Post by Don Ricardo on Jul 24, 2020 22:19:28 GMT 10
VOGUE CARAVANS
Manufactured by John Hill, Vogue Caravans
Cnr Port Wakefield & Taylors Rds, Waterloo Corner, South Australia
Vogue Caravans appears to have its roots in the story of Viscount.
As we know, Viscount was founded by Bob and Maureen Carr in the mid-1950’s. On 1 July 1957 the Carrs entered a partnership with John Hill and his wife, who contributed £7,000 in capital to the business. Over the succeeding years, Bob Carr and John Hill developed a very successful caravan manufacturing business expanding Viscount from its original base in Adelaide to Sydney and Melbourne where they established factories in 1957/8 and 1961 respectively. In the next few years difficulties appear to have developed between Carr and Hill, and the end result was that Bob Carr took control over the Sydney part of the business and Hill took control over the Adelaide and Melbourne part of the business. The Melbourne factory was then closed, and most Viscounts sold in Victoria came out of the Sydney factory, although this was still a point of tension between Carr and Hill.
It appears that from the early 60’s there were differences between the design and styling of Viscounts coming out of the three factories, such that some models from some factories were quite distinctive. This divergence in styling continued into the later 60’s as reflected in this Viscount brochure for the Adelaide factory’s products which appears to be from the second half of the 60’s:
At some point John Hill’s Viscount factory began to produce Vogue caravans. For some period of time the Vogue caravans were produced along side Viscount caravans, and the Do You Own a Viscount? Facebook page has posted some photos of order books from the late 60’s and very early 70’s which show orders for Viscounts and Vogues placed apparently intermixed in the book. In fact Vogue was for a time an Adelaide Viscount model name, so it appears that John Hill may have just adopted that name for one line of his caravans. At some point (the early 1970’s?) the production of Viscount caravans ceased in Adelaide, but the Vogue Caravans business continued on until relatively recently. In 2016 Boblor reported on the forum that he had visited John Hill at Vogue Caravans several times in the preceding two years.
Following are photos of several Vogue caravans which show the clear similarity in styling between the Vogues and the Viscount Regal caravans shown in the brochure above.
First is a Vogue caravan advertised on Facebook Marketplace in February 2020:
This Vogue belonged to forum member Trish_M and the photos were posted here on 31 January 2016:
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Serial number 324:
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The third Vogue is a later model as indicated by the acrylic coated cladding. The arrow shaped flash also appears to have been typical of later Vogues. The photos were posted on the Classic Caravans forum by member Kylox here on 5 September 2014:
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One other interesting aspect of Vogue Caravans is that at one point they seemed to hold a license to build the aluminium clad version of the Expandavan in South Australia which were sold under the Vogue name:
More photos of this Vogue Expandavan can be found here.
Credit and thanks to the Do You Own a Viscount? Facebook page and Twocutekepies who have provided information on the background to Vogue caravans in their posts which has informed this post.
Don Ricardo
Manufactured by John Hill, Vogue Caravans
Cnr Port Wakefield & Taylors Rds, Waterloo Corner, South Australia
Vogue Caravans appears to have its roots in the story of Viscount.
As we know, Viscount was founded by Bob and Maureen Carr in the mid-1950’s. On 1 July 1957 the Carrs entered a partnership with John Hill and his wife, who contributed £7,000 in capital to the business. Over the succeeding years, Bob Carr and John Hill developed a very successful caravan manufacturing business expanding Viscount from its original base in Adelaide to Sydney and Melbourne where they established factories in 1957/8 and 1961 respectively. In the next few years difficulties appear to have developed between Carr and Hill, and the end result was that Bob Carr took control over the Sydney part of the business and Hill took control over the Adelaide and Melbourne part of the business. The Melbourne factory was then closed, and most Viscounts sold in Victoria came out of the Sydney factory, although this was still a point of tension between Carr and Hill.
It appears that from the early 60’s there were differences between the design and styling of Viscounts coming out of the three factories, such that some models from some factories were quite distinctive. This divergence in styling continued into the later 60’s as reflected in this Viscount brochure for the Adelaide factory’s products which appears to be from the second half of the 60’s:
At some point John Hill’s Viscount factory began to produce Vogue caravans. For some period of time the Vogue caravans were produced along side Viscount caravans, and the Do You Own a Viscount? Facebook page has posted some photos of order books from the late 60’s and very early 70’s which show orders for Viscounts and Vogues placed apparently intermixed in the book. In fact Vogue was for a time an Adelaide Viscount model name, so it appears that John Hill may have just adopted that name for one line of his caravans. At some point (the early 1970’s?) the production of Viscount caravans ceased in Adelaide, but the Vogue Caravans business continued on until relatively recently. In 2016 Boblor reported on the forum that he had visited John Hill at Vogue Caravans several times in the preceding two years.
Following are photos of several Vogue caravans which show the clear similarity in styling between the Vogues and the Viscount Regal caravans shown in the brochure above.
First is a Vogue caravan advertised on Facebook Marketplace in February 2020:
This Vogue belonged to forum member Trish_M and the photos were posted here on 31 January 2016:
Serial number 324:
The third Vogue is a later model as indicated by the acrylic coated cladding. The arrow shaped flash also appears to have been typical of later Vogues. The photos were posted on the Classic Caravans forum by member Kylox here on 5 September 2014:
One other interesting aspect of Vogue Caravans is that at one point they seemed to hold a license to build the aluminium clad version of the Expandavan in South Australia which were sold under the Vogue name:
More photos of this Vogue Expandavan can be found here.
Credit and thanks to the Do You Own a Viscount? Facebook page and Twocutekepies who have provided information on the background to Vogue caravans in their posts which has informed this post.
Don Ricardo
