The FILAM connection: Fibreglass Caravan Shells
Oct 4, 2018 18:30:28 GMT 10
cobber, sportsman 1, and 3 more like this
Post by Don Ricardo on Oct 4, 2018 18:30:28 GMT 10
THE FILAM CONNECTION: FIBREGLASS CARAVAN SHELLS FOR WAYFARER, FRANKLIN, SKYLINE, CLIPPER, KENNEDY AND THE ANARE
(Updated March 2022)
For some time I have been trying to piece together the history of the ‘family’ of fibreglass vans produced between 1961 and around 1975. The shells were produced by Filam Manufacturing Company and the resulting caravans were variously branded as Wayfarer, Franklin, Skyline, Clipper and Kennedy vans.
Looking back over the posts about these caravans since the beginning of the forum, there has been quite a bit of understandable confusion about which vans were which, when they were produced, and by whom. The caravan ‘family’ in question has actually consisted of four different types. The first type is quite distinctive because it has a boot, but there are also some subtle differences between the second and third types. However, because of the confusion about the vans, and the differences between them in the early days of the forum – and the vintage caravan community generally – some of the vans have been misidentified on the forum and/or had incorrect signage placed on the actual vans.
This post is an attempt to distill what we’ve learnt on the forum about these caravans, and to sort out the timeline for their production. Info to help correct any errors or mistakes, or to add to the story, is very welcome. Anyway here goes…
The Wayfarer fibreglass van "with a boot" [type 1]
Many of us have been fascinated over the years by the fibreglass van “with a boot and fins” because the boot makes them so unusual for an Australian caravan. Below is an example of this van, and the only one that we know of that has been fully restored to date (although it also has a few little non-standard decorations):
[Photos taken by me at Cora Lynn in 2008]
Note that apart from the distinctive boot and fins, the van also has a double roof hatch.
Despite early conjecture on the forum that these vans were produced by Kennedy, the fact seems to be that almost all the vans with the boot were actually designed and built by or for Wayfarer in conjunction with the Filam Manufacturing Company in Fyansford (near Geelong). The Filam Manufacturing Company was established by Keith Smith and Douglas Russell, and produced a wide range of fibreglass products (see further information in Lindsaysmith1's post further down this thread).
The Wayfarer fibreglass caravans was introduced in late 1961, as indicated in the following article from the Australian Motor Manual in November 1961:
(Source: Australian Motor Manual[/b], 1 November 1961, page 34 - Originally posted by Rob J in 2005))
The fact that these vans were produced by Wayfarer seems to be borne out by the fact that all of the booted vans have a raised section on the front wall to fit a metallic Wayfarer nameplate. Exocet’s van came with the original Wayfarer nameplate, and the following photo show how the nameplate matches the raised section at the front of the van.
[More photos of Exocet’s Wayfarer can be found here]
The raised section on the front of the van for the nameplate can also be seen on the green and cream van at the beginning of this post, and other unrestored examples of the booted vans show the screw holes which match the Wayfarer name.
It seems that only a handful of these vans were produced, and for only a short time, and this fits with what I was told some years ago when I met a chap who had worked for Wayfarer for a number of years in the 50’s and early 60’s. According to him, the owner of Wayfarer was quite an innovator and experimented with a variety of materials for the construction of his vans. During the early 60’s Wayfarer built a fibreglass van, but found that it was too expensive to build for a price that potential buyers were willing to pay, and the model was abandoned. We know of no other fibreglass van that Wayfarer ever produced, so I am close to 100% certain the booted van is the one the former Wayfarer employee was referring to.
The rumour is that only somewhere between two and five of the booted vans were produced, but we have seen four such vans on the forum. Given that not all the caravans of a particular model from the vintage era have generally survived, if there are four booted vans still in existence, it seems likely that a few more than that were produced.
Several of the small number of booted vans have been labelled as Kennedys, and a member of the Kennedy family once suggested to me that his father may have produced and/or sold two of the vans. No documentary evidence has surfaced to confirm that Kennedy was ever actually associated with these vans (see here), however there is some hearsay evidence relayed to forum member Vantoura that in the late 60's Kennedy did acquire and fit out a couple of left over booted shells from Filam and sell them as Kennedy caravans. The Kennedy badging on those booted vans may therefore be original.
There are a couple of other rumours which have circulated about the booted vans. One is that the bodies were imported from Switzerland or another European country. However, we now know that the bodies were produced by Filam in Fyansford. The second rumour is that the vans were produced as early as 1958. This seems to be based on the fact that the tail lights on the van were from Mark 2 Ford Zephyrs which were in production from 1956 to 1962, as seen below. However, the 1961 article posted above seems to indicate that the model was new or relatively new.
The Franklin/Skyline/Clipper fibreglass van [type 2]
A year or two after Wayfarer’s fibreglass experiment apparently ended, advertisements appeared for the same van, but this time without a boot, and with only one roof hatch. These vans were first advertised by Franklin as their Futura model sometime in 1963. The Franklin bodies were also produced by Filam in Fyansford. Below is an example of the Franklin Futura (but the Franklin signage shown on this van is a later addition}:
[For internal photos of this van see here]
The photos of this van show two specific features that were carried over from the Wayfarer van. The first is the front and rear windows which slope inwards towards the top of the van. The second is the waist high moulding on the side of the vans which has a distinctive little kick up just under the front windows. One difference though is that the front and rear central opening windows on most, if not all, of the Franklin vans had square not curved bottom corners. The importance of these two features will be discussed below.
In August 1963, Skyline also began to advertise its fibreglass model which – outwardly at least – seems to have been identical to the Franklin Futura:
(Source: The Royalauto Journal, August 1963, page 10 - Originally posted by firefighter in 2011))
An example of the Skyline version belonging to Vintagevangirl is shown below:
[More photos of this van can be found here]
Intriguingly the serial number on the A-frame of this Skyline is ‘993F.G.’. This looks suspiciously like a pre-1965 Franklin serial number with ‘F.G.’ possibly standing for ‘fibreglass’ or the year. Other Skyline examples also have Franklin format serial numbers. This seems to indicate that Skyline sourced their fibreglass caravans through Franklin. (We know that some other Skyline branded caravans were supplied by Franklin in the mid-60’s and later, and these also retained their Franklin serial number.)
This Skyline van shown above carries the same metallic nameplate as seen in a drawing in the 1963 Winser Caravan Manual:
(Source: Keith Winser, Australian Caravan and Touring Manual, 1963, page unknown Originally posted by Cruisindoug in 2010)
But the Skyline model was also sold with a different nameplate as shown here:
Not only was this version of the fibreglass caravan sold by Franklin and Skyline, but also by Clipper in South Australia. An example is this van owned by Thierry’s family:
[An additional photo of this van showing the inside can be seen here]
Another example of a Clipper van belonging to Jagster1957 and showing a clearer image of the Clipper logo is below:
As at February 2022 this Clipper caravan was being restored by Roger H as reported here. The van has the Franklin format serial number of '922B' on the drawbar, confirming that the Clipper vans were build on Franklin chassis.
It is unknown how long Skyline and Clipper sold their version of this van, but Franklin continued to produce the Futura model in conjunction with Filam until 1968. It has been reported that Franklin found the Futura model too expensive to produce and so they were phased out. The Futura was replaced by Franklin’s fibreglass version of the Regent, the bodies for which were also produced by Filam according to Lindsaysmith1. Examples of the fibreglass Regent can be seen on this thread.
Kennedy fibreglass van [type 3]
Following the cessation of the production of the Franklin Futura in 1968, Frank Kennedy announced the production of the Kennedy fibreglass van which was advertised as ‘Fibreglass for ‘69’:
(Source: K Winser, Caravan Manual & Tourist Park Guide, 1969, page 225)
An example of the Kennedy van, owned by Willyn (and with varying livery over time), can be seen below:
At least two subtle changes were made to the moulds used to produce the Kennedy branded vans, when compared to the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper versions. These changes can be seen in the Kennedy photos above:
There were also differences in the furnishings inside, but the two differences referred to above can be used to reliably identify the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans on the one hand, and the Kennedy vans on the other. One other difference to note is that all of the Kennedy vans had rounded bottom corners on the front and rear central opening windows, while this was true of only some of the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans.
The story we have been told is that Frank Kennedy worked for Franklin, and when production of the Futura ceased, he took over selling the vans with some the minor changes mentioned and branded them as Kennedys. This move of the production of the Filam based caravans from Franklin to Kennedy is corroborated by an item from Gwen Haslar’s 1974 book on caravanning:
(Source: Gwen Haslar, Caravanning in Australia, 1974, page 14 - Originally posted by Firefighter in 2009)
However, it is uncertain whether or not the story about Frank Kennedy working for Franklin is correct. According to one of Kennedy’s sons, prior to the introduction of the Kennedy fibreglass vans in 1969, Mr Kennedy had had a caravan yard for the sale and hire of vans in Glen Waverley (Vic). Indeed in the 1967 and 1968 Winser Caravan Manuals, Kennedy was advertising new Chesney-built aluminium caravans that may possibly have been brand engineered as Kennedys (see here).
Frank Kennedy apparently had the fibreglass shells manufactured by Filam and then finished off the vans at Glen Waverley, selling them in relatively small numbers of two to four vans per year up until around 1974 or 1975. In advertising such as the 'Fibreglass for '69' advert shown above, the Kennedy was promoted as 'being Australia's best tested over 10 ten years’. Superficially this suggests that Kennedy had been producing his vans since 1959, but much more likely refers to the combined Filam/Wayfarer/Franklin/Kennedy development and production timeframe.
The Filam mould
In August 2011, Shaneandsimeon were shown a fibreglass mould used by Filam Pty Ltd at a manufacturing plant in Geelong (Fyansford). Inspection of the mould indicated that it had been used for the production of shells for the Kennedy caravans.
[More information and photos here]
Fibreglass vans in the Antarctic [type 4]
One or two bodies of a modified version of the Kennedy shell produced by Filam were mounted on sleds, and used in the Antarctic by ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, now known as the Australian Antarctic Division). These vans were produced by Filam (or Russell Fibreglass Industries after Filam was acquired by Franklin), but it seems likely that they were fitted out either by Kennedy or by ANARE itself.
[More information and photos here]
Interestingly the Australian Antarctic Division source for this photo and others has labelled it as a ‘Franklin caravan’, however the windows and waist moulding indicate that the body came from the Kennedy mould.
Caravelle caravans in New Zealand
An interesting coda to the story of these caravans is that it seems as if copies of the moulds with modifications were used to produce Caravelle caravans in New Zealand in the 1970’s. An example belonging to Hilldweller is seen below:
[More information and photos can be found here]
In this case, the slanting front and rear windows, and the kick in the waist mould indicates that the shell may have been adapted from the Franklin body. Lindsaysmith1 comments on the "borrowing" of designs and moulds in his post below.
Ironically, the production of the Caravelle caravan in New Zealand has a parallel with Sunliner caravans, where after production ceased in Australia, the moulds were used to produce Concord caravans in New Zealand.
Finally…
An interesting article written by Richard Potter on Filam's involvement in producing caravans was published in Roam Magazine in 2018 (Issue 36, pages 22-24),
As stated at the beginning of this post, if you think any of the above is incorrect, or you can add to the story of the Wayfarer/Franklin/Skyline/Clipper/Kennedy fibreglass caravans, it will be great to hear from you.
Don Ricardo
Editorial note: Updated on 21 November 2020 based on information provided by Lindsay Smith, son of Keith Smith who was one of the co-owners of the Filam Manufacturing Company. See his post below. Don Ricardo
(Updated March 2022)
Afternoon caravan history buffs,
For some time I have been trying to piece together the history of the ‘family’ of fibreglass vans produced between 1961 and around 1975. The shells were produced by Filam Manufacturing Company and the resulting caravans were variously branded as Wayfarer, Franklin, Skyline, Clipper and Kennedy vans.
Looking back over the posts about these caravans since the beginning of the forum, there has been quite a bit of understandable confusion about which vans were which, when they were produced, and by whom. The caravan ‘family’ in question has actually consisted of four different types. The first type is quite distinctive because it has a boot, but there are also some subtle differences between the second and third types. However, because of the confusion about the vans, and the differences between them in the early days of the forum – and the vintage caravan community generally – some of the vans have been misidentified on the forum and/or had incorrect signage placed on the actual vans.
This post is an attempt to distill what we’ve learnt on the forum about these caravans, and to sort out the timeline for their production. Info to help correct any errors or mistakes, or to add to the story, is very welcome. Anyway here goes…
The Wayfarer fibreglass van "with a boot" [type 1]
Many of us have been fascinated over the years by the fibreglass van “with a boot and fins” because the boot makes them so unusual for an Australian caravan. Below is an example of this van, and the only one that we know of that has been fully restored to date (although it also has a few little non-standard decorations):
[Photos taken by me at Cora Lynn in 2008]
Note that apart from the distinctive boot and fins, the van also has a double roof hatch.
Despite early conjecture on the forum that these vans were produced by Kennedy, the fact seems to be that almost all the vans with the boot were actually designed and built by or for Wayfarer in conjunction with the Filam Manufacturing Company in Fyansford (near Geelong). The Filam Manufacturing Company was established by Keith Smith and Douglas Russell, and produced a wide range of fibreglass products (see further information in Lindsaysmith1's post further down this thread).
The Wayfarer fibreglass caravans was introduced in late 1961, as indicated in the following article from the Australian Motor Manual in November 1961:
(Source: Australian Motor Manual[/b], 1 November 1961, page 34 - Originally posted by Rob J in 2005))
The fact that these vans were produced by Wayfarer seems to be borne out by the fact that all of the booted vans have a raised section on the front wall to fit a metallic Wayfarer nameplate. Exocet’s van came with the original Wayfarer nameplate, and the following photo show how the nameplate matches the raised section at the front of the van.
[More photos of Exocet’s Wayfarer can be found here]
The raised section on the front of the van for the nameplate can also be seen on the green and cream van at the beginning of this post, and other unrestored examples of the booted vans show the screw holes which match the Wayfarer name.
It seems that only a handful of these vans were produced, and for only a short time, and this fits with what I was told some years ago when I met a chap who had worked for Wayfarer for a number of years in the 50’s and early 60’s. According to him, the owner of Wayfarer was quite an innovator and experimented with a variety of materials for the construction of his vans. During the early 60’s Wayfarer built a fibreglass van, but found that it was too expensive to build for a price that potential buyers were willing to pay, and the model was abandoned. We know of no other fibreglass van that Wayfarer ever produced, so I am close to 100% certain the booted van is the one the former Wayfarer employee was referring to.
The rumour is that only somewhere between two and five of the booted vans were produced, but we have seen four such vans on the forum. Given that not all the caravans of a particular model from the vintage era have generally survived, if there are four booted vans still in existence, it seems likely that a few more than that were produced.
Several of the small number of booted vans have been labelled as Kennedys, and a member of the Kennedy family once suggested to me that his father may have produced and/or sold two of the vans. No documentary evidence has surfaced to confirm that Kennedy was ever actually associated with these vans (see here), however there is some hearsay evidence relayed to forum member Vantoura that in the late 60's Kennedy did acquire and fit out a couple of left over booted shells from Filam and sell them as Kennedy caravans. The Kennedy badging on those booted vans may therefore be original.
There are a couple of other rumours which have circulated about the booted vans. One is that the bodies were imported from Switzerland or another European country. However, we now know that the bodies were produced by Filam in Fyansford. The second rumour is that the vans were produced as early as 1958. This seems to be based on the fact that the tail lights on the van were from Mark 2 Ford Zephyrs which were in production from 1956 to 1962, as seen below. However, the 1961 article posted above seems to indicate that the model was new or relatively new.
The Franklin/Skyline/Clipper fibreglass van [type 2]
A year or two after Wayfarer’s fibreglass experiment apparently ended, advertisements appeared for the same van, but this time without a boot, and with only one roof hatch. These vans were first advertised by Franklin as their Futura model sometime in 1963. The Franklin bodies were also produced by Filam in Fyansford. Below is an example of the Franklin Futura (but the Franklin signage shown on this van is a later addition}:
[For internal photos of this van see here]
The photos of this van show two specific features that were carried over from the Wayfarer van. The first is the front and rear windows which slope inwards towards the top of the van. The second is the waist high moulding on the side of the vans which has a distinctive little kick up just under the front windows. One difference though is that the front and rear central opening windows on most, if not all, of the Franklin vans had square not curved bottom corners. The importance of these two features will be discussed below.
In August 1963, Skyline also began to advertise its fibreglass model which – outwardly at least – seems to have been identical to the Franklin Futura:
(Source: The Royalauto Journal, August 1963, page 10 - Originally posted by firefighter in 2011))
An example of the Skyline version belonging to Vintagevangirl is shown below:
[More photos of this van can be found here]
Intriguingly the serial number on the A-frame of this Skyline is ‘993F.G.’. This looks suspiciously like a pre-1965 Franklin serial number with ‘F.G.’ possibly standing for ‘fibreglass’ or the year. Other Skyline examples also have Franklin format serial numbers. This seems to indicate that Skyline sourced their fibreglass caravans through Franklin. (We know that some other Skyline branded caravans were supplied by Franklin in the mid-60’s and later, and these also retained their Franklin serial number.)
This Skyline van shown above carries the same metallic nameplate as seen in a drawing in the 1963 Winser Caravan Manual:
(Source: Keith Winser, Australian Caravan and Touring Manual, 1963, page unknown Originally posted by Cruisindoug in 2010)
But the Skyline model was also sold with a different nameplate as shown here:
Not only was this version of the fibreglass caravan sold by Franklin and Skyline, but also by Clipper in South Australia. An example is this van owned by Thierry’s family:
[An additional photo of this van showing the inside can be seen here]
Another example of a Clipper van belonging to Jagster1957 and showing a clearer image of the Clipper logo is below:
As at February 2022 this Clipper caravan was being restored by Roger H as reported here. The van has the Franklin format serial number of '922B' on the drawbar, confirming that the Clipper vans were build on Franklin chassis.
It is unknown how long Skyline and Clipper sold their version of this van, but Franklin continued to produce the Futura model in conjunction with Filam until 1968. It has been reported that Franklin found the Futura model too expensive to produce and so they were phased out. The Futura was replaced by Franklin’s fibreglass version of the Regent, the bodies for which were also produced by Filam according to Lindsaysmith1. Examples of the fibreglass Regent can be seen on this thread.
Kennedy fibreglass van [type 3]
Following the cessation of the production of the Franklin Futura in 1968, Frank Kennedy announced the production of the Kennedy fibreglass van which was advertised as ‘Fibreglass for ‘69’:
(Source: K Winser, Caravan Manual & Tourist Park Guide, 1969, page 225)
An example of the Kennedy van, owned by Willyn (and with varying livery over time), can be seen below:
At least two subtle changes were made to the moulds used to produce the Kennedy branded vans, when compared to the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper versions. These changes can be seen in the Kennedy photos above:
- Looking at the vans from the side, the front and rear windows of the Kennedy are perpendicular, as opposed to the windows on the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans that slope inwards towards the top.
- The waist high mould on the sides of the Kennedy do not have the little kick upwards under the front windows seen on the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans. The mould on the Kennedy is also shorter than on the previous version.
There were also differences in the furnishings inside, but the two differences referred to above can be used to reliably identify the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans on the one hand, and the Kennedy vans on the other. One other difference to note is that all of the Kennedy vans had rounded bottom corners on the front and rear central opening windows, while this was true of only some of the Franklin/Skyline/Clipper vans.
The story we have been told is that Frank Kennedy worked for Franklin, and when production of the Futura ceased, he took over selling the vans with some the minor changes mentioned and branded them as Kennedys. This move of the production of the Filam based caravans from Franklin to Kennedy is corroborated by an item from Gwen Haslar’s 1974 book on caravanning:
(Source: Gwen Haslar, Caravanning in Australia, 1974, page 14 - Originally posted by Firefighter in 2009)
However, it is uncertain whether or not the story about Frank Kennedy working for Franklin is correct. According to one of Kennedy’s sons, prior to the introduction of the Kennedy fibreglass vans in 1969, Mr Kennedy had had a caravan yard for the sale and hire of vans in Glen Waverley (Vic). Indeed in the 1967 and 1968 Winser Caravan Manuals, Kennedy was advertising new Chesney-built aluminium caravans that may possibly have been brand engineered as Kennedys (see here).
Frank Kennedy apparently had the fibreglass shells manufactured by Filam and then finished off the vans at Glen Waverley, selling them in relatively small numbers of two to four vans per year up until around 1974 or 1975. In advertising such as the 'Fibreglass for '69' advert shown above, the Kennedy was promoted as 'being Australia's best tested over 10 ten years’. Superficially this suggests that Kennedy had been producing his vans since 1959, but much more likely refers to the combined Filam/Wayfarer/Franklin/Kennedy development and production timeframe.
The Filam mould
In August 2011, Shaneandsimeon were shown a fibreglass mould used by Filam Pty Ltd at a manufacturing plant in Geelong (Fyansford). Inspection of the mould indicated that it had been used for the production of shells for the Kennedy caravans.
[More information and photos here]
Fibreglass vans in the Antarctic [type 4]
One or two bodies of a modified version of the Kennedy shell produced by Filam were mounted on sleds, and used in the Antarctic by ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, now known as the Australian Antarctic Division). These vans were produced by Filam (or Russell Fibreglass Industries after Filam was acquired by Franklin), but it seems likely that they were fitted out either by Kennedy or by ANARE itself.
[More information and photos here]
Interestingly the Australian Antarctic Division source for this photo and others has labelled it as a ‘Franklin caravan’, however the windows and waist moulding indicate that the body came from the Kennedy mould.
Caravelle caravans in New Zealand
An interesting coda to the story of these caravans is that it seems as if copies of the moulds with modifications were used to produce Caravelle caravans in New Zealand in the 1970’s. An example belonging to Hilldweller is seen below:
[More information and photos can be found here]
In this case, the slanting front and rear windows, and the kick in the waist mould indicates that the shell may have been adapted from the Franklin body. Lindsaysmith1 comments on the "borrowing" of designs and moulds in his post below.
Ironically, the production of the Caravelle caravan in New Zealand has a parallel with Sunliner caravans, where after production ceased in Australia, the moulds were used to produce Concord caravans in New Zealand.
Finally…
An interesting article written by Richard Potter on Filam's involvement in producing caravans was published in Roam Magazine in 2018 (Issue 36, pages 22-24),
As stated at the beginning of this post, if you think any of the above is incorrect, or you can add to the story of the Wayfarer/Franklin/Skyline/Clipper/Kennedy fibreglass caravans, it will be great to hear from you.
Don Ricardo
Editorial note: Updated on 21 November 2020 based on information provided by Lindsay Smith, son of Keith Smith who was one of the co-owners of the Filam Manufacturing Company. See his post below. Don Ricardo