And so it begins ...our Sundowner ..and now a Holidaymaker

[Aussie]

Oct 27, 2014 20:54:44 GMT 10 moth said:

Hi Aussie
The Moth here ,about that polishing ,in the end I found the best finish was achieved by hand ,I tied fast and slow machines but came back to cleaning the aluminium with fine grade soapy steel wool pads ,rinsing ,drying then purple polish as per directions . cheers Moth

Great to meet you!

Our first little resto venture was a Coleman lite'n'low camper. The body was completely cactus so i replaced it entirely with stucco.

Looked great but a bugger to polish. Im hoping the profile of mine may make it a little easier, although i doubt it.

[moth]

Just finished the soft board and canvas roof ,now that took sme work ,but in the end it came up tops and still looks like it's a canvas roof .the canvas was glued,bitumen coated ,sealed/primed and finished with a new heat reflective paint ,an experiment,see how it goes ,

[willow5075]

A practice for the practice run for Sunny now that her latest reno's are complete! We're taking her all the way to West Beach on Saturday ..about a 30 minutes drive if we get a lot fo red lights

Untitled by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

So we took Sunny all the way to West Beach (about 35 minutes in traffic) for her real trial run.

Lesson 1 - the rear roof hatch needed to be reversed - even in 60k or less traffic it had come open and blown back by the time we got there.
Lesson 2 - Never let a man pack! No seriously everything was there - just needed some repacking according to workflow!

Untitled by Willow Images, on Flickr

Determined not to have to worry about this again, the Moth had this job completed by the end of the day on Sunday!

So we are all ready for our next adventure to Normanville.

[willow5075]

The Sundowner at Normanville meet - I like this view because it shows ho much the new roof has improved the look

Sunnyat-Normanville by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

And Sunny and Chev

Sunny-and-Chev by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

Also for our future journeys we now have a new ride - with plan for half of the back part to be for travelling stuff and half for the MOTH's work stuff ....

Untitled by Willow Images, on Flickr

Sammy Suburu has been demoted to city driving while "Nice" and "Sunny" will be the travellers

[tinker]

Love Sunny and Chev

Mrs Tinker

[willow5075]

Sunny has done us proud on a trip to NSW for a wedding. After 20 plus years the kids joined us for this trip as we were all invited to the wedding and our son was a grooms man.
A stop on the way home at Gundagai



And camped on a bend of the Murumbidgee

[willow5075]

So after Christmas we did another 6 day trip down to the South east of the state - Lake Albert Caravan park for 2 nights then 2 nights in the Cape Banks Lighthouse campgrounds and the two nights in Robe

The beautiful Lake Albert complete with pelicans

Lake-Albert-03

Lake-Albert-02

No trip is complete without a pic in front of something BIG!

Untitled

More to come ...

[willow5075]

The owner of the Lake Albert Caravan park in Meningie is a bit of a VV fan himself and had this one on display for the holiday period. He owns it and also said he'd love to host a VV meet at the park.

Untitled by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

Underneath the lighthouse at Cape Banks

Sunny-at-Cape-Banks by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

On the way back from our trip we checked out this old Rowvan - needs a lot of TLC - very trashed inside



Two Vans by Willow Images, on Flickr

[Don Ricardo]

G'day Willow5075,

Some great photos from your trip. Always good to see. 

The Rowvan is the one advertised last year on Ebuy, photos of which were posted on the Rowvan thread in DHL. As far as I am aware, it is the only 15 ft 50's Rowvan we've seen on the forum, so it's a bit of a rarity I think. Interesting to see that it's still for sale, or maybe for sale again. It would be great for someone to rescue and restore it, but as you say it would be a fair bit of work based on the pics.

Don Ricardo

[willow5075]

Well we have just exhibited the van at the SA Caravan and Camping show and HIT PAYDIRT!!

The MOTH met and chatted with a lady who is the daughter in law of the builder. The builder was a chap by the name of Arnold Preiss. He was an engineer and he built it himself in 1946 then updated it about 10 years later replacing the original timber cladding and windows with aluminium. The delightful lady went home in 40 degree heat and came back with photo's.

Apparently, Arnold was also an inventor, photographer and cinematographer.

So prepared to be amazed !!

A good shot of the van showing the Sundowner name



The lady in question had her honeymoon in the van



Isn't she lovely and what we love about this is also that you can see the number plate same as the one shot we had when we had the van many years ago which is in an earlier post

Sundowner History by Willow Images, on Flickr

First holiday in September 1946

Sundowner History by Willow Images, on Flickr

A group of vans incluidng Sunny camped on a block at Seaford in SA

Sundowner History by Willow Images, on Flickr

And the lady who gave us this gold dust

Sundowner History by Willow Images, on Flickr

[willow5075]

This lovely lady has gone away to look through more records - her husband also helped to build the caravan and there were many family holidays. When Arnold died, the van was sold to the family friend that we were so lucky to receive the van from,

In this image we see the young mother and the the little girl is the person who spotted the van and alerted her mother that it looked a lot like grandpas! Actually, she was looking at a different van but Margaret, the lovely lady in question knew our on sight.

Sundowner History by Willow Images, on Flickr

[Don Ricardo]

G'day Willow5075 and MOTH,

That's paydirt indeed! A whole treasure trove!!

How wonderful to be given all that information about your van. A real thrill not only for you, but also those of us who have admired your van and the work you have been doing on it.

Congratulations. Bet you're glad you decided to take your van to the Caravan & Camping Show!

Don Ricardo

[willow5075]

Thanks Don, yes it was worth weathering the 40 degree heat although I have to admit the MOTH did most of the weathering while I came and went a bit. It was thrilling to find out the origins and confirms why we could never see another one quite like ours because there isn't!

We have the lady's number and she has ours so we hope to get a bit more in the future, maybe some pics when he re-clad it in the 50's

[penguin]

flic.kr/p/r2es9S
"The lady in question had her honeymoon in the van"
Isn't that amazing that you have discovered all that history. Must have been so nice for her to discover her dad's van. They must have been a close family. From the photos it appears her mum and dad came along on the honeymoon. Maybe Dad was a little overprotective of his darling sundowner. By the way, your van looks amazing. Cheers. Ben.

[akeepsake]

Willow5075 Wow! Every vv owner dreams of this scenario and you've got it . Well done! I am currently in the process of getting some old pics from my Jennisons previous owners and you have spurred me on to try and track down original owner and see where it leads.
If it was me I would be tempted to rip the aluminium cladding off and whip out the windows and get some wooden ones back in! Tempted?? At least get the stripe back on!!
Well done! Andrew

[moth]

Hi it's the moth here ,just fantastic to get all this info and to know all the changes were made by the original builder of the van ,sunny will be getting her flash back , but since Arnold made the change to aluminum ,we will leave it on .
Cheers Steve

[akeepsake]

Feb 25, 2015 22:54:00 GMT 10 moth said:

Hi it's the moth here ,just fantastic to get all this info and to know all the changes were made by the original builder of the van ,sunny will be getting her flash back , but since Arnold made the change to aluminum ,we will leave it on .
Cheers Steve

Understandable your leaving the armour on! I reckon the flash will really lift it ! What colour was it originally?

[willow5075]

Feb 27, 2015 11:15:37 GMT 10 akeepsake said:

Feb 25, 2015 22:54:00 GMT 10 moth said:

Hi it's the moth here ,just fantastic to get all this info and to know all the changes were made by the original builder of the van ,sunny will be getting her flash back , but since Arnold made the change to aluminum ,we will leave it on .
Cheers Steve

Understandable your leaving the armour on! I reckon the flash will really lift it ! What colour was it originally?

Goo dquestion which the MOTH didnt think to ask but the previous colouring inside had greens and yellows so we think maybe it was green - however the Sundowner "logo" on the ally was red, white and black (which we have retained) so if we do the stripe we'll possibly do red with black pin striping on the edges

We have the lady's phone number so we might check with her

[akeepsake]

Feb 27, 2015 11:42:41 GMT 10 willow5075 said:

Feb 27, 2015 11:15:37 GMT 10 akeepsake said:

Understandable your leaving the armour on! I reckon the flash will really lift it ! What colour was it originally?

Goo dquestion which the MOTH didnt think to ask but the previous colouring inside had greens and yellows so we think maybe it was green - however the Sundowner "logo" on the ally was red, white and black (which we have retained) so if we do the stripe we'll possibly do red with black pin striping on the edges

We have the lady's phone number so we might check with her

Green sounds wonderful but whatever you choose I can't wait to see it!

[willow5075]

Pan o at the caravan and camping show



Clipsal 500 Adelaide - some of the vans display