Wooden caravans

There is a S/H teardrop van in todays Townsville paper - FOR SALE $12,000.00. And here I was thinking they wre for carting dogs to the hair & fluff show!

My father built a bond wood 14ft van in 1954. Towed it with the family car - a 1927 Chev 4.

Oldfulla

Here is a modern teardrop, displayed at the Mar.13 Clunes rally. In an era of low-powered cars, the design was quite efficient: the body fitted between the wheels of a standard trailer chassis; the kitchen hatch provided some shelter when cooking roadside; the maximum headroom was at shoulder position, with clothing lockers in the front bulge, and a footwell below the kitchen deck. For extended stays, most users had a standalone tent to erect at the rear to cover the cooking area, and provide space for a table and chairs.

That's very functional and tidy!! What more would you need when camping in the big wide open spaces?

Here is another teardrop caravan, also from an HCVC rally: Clunes, Sun.13.3.11. (Roderick Smith)

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Here is an interesting article, from Sat.12.2.11 Melbourne Age, on restoring wooden caravans.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Thank heavens for Betsy.
Felicity Young spent 12 months looking for a vintage caravan that could transport her back to a time when things were ''simpler''. ''I remember being down the coast a couple of years ago and seeing this gorgeous little caravan park. Opposite was this great big high-rise development,'' she says. ''It really hit me that there might be a time when caravan parks might not exist and that there was a real need to preserve this great Australian tradition.'' A long-time collector of 1950s furniture and homewares, Ms Young, who runs a marketing and events company, set her sights on finding a 1950s bondwood van she could escape in with her husband and eight-year-old daughter. After a year-long search, she came across Betsy - a Skyline Junior Bondwood - made in Caulfield in 1957 and restored by its previous owners as a playroom for their daughters. She paid $6000 for it. ''Once I saw her, I fell in love with her. I just had to have her,'' she says of the small, bubble-shaped van she repainted in ''happy'' hues of whipped cream and butter-yellow. It has since become the perfect place to showcase her 1950s crockery and soft furnishings.
Ms Young isn't the only one who has fallen in love with old-school vans - some dating as far back as the 1930s. Vintage vanning has become so popular here and overseas that last year, Lisa Mora, a writer who lives on the Sunshine Coast, launched the world's first magazine dedicated to vintage caravans. Less than a year later, the two-monthly Vintage Caravan Magazine, has a circulation of 10 000, with subscribers from as far as America, Canada and Scandinavia. Miss Mora says interest in buying and restoring retro vans has been growing steadily for the past year or more. She says that while many are towed across the country, other owners use them as a backyard retreat or as a creative space. Overseas, there are entire caravan parks dedicated to vintage vans and in Berlin, there is the Hut Palace - a hotel that offers indoor camping in vintage vans. ''There's always been interest in these vans among those who are into their classic cars and hot rods but it's moved well beyond that now,'' she says. ''There are a lot of younger people now who are buying vintage vans because of the sentimentality that is attached to them. ''We live in such a fast-paced world now that people seem to be craving things that take us back to simpler and happier times.''
Melbourne-based Geoff Tangey, of vintagecaravans.com, is expecting more than 150 vanners at the Vintage Caravan Nationals, to be held in Cowra, in April. He has also noticed an ''enormous'' surge in demand for vintage caravans over the past 12 months. He has also noticed a jump in prices. Vintage caravans - from 1950s teardrops to the popular Don caravans, dating back to the 1930s and 40s - can cost between $500 and $10 000, depending on the make and condition. Some people will then spend several thousand dollars restoring them to their original condition or decorating them to suit their tastes. They are typically bought and sold through online forums such as Mr Tangey's, which has close to 1500 active members, or on eBay or Trading Post. ''They are getting a bit thinner on the ground but you do still find them popping up in sheds and barns from deceased estates and things like that,'' he says.
In January, Ms Young broke the family tradition of booking ''a flash beachside house with three plasma TV screens'' and drove Betsy to Torquay Caravan Park. ''She was the darling of the park. Everyone wanted to come in and see her. It was great,'' Ms Young says. ''There were kids and barbecues and the smell of Aeroguard and surfboards. And not one TV. It was a real, old-fashioned holiday. We're totally hooked.'' When Betsy's not attracting attention in seaside caravan parks, Ms Young hires her out for events and functions such as children's parties and weddings. Sometimes she just drives her to a quiet street near her home in St Kilda and bunkers down with a DVD. ''She's like my 'she shed' or my happy place where I retreat to when life gets too fast.''
www.theage.com.au/victoria/thank-heavens...-20120210-1smh1.html

A fu more Smitty from far away places














































cya

This would have to be the smallest one I have seen, taken at Numurkah last weekend.

Which one has more power: the bike a few photos further up, or the Goggomobil Dart, just above? Here's another teardrop.
110226Sa Goolwa (SA) Wooden Boat Festival. R Smith.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

A bit rough

Early Add

On Trading Post

Hi ,here's one we rescued from a clearing sale in the Yarra Valley...a soggy clearing sale

...didn't go there to buy a caravan but overheard a bloke saying he was going to buy it and turn it into a rock n'roll caravan....whatever that is.....so I figured it needed rescuing

....and back at rescue central....

...inside is very nice ,nothing messed around with at all....we've since passed it on to a member of the vintage van forum and it's back in service once again pretty much as is.....

....my wife's Chev pickup and '52 homebuilt timber van.....

....son's teardrop van on the back of his '51 Chev coupe....

....someone was talking about a small teardrop......this one's pretty small

...a Propert folding caravan

....another home built ,done during WW2 to a very high standard but now in need of a bit of refurbishment.....for sale if anyone is looking for a project

the WW2 van has this amazing dolly wheel setup , the regular wheel set under the van is '36 Ford V8

....our '36 Ford V8 and '51 teardrop.....

...'36 Ute and '52 van

...a Don van from the early '50s on the Chevy roadster. Didn't keep this particular Don but have since replaced it with another and will do a resto on it fairly soon.....the replacement is shown below....

....hope the post isn't too long ,cheers, Colin

What an amazing variety so far, and I am reliving my youth through viewing them all. IIRC, my first inspection of a caravan must have been a Don, in the very early 1950s. We were staying in a guest house at Inverloch (Vic.), but one of my beach play friends was in a caravan, and showed it to me. The interior in the latest post is so typical of my 1960s major caravanning adventures. I used to wander the parks looking for interesting variations, and knew most of the names. I will have a lot more to post, but most won't be ready until the new year. Now knowing that there is a collectors club, I broached the subject with my mother of selling the family van (photo yet to come). It has been off the road for years, but it in good order, and kept under a roof. She isn't against the idea, but it is in use as a store for her tenant's paintings. It is a 1960s homebuilt, frameless marine ply, in the fashion of the era: a Pullman front.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor