Carefree Caravan (East Malvern, Vic)

[Don Ricardo]

CAREFREE CARAVAN

148 Darling Road, East Malvern, Vic

---

Carefree caravan advertised on Ebay, July 2008









Description provided by seller:

"Ok Folks, up for grabs is this early 50's Bondwood Caravan, Built by Carefree Caravans in East Malvern. I don't know the exact age but early 50's is a pretty close guess.

"The van was built using an old method of a sheet of ply, and no frame, this making the caravan light compared to ply caravans with frames. The inside furniture is where the caravan gains its strenght.

"This particular van is unregistered and has not been for sometime. This means that the lights that are on it are old fashioned and therefore not working, so a lightbar would be the ideal solution to take the van home!

"The paint on the outside is not the original paint, it is cracked but simply needs to be rubbed down and painted. This may shock you but this van has NO ROT... except for a very, very small piece in the door frame at the botom. This is so small and easily fixed that it's hardly worth mentioning.

"The inside of the van is in amazing condition. The inside does not need to be painted, except perhaps around the back windows. The stickers that can be seen on the roof are old grog labels and these alone are probably highly colectable. All of the cushions are original inner-spring (that's right, no foam!). The curtains, unfortunatley were so original that they literally fell to bits so there are currently none. I had the annex set up for a week in the rain and the top didn't leak a bit, the sides however have seen better days. The annex is complete with original wooden poles.

Nice to have the serial number plate - 5.8.7. Wonder if that provides a clue about the build date? If there were 587+ built I would have thought the Carefree name would have popped up before.

Don Ricardo

[cobber]

An advertisement for “Carefree Caravans” in the “Caravan & Touring magazine 1959.

It would appear (I think) to be a later model than the one above that was on ebay even though the ebay one is fitted with a refrigerator whereas the '59 has an ice box..


Cobber.

[yellowuki]

That's my caravan on Ebay and boy am I glad to know that i'm not the only one on earth who's ever heard of a Carefree caravan. I look like being stuck with the old girl so i will soon be getting to work! I've been trying to decide what sort of stripe to put down the side and this helps greatly! I didn't explain in the ad that the fridge is a later edition- I wish it still had the ice box! The one in the ad has the fold out step whereas mine doesn't. Even the clearance lights in the same awkward spot as mine. If you want anymore info I will help as I can. If it doesn't sell on Ebay, then by 2010 I'll be finished school and she'll be painted up and behind my car working my way around Australia! Just like the old timers- Living and working my way around!
Yellowuki.

[cobber]

Carefree caravans are not mentioned in Keith Winsers Caravan & Touring Manuals for 1951/2 or 1961 & 1962
It first gets a mention in the 1954 book (I don't have the 1953 manual) but there are no photos of it & it is not featured in the “specification” pages.

In 1957 there is a three page spread containing photos and details regarding the 14-ft. “Clipper” and the 12-ft. “Commando” model on pages 94 and 95




And then...on page 96 they advertise the 12-ft, the 12-ft 6in and the 14-ft. “Commander” models... a Freudian slip maybe not, this model seems to be offering diy "kits" ?


The 1959 manual has the add. Shown above in the earlier post and the “Specifications” shown below, (this was the only time they featured in the Spec. page of any of the manuals I have and you will notice there are models not mentioned in any of the previous advertisements & no mention of the " Commando" or the "Commander" models).


So what happened to “Carefree” after 1959.... I smell a rat somewhere but I can't find him....anybody got any suggestions ?

Cobber.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Cobber and Yellowuki,

I have checked the 1953 Winser and there is no mention of Carefree, so 1954 looks like it may be a starting point. However, inclusion in Winser is not the be all and end all, because there was no mention of Carefree in the 1956 Winser I borrowed from Exocet, and I recall that Winser prefaced his specification list in that edition by saying that it wasn't complete and that a number of smaller manufacturers hadn't got their info to him in time for the publication deadline.

Yellowuki - consider your day as made! As far as I'm aware your Carefree is the only one we've heard about on the forum, let alone seen. It's a genu-wine, certified V V treasure - along with all the other treasures of course!

Don Ricardo

[cobber]

G'day Don R & yellowuki,

Here is something else to consider.
Back in April 2007 we were trying to find the builder of a style of caravan that kept popping up with no sign of identification on them.
The similarities to the “Carefree” 'van are interesting what ?

This is the one Earlee had.


The entire thread can be seen at --
vintagecaravans.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=142

And this is the one I had


Those timber surrounds on the windows both earlee and I had to re-make .

Cobber.

[yellowuki]

Just finished sending pictures to the Malvern historical society. The folks there were 'wrapped' to hear from me as they'd never heard of Carefree Caravans. They will do some investigating and if nothing else they will now have a record of the manufacturer that operated in their area.
Yellowuki

[yellowuki]

Well, I heard back from the histerical society the other day, here's what they had to say:
" Our research found that Carefree Caravan Sales was located in a shop andstore at 148 Darling Road East Malvern, near the corner of Malvern Roadfrom around 1955.The site of the shop had included part of some old tennis courts and vacantland until 1955, when the shop was built . Ownership of the shop changed in1962 and the Caravan sales business appears to have left the buildingaround this period."
Cheers, Yellowuki ;D

[cobber]

G'day Yellowuki,

That was a smart move, contacting the local Historical Society, maybe we should do it more often when we run into a blank wall, you never know what they know.

Cobber.

[cobber]

This advertisement is from the Melbourne Argus of May 1937.
It shows a “Care–Free” Caravan made by S.H. Cordell.... with “The first all steel body in Australia”. Note the address.... 190 Hampton St. Hampton.



Another advertisement from The Argus ..November 1937 for “Carefree” Caravans (without the hyphen) ..no mention of S.H. Cordell but...... at the same address.



Interesting how the more recent advertisements.. 1955-56 for "Cordell" caravans make no mention of the name "Carefree"... and this thread on "Carefree" caravans make no mention of S.H. Cordell ….. but then THIS “Carefree” is at a different address

So.... I don't think the "Carefree" caravans on this thread have anything to do with the "Care-Free" / "Carefree" caravans from Hampton St. Hampton........................................... do you

So.... I don't know if this post belongs in the S.H. Cordell thread or the “Carefree” thread........ so I'll put it in both .

Cobber.

[Franklin1]

From the November 1990 edition of "Caravan World & Outdoor Life" magazine, comes this information:

"One of Victoria's earliest caravan builders was Alan Hams; his son Geoff Hams, who co-manages Caravan City Croydon with his brother Robert these days, remembers that when he was a nipper of about four years of age he used to hold nails for his dad to hammer into those early caravans, which were built with such soundness that there are still some of them to be seen around today.

"We had a family farm at Waverley", mused Geoff. "Dad built his bondwood 'Carefree' caravans one at a time in a small workshop in Murrumbeena and brought each one to a cement sheet shed on the farm, where we'd spend the weekend finishing it off, sleeping inside it so that no waking hours were wasted travelling to and from the property. Dad worked like that seven days a week when we were kids."

Alan Hams finally subdivided the Waverley farm land though, and this enabled him to buy the 41 acres he wanted at Croydon, which played such an historic part in Victoria's caravan history in the 1970s.

...The Hams boys joined the family business when Alan decided to use 20 of his 41 acres in Croydon to create the world's largest caravan supermarket and the first in the southern hemisphere. Named Croydon Caravan City, it was founded in the early 70s, when new caravan sales peaked in this country...

_{[Page 51, Caravan World, November 1990]}

[Don Ricardo]

Hi all,

Carefree caravan, serial number 609 (or possibly 608), was advertised on Ebay in September/October 2013, and was inspected by Winterwood on behalf of another forum member. The following photos were taken by Winterwood:











Note that this van has aluminium framed side windows, indicating that aluminium windows were introduced sometime between Yellowuki's Carefree van shown at the beginning of this thread, which is serial number 587, and serial number 609. In 1959, Carefree was still advertising vans with 'Bosse and Eunson' style windows (see Reply #1 above), suggesting that Carefree introduced aluminium framed windows fairly late in the piece.

The other interesting thing about serial number 609 is that it includes a bay window at the front. The window was very likely provided by Flynn Caravans who manufactured them both for their own use, and for other manufacturers. Whether the bay window was original equipment or after market is unknown at this stage:





My initial presumption was that the serial number 609 indicated that it was the 609th van built by Alan Hams, the builder of Carefree caravans. This would be quite a considerable number, and more than might be expected, given that Hams built the vans one by one in a small shed (see Reply #10 above). However, it has occurred to me that the serial number might indicate both the year and number. That is, serial number 609 might be the 9th van built in 1960, and Yellowuki's van may have been the 7th van built in 1958. This would possibly be more in keeping with the production rate for a relatively small backyard manufacturing operation.

Don Ricardo

[akeepsake]

Thanks for posting these latest pics Don Ricardo. Max was kind enough to have a good look for me and I was going to post some pics he sent but you have beaten me to it?
I fell in love with Yellowuki's Carefree when I first saw it in "My Cool Caravan" and vowed if one ever came up I would grab it . ( I sent him the pics and he was blown away that there was another one in existence!) Alas this one had suffered from over exposure frem the elements and was a bit too soggy to cart all the way back to Tassie as that stretch of water makes it unviable! The Flynn window makes it different and I hope someone grabs it and does it justice !

Kind regards Andrew
PS if you have a Carefree would love to hear from you

[Don Ricardo]

Some further photos of Carefree caravan, serial no 609, courtesy of Winterwood:

















...and the inside of the bay window:

[normajean]

I am now the VERY proud owner of this beauty
She's my first project of this type so any hints, tips or tricks to restore her to her former glory would be gratefully accepted!
She has dried out a little, but sadly she's too tall to fit into my garage
So I leave her uncovered when its sunny and tarp her in the wet
The floors are pretty soft so I was going to start with those
and there are some soft patches in the outside walls... AND of course the bay window that practically disintegrated on the drive home...

[Don Ricardo]

Extract from late 50's Carefree Clipper brochure advertised on Ebay, February 2014



Note that the top van has a bay window like the van discussed in the two posts immediately above. However, unlike those vans, the one in the advertisement has wooden framed side windows not aluminium framed ones.

The full brochure can be viewed on the Our Touring Past website here