Dowling Caravans (Fawkner, Vic)

[musician1]

DOWLING CARAVANS

Manufactured by Rupert Dowling
Fawkner, Vic

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Hello everyone, I'm glad I found your site!
My wife has restored the interior of this caravan, and now we are preparing it for registration in Victoria. It has needed quite of lot of technical work, which in hindsight we should have done before she did the interior, but there you are, lesson learnt.
We don't know any history of this van, but VicRoads of course want to know any identification details. The only ones I can find are:
1. A frame number appears to be welded "RD-711" .
2. "Dowling's Caravans" stencil on rear top.
3 "Millard" decal on rear centre (was obscured by add-on lights board, till I started to do the 12V)
4. "Dowling's Wood Works" plate fixed inside the cupboard near the power inlet (was partly obscured by the new 240V circuit breakers, but see photo) 

Brakes have been overhauled, all the hardware was missing, but they turned out to be XP Falcon fronts, so I'm assuming the caravan was built in the 60's. It looks a bit like a Millard, but from what I can see there is an important difference in the profile, with the front and rear window ledges both curving out again. I'm wondering if it was a Dowling body on a Millard chassis? Or perhaps the Millard decal is just a decoy?  I can't find anything about "Dowling Wood Works" on-line, and I'm aware that there were many joineries who did caravan bodies (as well as individuals who built their own). 

I've read through some of the interesting threads on this forum, and I would appreciate any advice regarding date or provenance which your collective experience can come up with!

Musician1

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EDITORIAL NOTE: This thread was originally headed 'Millard or "Dowling"?' but has been re-titled following Dowling Caravans post below. Don Ricardo

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Musician1,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for telling us about your mystery caravan. What a great story.

If you have a look at the Millard thread in the 'Down History Lane' section, you'll see that your van doesn't look like any of the Millard models. In addition, the serial number isn't in a Millard format, so I think you can discount that it is a Millard. It's more likely that someone has stuck a Millard sticker on the van at some point.

Your van looks much more like a few other makes, but I think the 'Dowling's Caravan' link is an interesting lead. I've done a bit of a search and have found a 1981 advert for a second hand Dowling caravan being advertised by a caravan dealer in Moorabbin, Victoria, so that suggests the possibility that there were some caravans built and branded as Dowling's. In addition, in searching for Dowling I discovered that the caravan manufacturer Coronet was located in Dowling Street, Ballarat. That suggests, maybe, a possible connection between your van and Ballarat. In the 60's and 70's Ballarat was the location of a number of caravan manufacturers, both large (such as Franklin and Coronet) and small (such as Vacation and Huntsman and others). Is there any address given on the plate inside the van?

Regarding the serial number on the drawbar, I don't recognise a number starting with 'RD', but the fact that it is created out of weld(?) suggests that your van was commercially built rather than home built, which is another possibility. The white acrylic coated cladding also suggests that your van was built no earlier than 1968.

Can you show us some more photos of your van please? Photos of the front and back, inside and the Dowling signage might help us to work out a bit more about it.

Hopefully other forum members will have some ideas. It's always good to have caravan mystery to work on!

Don Ricardo

[dowlingcaravans]

Jul 25, 2021 10:40:26 GMT 10 musician1 said:

Hello everyone, I'm glad I found your site!
My wife has restored the interior of this caravan, and now we are preparing it for registration in Victoria. It has needed quite of lot of technical work, which in hindsight we should have done before she did the interior, but there you are, lesson learnt.
We don't know any history of this van, but VicRoads of course want to know any identification details. The only ones I can find are:
1. A frame number appears to be welded "RD-711" .
2. "Dowling's Caravans" stencil on rear top.
3 "Millard" decal on rear centre (was obscured by add-on lights board, till I started to do the 12V)
4. "Dowling's Wood Works" plate fixed inside the cupboard near the power inlet (was partly obscured by the new 240V circuit breakers, but see photo) 

Brakes have been overhauled, all the hardware was missing, but they turned out to be XP Falcon fronts, so I'm assuming the caravan was built in the 60's. It looks a bit like a Millard, but from what I can see there is an important difference in the profile, with the front and rear window ledges both curving out again. I'm wondering if it was a Dowling body on a Millard chassis? Or perhaps the Millard decal is just a decoy?  I can't find anything about "Dowling Wood Works" on-line, and I'm aware that there were many joineries who did caravan bodies (as well as individuals who built their own). 

I've read through some of the interesting threads on this forum, and I would appreciate any advice regarding date or provenance which your collective experience can come up with!

Musician1

[dowlingcaravans]

Hi all. I just saw this post about the "Dowling* caravan number RP 711. I am 99% sure that it is my parents old van. My great uncle built caravans out of Fawkner, Victoria in the 1960s to 1980s. His name was Rupert Dowling, hence the RP serial number. He had a large workshop in his backyard and never once advertised for business. Originally that caravan was built for my family to stay at Bushy Park caravan park in Cowes, Phillip Island. We sold it in the early 1980s because we had to buy a holiday home in Cowes because we now had a family dog.
I always remember going to his house every year and seeing what new caravan he was building when I was younger than 10 yrs old. His wife's name was Amy Dowling. Very nice people. My surname is still Dowling and I just decided to see if any of his vans are still around. Thanks for the memory.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Dowlingcaravans,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for telling us about Rupert Dowling's caravans. It's always fascinating to read new information about the people that were involved in the Australian caravan industry, especially the smaller manufacturers, such as your great uncle. It's important that they are remembered for their contribution.

On the basis of what you've told us, you'll see that I have given this thread a new subject title and moved the thread to the 'Down History Lane' section. I've also replaced the photos Musician1 attached to his post with more permanent images so they won't disappear.

We'd love to hear more about Rupert's activities. Do you know what his background was (ie in terms of his training or work) and how he got into building caravans? Also do you have any photos of your caravan from back in the day?

As an aside, my wife and I, and our children and my mother, stayed in the Bushy Park Caravan Park in our caravan in January 1983. Maybe we were in the same place at the same time!! One of our memories of that holiday was having a bunch of young guys staying next to us in a tent. One night the young guys kept everyone around them awake by drinking and loudly carousing into the wee small hours. The next morning, our three little boys (who I'll add were never terribly early risers), began to make a little bit of noise getting up and having their breakfast. Suddenly an angry voice boomed from the tent next door "Shut that kid up!". Something we have a chuckle about when we think of Bushy Park. Ah, the joys of camping!

Don Ricardo

PS You referred to the serial number on Musician1's caravan as 'RP' and representing Rupert Dowling's initials, but I presume you meant 'RD' as per Musician1's post?