In 1965, Litton Industries took over Royal McBee Corporation. Much has been written about the various effects of this merger, from a labor perspective (Litton closed Royal's Springfield, Missouri factory in 1970, and moved its production to Portugal; they also moved Imperial's production to Portugal), from the perspective of the rise of the relabeled portable typewriter (Litton imported Silver-Reed portables in huge numbers and labeled them as Royals and Imperials). However, not much has been written about the changes to Royal's full size portable line. The Royal Caravan, a frequently-forgotten model gave a good indicator of the future of Royal's product line. 1962 Royal Safari advertisement, courtesy of Darryl Bridson, Royal Consumer Products In 1962, Royal introduced the Safari as a replacement to their Futura. Although mechanically identical to the Futura, it broke with Royal's design philosophy of tall, upright portable typewriters-—the Safa...
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