TRAILEASY/TRAILEZY CARAVANS, Geraldton W.A.

[cobber]

TRAILEASY CARAVANS.

Made by the Geraldton Furniture Company in WA in the 1940s and 1950s... and maybe a bit later.

An article in the 'Geraldton Guardian' November 1948, compliments of Trove.



Photos of the actual caravans are in the pipeline 

Cobber.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi all,

This thread resulted from a discussion between Cobber and Vandalay commencing here regarding the Trailezy coupling on Vandalay's van:

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On 22 May 2014, Vandalay wrote:

G,day Cobber,
Do you have any clues as to the origin and or age of the coupling ('Trailezy')
featured in our 'vandalay' unidentified van age thread?? Ta mate


p.s. does have patent number -pat.130214? (for which I can find no info...) Vandalay

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On 23 May, Cobber replied:

G'day vandalay,

Trailezy couplings are a bit of a mystery, I think they might be a WA invention...

And there is a mob in WA who build 'Trailezy boats' .... They don't seem to have a web site but it might be worth giving them a phone call to see if they also make boat trailers or know anything about Trailezy couplings.
Phone number [phone]

Having said all that I thought I'd do a search on the patent number you gave even though I thought the ? mark at the end of the number indicated you couldn't be sure what the last number was.

And blow me down HERE'S THE PATENT APPLICATION       

Although the application makes no mention of 'Trailezy'... so maybe the boat company bought the rights to the patent and sold them with their name on 'em ?

...

Cobber

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Later the same day Cobber added:

G'day again vandalay,

Sorry not much closer to being able to tell you how old your coupling is except to say.... they were called 'TRAILEASY' couplings first and later 'trailezy' couplings. Don't know yet when the changeover took place but it is thought the couplings were made up into the 1980s.

Very interesting to also find out they did indeed make 'Traileasy' caravans ..... thanks for giving us the lead

Cobber

[Don Ricardo]

Trailezy advertisement published in the WA Sunday Times on Sunday, 4 October 1953 (p 30):


(Source: National Library of Australia nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59680054 )

The image of the van is a drawing rather than a photo, and it is unknown how closely the drawing resembled the Travelezy vans of the time. However, you would imagine that no advertiser would publish an image that was too far away from reality...would they?

Referring to Cobber's comment (see above):

...they were called 'TRAILEASY' couplings first and later 'trailezy' couplings. Don't know yet when the changeover took place but it is thought the couplings were made up into the 1980s.

The first reference I can find to 'Trailezy' in advertising in the West Australian press is November 1952, but there are also references to 'Traileasy' couplings by one supplier appearing right through to the end of 1954. That suggests that the changeover might have occurred sometime during that period.

Don Ricardo

[Don Ricardo]

Photos of a Trailezy van seen by Tinstuff at the caravan park in Cue, Western Australia:







Thanks to Tinstuff for permission to post the photos from her blog