Reality Vintage Caravaning

[Daggsey]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share a unique experience with you...........

In the shadow of Arthur and Pat Pullin (Mark T's "Joker 2"), we stumbled across a couple travelling in their 1959 Customline and 1963? Valiant. Whilst we all enjoy the experience of our hobby, the majority of us are really creating an experience from our past, or an experience that we would have liked.

In some ways, I feel a fraud, travelling around Australia in an FC Holden with a VK Commie motor in it, airconditioning and Suburu Forrester seats ..............great talking point, but not necessarily the real thing .

The point I'm getting to, is that the couple we met at Amby, between Roma and Mitchell in central Queensland have....

a. been travelling like this for the past 30 years, (including many holidays with their children) and

b. had no knowledge of the website ("we probably should get on the internet when we get home, shouldn't we dear ")

There maybe similar instances out there that others on the forum are aware of (Cobber??), but this is the first we have come across in 18 months of being on the road.....................











Daggsey

[bobt]

Hi Daggsey

Nah mate you are not cheating.... Man has modified his motor car from the day it first came off the production line out of the factory ... So you are only following the old original trend...

Aint it great to meet others on the road.. even more so when they are towing a Classics with a Classics...

We often come across people towing Classic vans but never encountered anyone towing it with an appropriate car.

Now just how old was this couple?


bobt

[Daggsey]

Hi bobt,

You're probably right about modifications..............the only difference about the couple we met (I wouldn't like to guess an age group, just in case they actually get onto the website and I'm wildly inaccurate ), the Cusso was not modified.......no seat belts, original 289?? motor (I won't pretend to know anything about Fords ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D), re-built once (they've owned it for 38 years).

The Valiant had been modified..........the gentleman had inverted the drop axle some time ago to accommodate 14" wheels, (something I had thought of and discussed with JBJ).

Just so I don't get blasted from all sides, I think Mark T's dad and Gentleman Jim from WA may also be "reality vintage vanners".

Daggsey

[JBJ]

Hi Daggsey,


Shame we all cant have the lifestyle they obviously have,

I love original looking Cusso's, & always will.

JBJ

[Daggsey]

Hi JBJ,

I might have misled you in by saying they had been travelling for 30 years (how good would that be ;D ;D ;D ;D).............what I meant was they have been going away on holidays over the past 30 years in the Cusso & Valiant............the impression I got was they had only recently retired (that might give bobt an age approximation .

We met up with them again in Mitchell, along with Kingy. Being that Kingy is more a Ford man than me, he could tell me it was a tri-colour, a colour combination only found on the last of the Cusso's.

Daggsey

[Surf Tragic]

Hi Daggsey

;DThat is beautiful ;D thank you.

The 1st car I drove after I got my licence at 17, was the '55 on my avatar & towed the Don (vacuum brakes fitted) from Gympie to Vic with it the next day (after getting my licence), then had a '57 Cusso 5 years later, so these photos stir me a bit

I remember doing 60 MPH with the van on & Dad beside me not saying a thing about slowing down, it rode like a dream

Aahh! dream on

Surf Tragic

[Deleted]

Daggsey says "Just so I don't get blasted from all sides, I think Mark T's dad and Gentleman Jim from WA may also be "reality vintage vanners"."

Not so Mr Dagg......Gentleman Jim is the same as us, he recreates the past .........
He did do alot of caravanning in the 70's, but in what would have then been a modern car & caravan (60's Ravan & HQ Holden)

As for my father, now 81 ......he started caravanning in 1954, before I was born:




but ......he updated both his cars & caravans over the years, and never had neither a car nor caravan more than a few years old ....and he is the same today, with owning both a modern car & caravan.
He has little time for old cars, ...and even less time for old caravans


Arthur Pullin on the other hand, caravanned in his 1956 built caravan "Joker 2" until 1999, with the only modifications to the caravan in 43 years being an extension to the drawbar, and a new Electrolux fridge in 1975 ......he DID however update the tow vehicle every few years ..........





so, the rig you have pictured in this thread is indeed very rare, whereby a couple is still caravanning with an old caravan, and a 50 year old car that they've been continually using for caravanning
in fact, to my knowledge .....a first .....definately "realty vintage caravanning"

Mark

[cobber]

G'day Daggsey,

You know... you have a talent for provoking memories.... not only with your “Lady Madonna's Travels” thread but this thread makes me remember the way we have done it over the years too.

That couple you met are really pretty unique.... using the same rig for the past 30 years is unusual..... not difficult to do, it's just that most people don't do it, and here's us (some of us) trying now to replicate how it used to be

We, as a family, started traveling around in the early 1970s with a “Kenlow Karkampa” on the roof of various sedans.
We, the adults, slept upstairs and the two kids slept in the car or on the ground

When the kids started to buck against that arrangement.. around about 1974... we up-graded to a “Franklin” slide-on-camper that we lugged all around the country on the back of various utes..... always Falcon utes you understand ..... the last one being a "Longreach" that took us around the block in '98.

It's only since 1993 that I have reverted.... (upgraded ) to dragging “Driftwood” around behind the FJ on rare occasions so......... you see I can't claim to be as unique as that couple you met on the road

At Mootwingee N.P 1973 with the Karkampa


Helping to save the Franklin River......( I bought a bumper sticker )



Cobber.