Post by Franklin1 on Jul 18, 2007 15:21:03 GMT 10
G'day All,
In light of the discussions elsewhere on this website about ages of caravans, I felt it was necessary to record some information here about plywood/bondwood caravans. Newer enthusiasts to this "hobby" may get the impression that all plywood/bondwood vans are pre-1970. Not necessarily so. While it appears that the manufacturers of vans had switched away from full timber construction by the end of the 1960s or much earlier, there were still home handymen/women beavering away in their backyards into the 1980s making full timber ones.
Here is a photo of a van made in the early 1970s by a fella in Sydney, who then wrote a book about building vans, published in 1976. Using the book as the guide, plans could be purchased for vans from 10ft to 16ft in length...
And here are a couple of pages of an annual catalogue of plans available through a sunday newspaper in Sydney. These pages are from the 1979 catalogue, showing the caravan-type plans available...
By 1985, this annual catalogue had deleted these caravan plans from the list available.
And so I think it's a reasonable assumption to make that some of these vans made by keen home builders might still be around today.
And the moral of this story? Just this... if you come across an unbranded full timber caravan, don't automatically assume it is from the pre-1970 era.
cheers,
Al.
In light of the discussions elsewhere on this website about ages of caravans, I felt it was necessary to record some information here about plywood/bondwood caravans. Newer enthusiasts to this "hobby" may get the impression that all plywood/bondwood vans are pre-1970. Not necessarily so. While it appears that the manufacturers of vans had switched away from full timber construction by the end of the 1960s or much earlier, there were still home handymen/women beavering away in their backyards into the 1980s making full timber ones.
Here is a photo of a van made in the early 1970s by a fella in Sydney, who then wrote a book about building vans, published in 1976. Using the book as the guide, plans could be purchased for vans from 10ft to 16ft in length...
And here are a couple of pages of an annual catalogue of plans available through a sunday newspaper in Sydney. These pages are from the 1979 catalogue, showing the caravan-type plans available...
By 1985, this annual catalogue had deleted these caravan plans from the list available.
And so I think it's a reasonable assumption to make that some of these vans made by keen home builders might still be around today.
And the moral of this story? Just this... if you come across an unbranded full timber caravan, don't automatically assume it is from the pre-1970 era.
cheers,
Al.