Warning: This post includes photos of retro and modern teardrops!
Hi all,
A few weeks ago Dona Ricardo and I dropped on the Teardrop Camper get together held as part of the 2018 Mucklefest Vintage Machinery Rally (26-28 October). As some of you may have seen, there's a report in
Roam Magazine No 36 with photos and stories in the magazine about five of the individual teardrops that were present, but I thought I'd post some other photos here as well.
When we got to Mucklefest, the signpost told us which direction to take:
There was a total of 24 teardrops of various types at the get together:
Two of the teardrops were in the vintage category, and both have featured on the forum at one time or another. The oldest van present was
Sportsman1's unrestored pre-War Sportsman Deluxe:
The Sportsman has covered quite a bit of ground with Mr and Mrs Sportsman1, towed by their trusty Vauxhall Vagabond:
A rather nice item attached to the Sportsman - a Herald Touring Club badge:
The Sportsman comes with a full range of facilities, including toilet and shower:
The other vintage teardrop was a 1948 homebuilt van owned by
Andrew & Pauline:
The last time we saw Andrew & Pauline's teardrop was when it was rescued from Lockhart, NSW by
Reddo back in 2007 (see
here):
The majority of teardrops present were retro homebuilt recreations.
Redmr2red organised the teardrop event at Mucklefest, and he and Mrs Redmr2red were there with their homebuilt 'Clarence' van:
The van below was built by
Ian to match his 1937 Chevrolet Sloper. The curve of the teardrop roof mirrors that of the Chev's roofline:
The van has a rather neat annexe, made to fit:
Wayne has started to build his Classic Teardrops on a semi-commercial basis. He attended the 2018 Vintage Caravan Nationals at Wangaratta, so it was good to see him again:
Another homebuilt belonged to
Greg & Annette:
Their tow car was a Morris Van which Greg says can struggle up hills with the van behind:
This tiny little teardrop was towed by a Suzuki Mighty Boy, all 543cc of it! The teardrop looks like it might be single bed only:
I'm not sure which would win towing up a hill - the Morry Van or the Mighty Boy!
In contrast this larger than average homebuilt teardrop owned by
Kirstie is large enough to include a children's bunk bed above the main double bed:
There were a number of modern commercially built teardrops there too:
One of the most interesting modern teardrops from the perspective of Dona Ricardo and me was a 2017 New Zealand built K-pod owned by
Gary & Kaye. The photos on the van were taken by Greg. Scout is there dog:
What made this van of particular interest is the fact that the inside had been configured to provide a table and a foot well, which of course could then be set up as a double bed:
Very clever use of space.
That's enough for one post. I'll post some other pics from Mucklefest in a separate post.
Don Ricardo