date clues

[floozy]

Dear very knowledgeable vv lovers,

does the ice-box v's fridge help much with dating a van?
Too young (TIC) to have any living memory of an ice-box could someone tell me how they work (or are supposed to). Are they basically a built in esky?

thnx.
floozy

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Floozy,

In general fridges began to replace ice boxes in caravans in the mid-50's. I think there may have been some early examples of fridges fitted in the early 50's (maybe even the very late 40's??) but the mainstream change didn't happen until a few years later. Even then some manufacturers allowed customers the option of a fridge or an ice box right into the early 60's. So...the fridge/ice box thing does help to date vans, but not very precisely unless you know the history of a particular brand of caravan.

Somewhere on the forum there is a thread on this topic, but I can't find it at the moment, so please correct me anyone if you think I'm mistaken in the above dating. I seem to remember that the earliest fridges in vans were kerosene? Correct or not? Raises the question of when gas bottles started to be fitted to vans. Was it mid-50's as well?

Back to Floozy's questions...You are correct in saying that an ice box is essentially like a built in esky - a tin box insulated around the outside and with a drain hole in the bottom, divided into compartments usually by wire racks. One compartment was big enough to hold a block of ice which you used to be able to purchase at the local ice works. In a well constructed ice box the block of ice would last 2 or 3 days even in hottish weather, but some ice boxes were better insulated than others!

Most reasonable sized towns and suburban areas used to have ice works, which sounds strange now, but bear in mind that ice boxes were the common food preservation device in homes in the 40's and earlier, so ice used to be delivered to the home on a daily or a regular basis along with milk, bread, etc. When I was a kid on holidays with my parents in our van, the ice man would tour the caravan park selling block ice. Now that brings back memories!

Do you have a van you are trying to date?

Don Ricardo

[Jennison]

Donricardo,
Your talk of the ice man brings back fond memories of camping holidays down at Easts beach Kiama. We were still buying block ice there in early 70's.
regards Jennison

[floozy]

Don,

I am shopping. I had thought ice boxes would have been pre-60's but have seen a couple of vans with ice-boxes (or "ice box has been removed") which are advertised as 50's or 60's. I was just wondering. I was also wondering why you would remove one from a vintage van particularly if you are selling as a V.V. restoration job.

Thanks
floozy

[Don Ricardo]

Hi again Floozy,

An ice box in a van (or a hole where there used to be one) would generally suggest a 50's van or earlier, so that does give you some idea of its age, just not necessarily an iron clad dating device.

As to why the ice box would be taken out. This was generally done at some stage in the life of the van either for convenience (a fridge keeps food cooler than an ice box and requires no topping up with ice) or when block ice became a lot harder to get (the 80's). So it very often happened before the vans became highly prized V V's and the ice box was seen as a special bonus.

Our van - which is a late 40's - is a case in point. My wife and I bought it from my mother in 1982 when we had three small children. Each year we would take it and them away on holiday for four weeks in summer. After the first year we found that the ice works at our holiday destination closed down, and we also found that a bag of crushed ice lasted only about a day in the ice box on a very hot day. My wife was without a car for part of the time away and carrying bags of crushed ice back to the caravan park was no fun. So we decided for practical reasons to replace the ice box with a fridge. I regret it a bit now, but on the other hand, given that the van has been the basis for our regular family holidays over 27 years, the fridge has been a practical solution to the issue of ice.

If you do a search on the forum, you'll find that various people have come up with clever ideas to solve the ice dilemma for ice boxes, eg freezing plastic bottles of water before you leave home, etc, but that's only OK for a weekend, not four weeks away (unless you have access to a freezer while you are away).

Don Ricardo

[beetlesbailey]

I have a mid/late 60's Globe Trotter that now has a fridge which I guess replaced an ice box because when I removed the aluminium powder coated? white louvers behind the fridge I found a roughly cut hole for venting it.

This looks very amature rather than a factory job and the edges were not painted as they might have been if done in factory .

It also has hinge screw holes in the frame around the fridge which would indicate an ice box was fitted earlier.
I would suggest that ice boxes were on the way out by this time though.
Any ideas?
Graham

[humpty2]

We had a 1963 Sunliner that had an icebox as standard fitting and still had it in when we sold it, recently.

[Franklin1]

Here is an advertisement from August 1956 for Blue Ray LP gas in caravans...



The following year (1957) saw Blue Ray celebrating 20 years of supplying LP gas, so it could have been available for caravans well before 1956.

This next advertisement is from March 1959 and shows the Electrolux L25 fridge for caravans, etc...



(The advert doesn't specify what it runs on, but the fact it is suitable for boats suggests it is not electric, or at least not only electric.)

All of which confirms what DonR was thinking... LP gas to caravans by not later than 1956, and non-kero fridges by not later than 1959.

[Footnote: Sunliners were for the "true blue" caravanner...none of that wussy stuff like gas and refrigeration. They were sold with a free bag of kindling to get your first campfire going to boil the billy. ]

cheers,
Al.