Our Touring Past

This Style Leader, the baby of the Olympic range, made an appearance recently at the South West Rocks weekend, so I had to have some photos. It looks pretty much like a Debonair that's been through the wash too many times Interesting that it has no rear window. I'm curious to see one of their boats now.
George

In the mid 1950's Olympic caravans dabbled in the construction of ALUMINIUM clad caravans. The caravans were mostly of a conventional style for that period, but they also did experiment a little with some very unusual designs.I think that these designs were that unconventional that they would not have been very popular with the public.

The aluminium clad Olympic caravan shown below is of a conventional design and was advertised for sale on ebay way back in 2008.

Another variation of the newer style Olympic "Travel Trailer" caravans. This one is the smallest of the Travel Trailer range at 16 foot and is of a similar design to the one in the 1975 article in post 4 of page 1, but is a boxier design to the one owned by Bob in the last post of page 1.

We stayed with a former workmate at Tamworth recently who has an interest in cars so he took me to one of his mates to have a look at a few of his projects. At the back of his shed is a Riviera, which, by the test certificate inside is a 1969. I can't quite make out the chassis number in the photo, and I accidentally deleted the photo of the fridge which was a NOMAD brand. It is on his list of projects and I'm pleased to say that he actually works on his projects and had several cars on the go when I was there. The intention is to tow it with a largely original late 60's Chev which is blue and white and the van will be painted to match. By chance he has found another Riviera just a few km away on a nearby property!

George

"Where der yer git it??" was the catch cry that I think made Singo famous. It still applies for me to the material shown here on this Olympic Riviera sticker. I don't know what it is called, I refer to it as a Harlequin finish as it changes colour depending on the angle you view it. This composite photo shows the same sticker, photographed from slightly different angles one after the other. The shape varies a little due to the different angles, but it is the same sticker. And I just love the stuff, I could look at it all day.
The original stickers on my Debonair were of the same style but the Harlequin section was faded to such an extent you could only just make it out.
Surely this stuff must be available these days to have some more made, anyone got any clues?

George

From this


To this

Only 2 1/2 years of weekends holidays and nights.

Cheers
Atog

Hi All,
On Sunday morning I attended Kempsey’s swap meet, I spoke to a stall holder who had a 21’ Olympic, Bob Taylor (guru) new of this van and the one I scored, a 1950’s Olympic Aluminum, the unattractive cyclone roof has kept this old girl in fairly good nick with the usual elbow grease and repairs needed and a pretty straight exterior it should come up a treat. This could be close to one of those unconventional vans mentioned in the this thread. The front and rear windows slant inwards like a viewing platform.












Cheers Stephen4Julie

A 1966 vintage caravan ad for Olympic Caravans showing that the Glida Caravan Co was by then a distributor.

We have all see ads for the Olympic fibreglass caravans, but its not very often that even I come across an ad for the Olympic aluminium caravans. With this one from 1965.

A 1961 vintage caravan article on the 13' Olympic Debonair.