Dart Caravans (WA)

[Don Ricardo]

DART CARAVANS

Produced and/or sold by DART Industries, WA

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Over the last couple of months, references have been made on several Facebook vintage caravan pages to Dart caravans. One example has recently been purchased by Bevan Mckay, who posted photos on the Vintage Caravans Facebook page:





Note the flashes on the side which appear to be in the form of a dart:





Towmaster coupling...



...with 'Tb' logo:



Inside:





Unfortunately, the wording on the nameplate on the front of this caravan is unreadable apart from the word 'Industries' and 'WA':



Bevan Mckay's van was purchased from Just Retro Caravans, who also posted photos of another Dart caravan on their Facebook page here. This van has a clearly readable nameplate saying 'DART Industries, WA':





Note that the shape of this second van is the same a Bevan Mckay's, although the cladding is of the 'American profile' type introduced by Viscount around 1963, suggesting that the second van is earlier - possibly by a few years - than the first van with its multi-strand profile & baked acrylic cladding.

Unfortunately, no-one has yet been able to find a trace of DART Industries, and whether they were caravan manufacturers (which the 'Industries' might suggest), a caravan dealer selling other people's vans, or something else, is unknown at this point.

But wait there's more to the mystery! In response to Bevan Mckay's post on the Vintage Caravans Facebook page, Jo Stubbings posted photos of her caravan which appears to be a smaller version of Bevan Mckay's van:









Note the overall shape, the front windows which slant in towards the top, the shape of the bulkhead over the front windows, and the shape of the wheel arches.

Jo Stubbings' van doesn't have any nameplate on it but does have a Trailezy coupling. In addition she tells us that the van has some internal panelling with writing on it indicating the panelling was sourced from Enneaba, and the van itself was at one stage owned by somebody from Eneabba, which is located near Geraldton, Western Australia. As it happens, the Trailezy company was once located in Geraldton. So that suggests that her caravan may be a Trailezy rather than a DART.

Reference to the DHL Trailezy thread on the forum here, shows a Trailezy caravan which has a number of similarities to the Dart vans. Specifically, the overall shape, the inward slanting front windows, the shape of the front bulkhead and the shape of the wheel arches. Note also that the nameplate on the Trailezy is similar in shape, size, apparent style and placement to the DART nameplates.

There are also some differences, particularly the fact that the front and rear windows of the Trailezy are inset into the walls, creating little ledges above and below the windows. However, the similarities are such that it looks as if the DART caravans and the Trailezy caravan most probably came out of the same factory. Was it the DART Industries factory, or the Trailezy factory? Or was it built by a third party, with the vans then 'brand engineered' by DART and Trailezy?

If anyone has further information about DART, Trailezy, or the caravans shown on this thread, it will be intriguing to hear it.

Thanks to Bevan Mckay and Jo Stubbings for allowing me to post the photos of their vans.

Don Ricardo

[jonb]

Hi, we also have picked up a DART. This one has spent a lot of time in the Pilbara as a base camp for geologist working for a mining group.
The axle and wheels had been changed to LandCruiser ones to obviously match the tow vehicle.
It doesn't have any markings but is identical to the one shown here, just a Pilbara dirt stained colour. We are looking at painting it so these pictures will help to restore outside colour pattern.
The lady we bought it from thought that they had originally been built for the road board.
We use ours for short trips at present but all fully operational, just had to put in a new fridge.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Jonb,

Welcome to the Forum and thanks for telling us about your DART caravan.

It's interesting to hear about the possible link with the Road Board. Perhaps they were built more for worker accommodation than holiday usage? Does yours look fairly spartan inside? If so that might point to worker accommodation.

Unfortunately, we're no wiser about who DART Industries was, but if you discover anything about your van be sure to let us know.

Don Ricardo