WHAT YEAR AM I?

20 Cents of your own mother Burglar!
Looks like a great van and good to see it's staying in the family.
Hope you keep enjoying her.

;D
Hi robc
Welcome to www.vintagecaravans.com.

20 cents....... .... ya gotta be happy with that.
I am with Al on this one.
No older than say 1962 and could be as young as 1966.

Looks like an easy "fixerupper" ... Hope you enjoy the vintage van hobby as much as the rest of us do here on the forum.

Reddo- Lake Macquarie NSW

Hi Robc and Franklin1,

I'm a bit intrigued by Robc's van because it has full width front and rear windows. Most of the pics of Caravelles on the Franklin thread in the Down History Lane section have split front and rear windows, except for the van shown in Reply #17, which has been identified by the owner as a 1966 van. The 1966 van actually has two different profile aluminium sheet on it, neither of which matches the sheet on Robc's van, but I am guessing that the sheet on the lower half of the side of the 1966 van replaced what was already there. The 1966 van is also painted, which I presume is a later modification as well. However, the wheel arch appears to match Robc's, although the angle of the pic makes it a little hard to judge.

I guess what Robc's van and the 1966 van show is that early Caravelles had full width windows front and rear? But does the different profile of the aluminium sheet on the two vans (excluding the later sheet on the 1966 van) also help us to date the vans more precisely? What do you think Franklin1?

By the way Robc - a great investment of 20c! You'll certainly get your money's worth many times over as you get out and use the van. Happy traveling.

Don Ricardo

Crikey, DonR...Sundays are for SNOOZING, not for thinking!!

But now that you've woken me out of my afternoon nap, let me see if I can make sense of your questions...

But before I do, did you hear the rumour that robc paid his Mum with some old 1 and 2 cent pieces that he had stashed away in a jar? Seems his Mum thought they were still legal tender...until she went to pay her overdue electricity bill at the Post Office.
Luckily I can poke fun at robc now, cause he's me best mate (even though I haven't met him yet ) and he's got an old Franklin I can borrow!! ;D ;D

But I digress...! Back to your question...

There's still quite a gap in our collection of information about Franklin caravans, particularly up to the mid 1960s. My best guess about robc's van was based purely on one advertisement, from September 1964...



There's no mention of Franklin, and the word Caravell is different to Caravelle with an 'e', but I never found any other Caravell(e) van in the archives other than Franklins, so I figured this advert related to Franklins as well. It is also the only time that the 12ft 6ins size is mentioned in that part of Franklin history. Yes, the cladding is a different profile to later vans, and yes the full-width windows seemed to have been changed to single ones later. I guess we'll have to sit back and wait for more of these old treasures to come out of the sheds so we can be more confident of being able to date them, or at least see what the differences are between them.

One of the things about the 'evolution' of cladding that I've noticed is that in the early days of profiled cladding, it was manufactured in short length sheets, which meant the sides of the van was clad with two sheets screwed at the joint (as per robc's van). Then at some point around the mid-1960s the major manufacturers switched to longer lengths of cladding to cover the sides in a single length. I've found the sheet length to be more of a help in dating a van than the actual sheet profile.

The Franklin wheel arch shape has quite a distinguished shape about it. If you look at the pictures in the DHL thread, every Franklin wheel arch you can see, from 1958 up until 1968, has that distinct forward tilting shape about it. It's usually the first thing that grabs my attention when looking at old van photos.

cheers,
Al.

Al I need help

I wont to buy the van under the one you highlighted
the ad said .........New Chevrolet all alumiium 4 berth van

GOTTA HAVE IT
f/f ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP PEOPLES!
I'M NOT SURE IF I'M CORRECT BUT MEASURED THE VAN AT 12'6" FROM THE BALL TO THE REAR EXTRMETY.
FOR AL.----- THE VAN IS 6'6" WIDE AND IS A 3 BERTH
(4'0" X 6'3" BED AT REAR WHICH CONVERTS INTO LOUNGE AND THE TABLE END CONVERTS TO A SINGLE.
THE DRAW BAR HAS THE FIGURES 201-7 WELDED INTO IT AND THE WHEELS ARE 10".
THE FRONT HAS AN ALUMINIUM FLAP WHICH COVERS THE WHOLE WINDOW. DONT KNOW IF IS ORIGINAL OR AN ADD ON
HOPE THIS EXTRA INFO ASSIST TO ID THE VAN

THANKS AGAIN ROBC

Hi robc thanks for the extra info. I reckon your van is the same as the van I owned in my original foray into vintage caravans - even before this site was invented. Mine was what I call the egg shaped 10'6" (cabin length) van, had 10 inch wheels and the goucho bed too. WIll try to find some holiday pics of it and post them. The cladding on yours is the same as mine was from memory.

I ended up replacing the whole axle and put 12inch Datsun rims onto it, and it looked so much better and in proportion. You don't really have enough clearance to add bigger rims than that.

I see you still have the original fridge in it, open the back vent and find the electrical tag on the fridge - that's how I dated mine. It was a 1962 or 1963 model from memory. I loved that van and for a while was looking for another one even. I travelled all the way to Cairns, across the back developmental (250kms of dirt road) to Hughenden, Winton, Longreach etc and it never missed a beat.

You will have fun with that van!!

Ray

So Al and Robc,

Does that mean that the van in Reply #17 on the Franklin DHL thread is actually also a Franklin Mini?

And does that also mean that Caravalles always had split front and rear windows, not full width ones like the Mini?

Don Ricardo

yep, definitely a 1967..
here is mine