Fibreglass mystery van

[Deleted]

Hello Mark

I recently bought an unregistered old (vintage??) small fibreglass caravan that is an unusual design and i can not find anyone with any knowledge of it.
The previous owner said he was told it was a falcon brand. The chasis no on the frame is F No 39
It is single skin fibreglass with all cupboards, sink and water tank of fibreglass. The only timber is the floor and cupboard doors.
It is 5ft 8 inches wide and 11ft 2 inches long.
On both sides a double bed folds out. The outside door folds up to make the roof , then the sides and rear wall fold out with piano hinges and then the floor panel swings down to complete the beds. In the closed position the 2 mattresses are in a vertical position inside.
There are 2 panels of sliding glass windows on the outside wall of the beds.
Molded into the fibreglass floor bed panel is Patent No 290795
A fibreglass table hinges down at the rear and the side of the beds are the seats.
The large alum rear window folds out but the front one is fixed.
Inside the door on the front left is the wardrobe and the sink is across the front abutting this,and across the front up high are cupboards
A square water tank is located at the right front, under the drainer and is attached to the front wall with fibreglass.
On the right side (beside the water tank) is a small fridge with a gas 2 burner hot plate above.
I would appreciate it if you had and could supply me with any information of this little caravan.
Regards
Ray


[e-mail]

[humpyboy]

I ain't no expert but Petersville expandervan if you ask me, but then you ain't asking me in particular so we will look upon that as a guess on my part and see how close I might be.

[sportsman 1]

I'll second that

[JBJ]

Hi All,

It definitely is

JBJ

[bobandjacqui]

G'day VVanners, I'm with humpyboy. I'm sure boblor posted a similar van a while back.


Bob and Jacqui.

[firefighter]

One on this thread belonging to a friend of mine

vintagecaravans.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=runevent1&action=display&thread=4390
f/f ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[firefighter]

I have all the paper work for this van will put it in history lane
tonight
f/f ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[boblor]

Hi All
I agree it is a Petersville van, possibly built inthe early 70's. On the 29th June on ABC radio Richard Fidler interviewed the manager of Petersville at the time on 'Conversation Hour' Brisbane, and he spoke about Petersville building caravans. He stated that they only built them for a short time and that was one of the mistakes the Company made indeciding to build caravans atthe time. This interview can be heard on the ABC web site about 30 minutes into the interview. Van is known as Expandavan and also as Falcon.
Cheers boblor

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Ray and others,

The Expandavan was developed by Cliff Mintern and the concept - including its link with Peters Ice Cream/Petersville - has a very interesting history which has been compiled by Cobber on the Expandavan thread in the Down History Lane section click here (see Reply #3). If you check the Down History Lane index you will also find a thread on the Petersville Tag-a-long (although unfortunately most of the pics have been deleted).

There are several V V'ers who have fibreglass versions of the van and different ones seem to come to light from time to time. One of our forum contributors, Anthology, has one of the aluminium clad Expandavans - you can find his thread here.

Don Ricardo

[firefighter]

Ray

Have a look on down History Lane .......I have put 5 pages on the fibreglass and 3 on the aluminum Expandavans from a Brochure
and road test report looks like the price in them days was $1350

My friend that has a fibreglass Expandavan now in his early 80s
worked on building the Eildon dam & was there right to the last
and remembers them being built in one of the old workshop building at the dam
f/f ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D