Wheels for Figaro

The peddlers are coming back.

In the old days, when stores were few and roads were slow, they brought the world's goods and services to the isolated door. And in the new days, when stores are jammed and traffic clogs the highways, the peddlers are back again, dazzling the harried housewife with their lines of cosmetics, underclothes, frozen foods, lending libraries. Latest throwback is the itinerant barber.

Three Texas businessmen have mounted him on an air-conditioned 2 1/2-ton truck with white aluminum walls enclosing a swiveling barber chair and the usual complement of up-to-the-minute accoutrements, including a television set. Mobil Barber Shop is what they call it, and the original idea, launched last week in San Antonio after a survey of housewives, was to specialize in children -- thereby saving mothers the chore and possible embarrassment of escorting them to that last bastion of masculinity, once known as the tonsorial parlor.

The novelty of San Antonio's cruising barbershop -- plus newspaper publicity engendered by threats of violence from stay-put barbers -- made the unit a big hit during its first few days of cruising; at one time no fewer than 15 youngsters were waiting for a haircut.

Eventually, though, Proprietors David Evans of San Antonio and James W.

Brashier and Coleman Kirkpatrick of Houston plan to put their shops-on-wheels on an appointments-only basis, each working a regular route of about 15 blocks -- the driver shining and repairing shoes while the barber barbers.

Currently on order are ten more units at an outfitted cost of about $10,000 each, and the partners' long-range dream is a nationwide fleet of 30,000.

Men were originally written off as a market for the mobile shops: "We figured men would be bound to tradition," says Evans. But initial indications are that they have a strong appeal to men after all--especially with the addition of an evening shift. Relaxation is the appeal, says Partner Kirkpatrick. "A man can come home, put on comfortable clothes, eat, and be completely relaxed. Then when the unit arrives, he can step out to his driveway with a drink in his hand and get a haircut while watching his favorite TV show."

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