Road Icon: The Famous RV Used by NASA
A brief cameo in Fly Me to the Moon, the 2024 Channing Tatum/Scarlett Johansson rom-com, serves as a reminder that good looks never go out of style. The aging star in question is a 1967 Clark Cortez motorhome, used in the film (as it was in real life!) by NASA to shuttle Apollo astronauts to the launch pad for the first lunar landing mission.
The boxy Cortez body, originally a compact 18.5 feet long with a still-spacious interior, was constructed entirely out of welded steel, making it tough as a tank. Debuted in 1963, the Cortez was also one of the first—if not the first—front-wheel-drive RVs to be manufactured in the United States. Early models were powered by a reliable (though not especially powerful) Chrysler slant-six engine. Mounting that motor up front gave the Cortez good handling and a low step-in, making it attractive to first-wave vanlifers. The Cortez was purpose-built by an unlikely outfit: the Clark Material Handling Company, a manufacturer of forklifts and trucks.
“The Cortez engineers were actually very brilliant,” says Mike Blumentsein, the Seattle-based moderator for the Cascade Cortez Club on Facebook. Though a family illness prompted Blumenstein to trade in his RV dreams for a 1966 VW Fastback, he has owned three Cortezes, including a ’69. One of his rigs was built by the brand’s second manufacturer, Kent Industries, which bought Clark’s Cortez division in 1970.
Photo Credit: NASA
Calling the Cortez “the Sprinter of its day,” Blumenstein notes a key selling point was the customizable interior. “There were no dealers, just a showroom,” says Blumenstein. “And they would build it to your specifications.” Most Cortezes have room to sleep four, but some ended up as mobile offices. More peculiar was an innovation that came with the 1972 model, which pushed the contents of the black tank through the catalytic converter to incinerate the waste.
By the end of the 1970s, though, the last of approximately 3,200 Cortezes ever made rolled off the production line. That heavy steel, it seemed, was no match for the gas crisis—plus, Winnebago and other competitors had turned to aluminum to create a new generation of motorcoaches.
Even so, despite concerns over rusting roofs and the bugaboo of upgrading drum brakes, fans of vintage vehicles cannot get enough of the Cortez. Among them are Laura Meredith and Andy Greaves—she goes by “L” pronounced “elle”—a husband-and-wife team in the midst of restoring a 1965 Cortez. The Virginia-based duo have documented their efforts and offer tips on their Soul of Seeker blog. “Everybody gets caught up in the visual part,” says Greaves. “They just want to talk to us about it because it’s such a unique-looking vehicle.”
For those who skipped Fly Me to the Moon but still want a Hollywood ending, there is good news: NASA’s retired Clark Cortez is on display at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This article originally appeared in Wildsam magazine. For more Wildsam content, sign up for our newsletter.
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