinetry, 12-volt electrical system, and a portable toilet stored beneath the sink. Its opposing bench seats convert into a queen-size sleeping area.
The sale also includes service records, refurbishment photographs, spare parts, the owner’s manual, a refinished tailgate, and a clean Arizona title. If you’d like to read more about it or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
