Fleetwind caravans

[sportsman 1]

Hi tammyvella, judging by the general shape and the style of cladding your van is approx 1966.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Tammyvella,

Great to see your van. Thanks for showing us.

Unfortunately we don't have a reliable way of dating Fleetwind caravans at this point. We are often able to find out quite a bit of info about different models for larger manufacturers from newspaper advertisements, but smaller manufacturers such as Fleetwind didn't advertise as much or just used line adverts without any illustrations.

Having said that, the overall shape of your van together with the cladding used suggests that your van was built around 1963/64. Your van has the multi-strand profile cladding which was introduced in 1963, and has the flat cladding between the windows which would originally have been painted a colour such as light blue. We know for sure that that was a very common style used by a lot of manufacturers including Viscount and Franklin, etc, in 1963 and 1964.

In addition to the above, I have been able to dig up some Fleetwind line adverts from the Sydney Morning Herald which refer to the Gazelle model. All the adverts are from 1964. A couple of them were published in January 1964 and are announcing a new Fleetwind model called the Falcon. But they also state that 'also on display' is the Gazelle model, which suggests that the Gazelle has already been around for a little while. And of course the fact that it was 'also on display' in January when production would have been shut down over Christmas/New Year also suggests that those Gazelles on display would have been built in 1963.

So...out of all that I conclude that your Gazelle was probably produced in 1963 or 1964. There are some assumptions there, but I reckon I'm pretty close to the mark.

Hope that helps?

Don Ricardo

[mardo70]

Jan 23, 2022 20:08:48 GMT 10 tammyvella said:

Hi everyone,

My husband (Joe) and I recently purchased a Fleetwind Gazelle, we are not sure of the year, we were told she was 1950-1960, hoping someone maybe able to help out. By the look of her she has been painted a few times, we would love to bring her back to her former glory, love to see some photos of other Fleetwinds Gazelle if possible.

[mardo70]

Hi everyone,
I e just purchased a fleetwind Gazelle 12ft 6 inch van, 7ft wide, alloy cladding. Needs refurb as some water damage inside but still completely original interior and furniture. I’ve noticed the front of mine is different to all the photos I’ve seen to date. F565 welded on the drawbar. Not sure what it stands for?? I’ll work out how to post some photos then upload. Any history or information would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Marty

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Mardo70,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for telling us about your newly acquired Fleetwind Gazelle.

The number you mentioned ‘F565’ is the serial number of the van applied by Fleetwind. To the best of our knowledge at this point, ‘F’ stands for Fleetwind and ‘565’ is a sequential number indicating it is the 565th van built by them. As far as we know the digits don’t contain any code for build date, etc.

The indications are that Fleetwind was a relatively small volume caravan builder possibly producing a few hundred (or less) vans a year, compared to say Viscount and Franklin that was producing them by the thousands in the 60’s. As you will have seen higher up this thread, we know about Fleetwinds with serial numbers in the low 200’s. Your van may have possibly been built a year or two after those, but I’m only guessing on that.

Hopefully, if you can post some photos of your van, we will be able to tell you more. There is info on how to post photos here.

Don Ricardo

[mardo70]

Hi Don, thanks for the information. I will try to sort out the posting of photos and hopefully learn some more. Thanks again
Marty

[Don Ricardo]

Hi again Mardo70,

That sounds great. Let me know if you have any trouble posting the photos and I'll be happy to assist you.

Don Ricardo

[mardo70]

postimg.cc/WFcMkVrh