Ambassador (by Viscount) - chassis numbers

[Franklin1]

AMBASSADOR (BY VISCOUNT)

Produced by Viscount caravans as their 'second-rung' caravans.

Note: The Ambassador caravans referred to in this thread are not the same as the caravans built in Adelaide by the independent Ambassador company prior to 1964. For information about the Ambassador caravans produced by the independent company click here.

---

Viscount's Ambassador model was first launched on the market around mid-1964. This newspaper advertisement is from August 1964...



The timing of the launch coincided with a period where Viscount was offering customers the option of either the standard timber frame, or paying extra for a full aluminium frame. You may find that consecutive Ambassador chassis numbers until mid-1965 have differing framework.

The chassis numbering system for the Ambassador models started as a "D" followed by consecutive numbers that ticked over one by one as each chassis was built. Therefore, the first Ambassador would have got D01 (or D001 or something like that) and the second one would have got D02, and so it went on.


Here is chassis number D284 from 1964, and shows a wide painted band in line with the side windows...




And here is D919 from 1964, but it has wrap-around windows which weren't a typical feature of the Ambassador model...



--------------------------------------------------

1965 Ambassadors:

For some reason the D series numbers were discontinued in 1965, and E series numbers started to be used for the rest of the 1960s. The highest D number I'm aware of is D1790, but I have no idea what the last D number used was.


Here is chassis number E239 showing the 1965 painted design...




Chassis number E585 which has been repainted but using the original design...






And here is E978 which has the wrap-around windows...



---------------------------------------------------

1966 Ambassadors:

The following newspaper photo is from the Sydney Caravan Show held in September 1966, and shows the latest model Ambassador...



At first glance, the following two vans look to have the same painted design, however if you look closely at the outline, you'll notice they are in fact different.


Chassis number E1308 is typical of the Ambassador cabin appearance, and the painted design matches the photo above...




...but E2274 shows a slightly different design, and is possibly a Viscount model built on an Ambassador chassis...



-----------------------------------------------------

1967 Ambassadors:

Chassis number E6204 shows the 1967 design...



Editorial note: This van has had the shape of the front section below the front windows modified. In May 2020, Hughdeany made the following comment in a discussion about this caravan, based on photos he had seen previously: "...if you look closely you can see the old shape that has been altered at some stage, maybe after an accident. The inside shows the alteration to the dinette area." Don Ricardo

------------------------------------------------------

1968 Ambassadors:

Chassis number E6226 shows the 1968 design...



-------------------------------------------------------

1969 Ambassadors:

Here again some subtle differences can be found in the painted design (which I refer to as the "lightning flash design").


Chassis number E6417 shows a gap in the bottom painted stripe...




Chassis number E7362 shows no such gap, although it might have been repainted at some stage...




Chassis number E7939 doesn't have the gap in the bottom line...



The owner of E8135 reported that he found the date of February 1969 written on the inside of some panelling when he stripped out the van. Unfortunately, there are no photos showing the painted design on the van.


Chassis number E10033 is representative of the Ambassador models after white acrylic cladding was introduced in the second half of 1969. It was an optional extra to begin with, so consecutive chassis numbers might be plain or white cladding.

[Franklin1]

G'day junctionbox,

For a Franklin man you sure seem to take a lot of interest in Viscounts?

There are a number of us on the forum who have an avid interest in compiling the history of the vintage vans. I've focussed my research on the top three manufacturers Viscount/Millard/Franklin because information about them has been easier to come by. And, more importantly, I've worked out how their chassis numbering systems operated, which makes guessing the ages of these vans a bit more accurate. ;D

Assuming the Ambassador model was first launched in mid-1964 or a bit later, you have to guess how long it would have taken them to build 755 Ambassadors before they got to yours. I would think it would have taken months, and therefore your van is most likely to have been built sometime around mid-1965. You have to be aware that the models don't follow the calendar year. Rather, they most likely followed the timing of the Sydney Caravan Show each year, when new models would be launched to coincide with the annual show. Therefore, the 1964 model was being built from, say, July 1964 until about mid-1965, followed by a new model with a "dynamic twin flash" (as the advertisements trumpeted). Yours would probably be one of the early "dynamic twin flash" models.

You'll also notice that the history is not an exact science in the detail. Your chassis number of D756 has the twin flash, and yet D919 still has the wide band on it. Why is it so? Who knows!!

Unfortunately, there are lots and lots of aberrations as I try and make sense of the history, so all we can do is give people some guidelines to work to.

cheers,
Al.

[Don Ricardo]

INFORMATION ABOUT PRE-1964 AMBASSADOR CARAVANS

Prior to the introduction of Ambassador as a Viscount brand in 1964, as set out in the post at the beginning of this thread, Ambassador caravans appear to have been built by an independent company.

Raym provided the following information on 29 April 2008:

According to the Adelaide phone book in 1958, 59, 60 & 66 Viscount were located at 306 Glen Osmond Rd. Fullarton S.A. and in 1959 & 60 Ambassador were located at 7 Kensington Rd. Norwood S.A. If I remember corectly my father told me that some of the people that worked for Viscount left and started ther own caravan company calling it Ambasssador and almost copying the Viscount. Later Viscount bought them out and continued to use both names.

Information on the early 60's Ambassador caravans can be found by clicking here.

In addition to producing vans under the Ambassador name, Viscount also built vans under the Valiant name. For further information on Valiant (by Viscount) caravans click here.

Information on vans built under the Viscount name is here.

Don Ricardo

[Don Ricardo]

On 1 January 2009, Franklin1 posted the following photos of an Ambassador (by Viscount) caravan which show the interior of the van. The style of the flash on the side indicates that it is a 1968 caravan:





(source: sold on ebay Dec 2008.)

[Franklin1]

G'day Arthur,

You'll drive yourself bonkers trying to work out the truth with these old vans. Trust me, I've already driven myself bonkers many times over the last few years of doing research.

Just when you think you've got the history nicely sorted, along comes a van that throws a spanner into your theories.

Here's an Ambassador with chassis number D488, showing split windows in the rear. The whole van has been repainted in silver paint, so I don't know what's original on the van and what isn't. But if the split windows are in fact original, then they were on this van in 1964 or '65...



The wheel arches also don't follow any logic. If you look at the photos that Don Ricardo posted above of a 1968 Ambassador, you'll see a square wheel arch. And yet, the other 1968 van I posted in the string of photos above has a rounded wheel arch.

And just to add to the confusion, if you study the 1969 vans I've posted above, the first one has sloping windows, and the other later ones have square windows. Does that mean that Viscount changed the window shape sometime in 1969?? Answer: stuffed if I know.

All pretty straight forward, this history stuff, ay?!! (NOT!! )

cheers,
Al.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Franklin1 and Junctionbox,

I wonder if some of the differences you are discussing (such as the shape of the wheel arch) reflect the fact that Viscount caravans (and Ambassadors and Valiants???) were built in two separate factories - Sydney and Adelaide. Maybe the basic designs were the same but some little differences in the actual implementation?

Don Ricardo

PS Junctionbox - just wondering about the forum handle. Are you a sparky by any chance?

[Franklin1]

Oops, I forgot to insert the photo of D488 in my post above, but now corrected.


DonR, I reckon anything's possible with these Viscounts. I've seen so many different decals/stickers/logos on the various Viscounts/Valiants/Ambassadors, and I've always thought to myself, "These can't possibly have come out of the one factory!"

Let's also not forget that they had a factory in Victoria in the early 1960s, so goodness knows what came out of that place as well.

I've tried to reconcile all the maths with the D-series numbers and E-series, versus the side painted designs, and it all adds up to a heck of a lot of Ambassadors built in the one year in the one factory.

So, maybe your theory is correct. Maybe the D series came from one factory and the E series from another. Who knows?!! I guess when we collect another hundred examples of the Ambassador chassis numbers, we'll get a clearer picture. (If we should live that long... )

cheers,
Al.

[pmandlm]

Hi Franklin 1.
We’ve been avidly following your thread on dating Viscount vv’s, particularly Ambassadors.
Well. We got so carried away we went and bought one. A Viscount Ambassador, that is. We can report that its chassis no. is E 1422, making it 1966 according to your well researched data.
We also recognize that it is helpful to somehow corroborate the dating system.
How about this? Cleaning the new girl (or boy – gender not yet determined) today, we discovered E1422 - 28/?0/66 pencilled under the table. We think that would have to be 28 October 1966.




Regards

PM & LM

[Franklin1]

G'day pmandlm,

Congratulations on your purchase.

Did I see your van on ebay recently? It sticks out for reasons I'll get to shortly...

Firstly, you deserve a "Merit Award" for finding the date written under the table. That sort of information sure helps to confirm the guesswork and assumptions I make when I try to put together the history for these vans.

As to why your van "sticks out"... It appears to be white cladding with the yellow design, and yet Viscount didn't start using white cladding until the middle of 1969. I wonder if somebody has painted the van white at some stage, and then gone to the trouble of repainting the side design as it was originally? I'm certainly not recommending you strip any paint off, but I suspect you'll find evidence around the van that it has indeed been painted white some time after manufacture.

The other mysterious thing about your van is the wrap-around windows front and rear. Ordinarily, the Ambassadors didn't get them, but I'd love to know whether they were an optional extra that could be ordered, OR whether on occasions Viscount built a Viscount cabin on top of an Ambassador chassis.

Still lots to learn about these old vans, ay?!

cheers,
Al.

[pmandlm]

G'day Al.

No. This van was not on ebay, or advertised anywhere.
Someone has definitely painted the van white at some stage - you can just see where the corners and the flashes were masked.
The paint is flaking off in some areas, particularly on the roof.
Don't know about the wrap around windows - not unhappy about them though. I do wonder if it was a bit upmarket though - the cushions all round are made reversible, with vinyl on one side and funky sixties fabric on the other. There was clearly at clock at some point, but sadly not now. The lino tiles and laminex table and bench tops are original and in very good nick.






Regards
Paul.

[Franklin1]

G'day Arthur,

No, I doubt whether there would have been any great amount of stockpiling in the early 1960s. The majority of caravans built in those early years would have been built to customer orders, rather than just built for the sake of building them and hoping someone would buy them.

In advertisements in the early 1960s, dealers would implore anybody who was thinking of getting a van for the upcoming summer holidays, to put their order in before mid-November or they would "miss out". So I've gathered from that that the industry generally operated on the basis that if there were no orders, then no van was built. Even when Viscount were offering the choice of timber or aluminium frames at the time your Ambassador was built, it was a case of the customer choosing which one they wanted built in their van, rather than choosing from a ready-made selection in a sale yard.

From a stockpiling viewpoint, mass production methods were really just starting to find their way into the industry in the first half of the '60s. It wasn't until the latter half of that decade that things really started hotting up. Around 1967/8, the bigger players were all creating huge manufacturing complexes as the demand for caravans started snowballing. The industry shifted from a "no-order-no-caravan" basis, to a "build them and they shall come" basis.

So, while I stress that anything is possible in the history of these old vans, I don't think there was a lot of "pre-production" going on at the time yours was built. I agree that it's possible D919 may have been a special order which took some time to complete. We'll probably only ever get a better feel for the history, by finding the 100 vans before and after that number and seeing how they all line up together.

cheers,
Al.

[pmandlm]

Hi Ambassadorians.
Here’s the dating proof under the table.
E1422
28/?0/66.



No, Arthur – definitely not the real McCoy.
I think you should send it to me immediately.
Paul.

[koolek]

Hi all, ;D
Just wanted to thank everyone for their time in putting all this information together, I have just picked up an old viscount ambassador and from what I can tell it is around 66 to 68 model any further clarification would be appreciated. I will be completely customising the interior and will be putting a hot rod based colour scheme on the outside to match my tow vehicle ( if I can get the paint to stick as I have seen many failed attempts at painting these old vans). Not for the purist however it does keep another one of these old girls on the road. Just thought you may want a couple of photo’s and the chassis number to add to the data base. Chassis number is E 1871

[mrbojangles]

Hi just found this site while searching for details for registration, I was under the impression my van was a 1966 but after reading this I'm pretty sure it's a 1969, anyway here is a pic of the Chassis number I think it is E8966

[mrbojangles]

I think the flash painting on the side of my van is different to any of the others in this thread. Here's a pic and I found one for sale on Trading Post (am I allowed to post the link??) It seems to have the same flash as my van but they claim it is a 1975 Model. The pic is my van.

[chubi]

Hi guys, I recently purchased E1631 from a mate who purchased a property on the NSW North Coast and it was left behind by the sellers under its own carport. I have been trying to date it, and seen the above post regarding the pencilling under the table. I just went out and sure enough, it has E1631 23/2/67 PRE*** written under it, I don't know what the last three numbers/letters are though. It doesnt have any emblems, but is quite obviously a Viscount, and although it no longer has the lightning flashes on the sides, you can see they were there and were the solid not hollow ones, just like E2274 above has. And just like E2274, it has wrap around windows front and rear, and also has a front shade that is painted green with white stripes on the inside. It has come from WA at some point as it has a WA plate and WA Elec Comm sticker inside it. The rear bed is gone though, and I don't know if it had twin beds or a foldout lounge. It differs from the others though, in that it has a Polar ChemiFreeze fridge in it, with an exhgaust stack?? pointing upright to a vent above the fridge. It also has a BELCAST hitch on the front. Can anyone tell me, is it an Ambassador??

[chubi]

rear view

[chubi]

Polar fridge

[chubi]

exhaust

[chubi]

inside fridge

[chubi]

front

[chubi]

kitchen

[chubi]

wardrobe

[chubi]

seating

[dave79au]

Hi franklin1 im new to this site just bought a viscount ambassador E6417 the one that you have the photo of i bought it off ebay from a guy in port macquarie i was just wondering if anyone has any information on this van like who took the photo and where the photo was taken as i want to fix up this van and use it for travelling as it is in very good condition for its age

thank you any info would be so helpful