I think I've bought a Murrumba Star aluminium van.

[pete71]

Hi all, I thought I bought a post 1970's caravan so I started in the classic caravans forum but it seems I have a vintage Murrumba Star aluminium 16 footer, I think. I have searched for info on the brand and haven't come up with much except they manufactured until 1970 and then were bought out by a Canadian company. I only have one picture of their original logo and it sure looks like what remains of the painted over rear sticker on my van. Any info from anyone or anywhere about the company and their early aluminium vans would be much appreciated as I intend to restore to roadgoing condition and use it for local touring. Cheers Pete.
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I included the last two photos just to show what the logo is meant to look like. The 3rd picture is of the painted over sticker that kind of shows the star in the logo (well I think so).

[Don Ricardo]

G'day Pete71,

Welcome to the forum and the 'vintage' end of the 'old-vans-are-fantastic' fan club! And great to see the photos of your Murrumba Star. I agree that the painted over sticker on the rear of the van looks like a Murrumba Star logo - the star is quite discernible, and the van has other distinctive Murrumba Star touches as well, such as the lack of external wheel arches.

There is a Murrumba Star thread in the 'Down History Lane' (DHL) section of the forum, where we are collecting information about the history of Murrumba Star. I suspect you may have already found it, but if not click on this link. As you will see, at this point we don't know a whole lot about Murrumba Star, but we are slowly piecing together the jig saw!  You may like to compare your van to some of the vans on that thread.

There is a 1967 Murrumba Star advert posted on the DHL thread which shows that at that point their caravans were clad in 'bare' unpainted aluminium (apart from the painted flashes on the side). In contrast, your van is clad in the painted acrylic aluminium. The painted cladding was introduced by some manufacturers in 1967, and later by some others. As far as we know Murrumba Star was one of the later adopters, which means that your van was built later than 1967 when Murrumba Star was still using the unpainted cladding. I guess that's not telling you anything you don't know...

We haven't figured out how to decipher Murrumba Star serial numbers yet because we haven't really seen enough of them, but there are one or two listed on the DHL thread which seem to use a different format to yours - just to confuse us! Some manufacturers used the last two or three digits at the end of the serial number to indicate the month and year. In that case the '79' at the end of your number could represent 'July 1969' or the '88' at the beginning could represent 'August 1968', but that is sheer speculation on my part. One of these days the bits of info we have will drop into place...maybe!

Thanks for posting the WA photo too. Although the van in question is obviously a bit worse for wear, it is interesting to see the quite clear photo of the sticker on the front and the unusual side flash which incorporates the Murrumba Star star. I'll copy that to the DHL thread if you're OK with that?

Don Ricardo

[Franklin1]

G'day Pete, I'm the fella who sent you over here from the Classic forum (different username, though ). We haven't had a lot of the aluminium Murrumba Star vans appear on this forum, so it's a bit hard to give you any real insight into your van. You'll probably have to do your own detective work based on the limited info we have collected so far.

The threads on this forum relating to aluminium Murrumba Star vans are these:

1) This thread dates way back to 2007 but mentions a chassis number fairly similar to yours. Unfortunately there were no photos posted of this van: Murrumba star

2) Some photos of a Feb 1967 van, but we were never told the chassis number: Wildmanaus's Murrumba Star

3) A little Murrumba Star: Murumbastar's...Murrumba Star

4) A couple of photos of a van thought to be a 1968 model: tidy 68murrumba star

5) Some photos of a 15ft van. This one has the "MS" chassis number, which is what made me think they all did: Introducing...Molly

Hopefully you can get some info out of these threads to help you indentify the age of your van. I still think it's important for you to determine whether your van has been repainted at some stage or not. The orange/black striping on your van doesn't seem to tie in with the historical striping on the Murrumba Stars, so I'd be inclined to think someone has painted over the original factory finish.

cheers,
Al.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Franklin1 and Pete71,

I take Franklin1's point about the livery on Pete71's van. In fact, I've done a bit more research on Murrumba Star since my last post and discovered that in 1969 the vans shown in their advertisements were still clad in unpainted aluminium. Most of the vans shown have similar side flashes to those on Aussie's Miss Molly, but there is also an advert which has the flashes shown on Unclecharlie's van, which is described as a new 17 ft 'Saturn' model. (The references are to the vans Franklin1 provided the links for).

However, having said that, the livery on Pete71's van is not unlike that on the Glendale van shown on the DHL thread, and also is not dissimilar to the colours and livery used in the late 60's/early 70s' by manufacturers such as Chesney. So...I wonder if Pete71's van was built quite late in the piece when Murrumba Star was trying to catch up with other manufacturers in terms of styling, which in turn then may have influenced Glendale when they took over. Sheer speculation on my part of course...

Don Ricardo