Trying to identify our caravan?

[traveleze1967]

Hello,

I have had this caravan for 10 years after purchasing if off a family friend who had it and was using it as a place to sleep on the land in the Marlbough sounds at the top of the south Island.
I have always wondered what it was as the inside is still orginial other than a replacement bench top (still have the orginal formica one though). It has been regestered as a 1967 Traveleze, and I was told that they were built in Christchurch only for a very short time in the 60's. The whloe van is built our of formica poly panel with polystyrene. I have done a few repairs to the panels by reskining with aluminium sheets.

Any help would be great.

Regards

Craig

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[Don Ricardo]

Hi Traveleze1967,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for telling us about your caravan. We're always pleased to hear from vintage vanners in other parts of the world. Your van looks as if it it's in great condition, and a nice classic shape.

We don't know a great deal about NZ built caravans on this forum, but I've consulted a book on NZ caravans called 'Vantastic' and haven't been able to find any reference to a Traveleze caravan. I don't think that's a definitive answer though, even though the book is pretty comprehensive.

We did have a Traveleze caravan built in northern New South Wales in the late 60's, but I don't think there's any connection to yours.

As a next step I'm going to email Don and Marilyn Jessen who were involved in the NZ caravan industry for many decades and see if they can identify your van for you.

Don Ricardo

[Don Ricardo]

Hi again Traveleze1967,

I received an answer from the Jessens in NZ as follows: "Re the traveleze it is a brand i hadn’t heard of until I saw this one on our local Facebook site. It is not a recognised brand, probably only a very small number like 10 or so built. We are continually finding small number new brands or unknown brands as people take to restoring Caravans in great numbers over here." The "this one" is a reference to your van.

The other things I've found by digging around is an NZ report in the Vintage Caravan magazine from a few years ago stating that a 1969 Traveleze caravan had been stolen, and an expired advert for a 1971 Traveleze on Trademe.co.nz. So I think that indicates that there are a handful around and the late 60's/early 70's seems to be when they were built.

Given that you understand that the vans were build in Christchurch, I wonder if the Christchurch library may be able to help you with some information from old trade directories, telephone books, or other info?

Of course what makes it difficult to research Traveleze in NZ is that caravans/camper trailers called Traveleze were also built in the USA from the late 40's (apparently) and there were far more of them than the NZ variety. But still you can sort through all that.

Let us know what you find out. We always enjoy a good detective story.

Don Ricardo