antarctica van article in Australian Antarctic Magazine

[murray]

photo- Bob Dingle


photo- Paul Butler

New article in Arctic Insider link




and Aneata

link
photo- Don Butling

[thegeneral]

Hi Murray is the Australian Antarctic News your local paper.

[murray]

Dec 14, 2017 13:12:36 GMT 10 thegeneral said:

Hi Murray is the Australian Antarctic News your local paper.

Not quite that far south !!.
They told me they had another caravan article coming out so I subscribed .
Would love to see the collection they have at the Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston  .
They have to bring everything back to Tasmania once they have finished with it.
LOTS of stuff in storage . Glimpsed some of it 10+ years ago...old skidoo's, machinery etc
Hopefully they will start a museum. They have a small collection in their foyer - worth a visit if passing.

I have contacted them but I am not important enough to warrant a looksee into their storage .

Cheers

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Murray,

Thanks for starting this thread. I think it reflects an important part of Australian caravanning history, that needs to be acknowledged.

We've had a few posts about Antarctic caravans before. Perhaps we should put them altogether and/or copy some of the info on to the one thread? What do you think?

It was interesting reading the article that you provided the link to, as well. One thing that intrigued me though was the comment that the shell of the van in the second photo was provided by Franklin. But I wonder what the evidence for that is? Examining the photo carefully, it's pretty clear that the van is based on a Kennedy shell, not a Franklin Futura/Skyline shell. I've got a hunch (and that's all that it is) that both the Franklin/Skyline and Kennedy shells were produced by Filam Products in Geelong. If that's true, then Filam may have provided the shell to the Australian Antarctic Division directly?

Anyway, all very fascinating.

Don Ricardo

Addendum: Looking back over some old posts, I came across a comment from Bubbles64 who had spoken to Frank Kennedy's son: "One of the last [Kennedy] vans made was a special order for an antarctic expedition. A orange fluorescent paint was added to the fiberglass shell mix for contrast against the snow and the wheel base was replaced with skids!"

You'd have to think that the van in the AAD photo is that one.