Our Touring Past

John Martins.
Home Comfort Caravans. SA.

1938 promotional photo at the South Australian Royal Show.

The caravan in the middle has me intrigued as it very different in styling to the vans on either side BUT has very similar lines to the Covered Wagon Travel Trailers of America, although the door is on the left side so it couldnt be a direct import. So I wonder if they are a Covered Wagon are they fully imported
or have they just been built under license, or Iam just looking too hard at it and its just a van produced here with a similar shape. Come to think of it Properts also built a van of this shape in the 1940's.

With the above photo gracing February on my OTP calendar for the past week or more, I realised I had an advertisement I could add. I hadn't worked out that Martins and Home Comfort were one and the same.
After a bit of research I found that John Martin was a large Adelaide department store along the lines of Myer in Melbourne and David Jones in Sydney, and while I can't find the research I had, from memory a new Art Deco store was built in the heart of Adelaide in the mid 1930s and was apparently quite something.
This illustration is from a full page advertisement in The Mail on 26 November, 1938, which featured all manner of household goods, and oh, we just happen to sell caravans too! A little bizarre I thought.
Something I found especially interesting, Richard told me the approval to use the calendar photo had to come from none other than David Jones, who I think somewhere along the line took over John Martin.

George

After a bit of delving around my research and spending some extra time on Trove, I wonder, if in fact Martin's Home Comfort caravans were supplied by H.A. Behrens who is listed separately in the Library. It is hard to imagine a department store setting up a manufacturing facility to produce vans or any of the other items they sold under their own name. And, it seems unlikely Mr Behrens would have allowed another manufacturer in the same city to use the name Home Comfort, unless the addition of the deletion of the 's' made all the difference. He appears to have been quite a business man and was elected to the Committee of the Caravan Club when it was formed.
Unfortunately there are no photos of his products, but the following compilation of newspaper advertisements from 1935 to 1940 offer a few insights. The first advertisement for Home Comforts found was in December, 1935, and while it didn't carry his name the phone number is the same as later advertisements that do.

In 1937 the advertising shows the vans were exhibited at the Royal Show, might the detail of the year of the above photo be incorrect? The photo shows the middle van to be an 'American design' a style he advertised in February, 1937.

I've been all over the calendar photo trying to find a stand number, but to no avail, the stand to the right is for Castrol. Unfortunately I've not been able to find any newspaper coverage of the exhibit at the Show, but I'll keep at it.

John Martin's advertising has only been found for late 1938 so far, while Behrens has been sporadic over the five years and appears to have ceased in June, 1940.

Has anyone anything further to offer?

George

Hi George.
I have dug up a bit more information for you.
Its a 1937 vintage caravan brochure for the Home Comforts Coaches which were built by H. A. Behrens of 96 Queen St. Norwood. South Australia.

With 17 years of trailer building, this would make H. A. Behrens one of Australias very early "trailer" builders.

The main interesting bit of information is on page 3 of the brochure which states "Home Comforts Coaches are the Australian counterparts of Covered Wagons." Not sure exactly what that means but I hit the nail on the head in the first post.

The brochure shows a couple of photos of a caravan with the door on the right side, indicating they were using photos from Cover Wagons of America. It also states that the Covered Wagon factory in America is working 24 hours a day 6 days a week, and they are still not meeting all of the orders. So it may be unlikely that they were building an Australian version and importing them here. H. A. Behrens also supplied unfurnished shells and parts for the home builder, again indicating that parts for these caravans were readily available.

On a lighter note I had a chuckle when I read on page 3 Home Comforts Coaches "actually increase the maximum speed of a car by some 5%, due to the improved grip by the back wheels."

Hi Richard,

Very interesting, lovely old brochure, but as you say confusing with the mix of door positions. Other makers too had this American style van, Propert's 'Open Road' for one, I wonder if there were any licensing agreements or it was just copy what you can? Pity none seem to have survived, or found yet to be optimistic.

And nothing to definitely connect Behren's to the Martins van.

"Sorry officer, my aerodynamic van made me go faster." I heard lots of excuses in 28 years, but never that one!

George

Hi George.
Just a bit more info on John Martins that you included in the second post.

John Martin's were a middle market department store retailer with a large store in Rundle Street Adelaide.
The company started in 1866 and was predominately operated by the Hayward family in Adelaide. John Martins continued to operate even after it was taken over in 1985 by David Jones, it continued to operate up until 1998, and after 130 years the Rundle St store was closed permanently.

So this is why I had to contact David Jones and get permission from their lawyers to use the photo in the 2014 Calendar.