Our Touring Past

I was sitting playing on the computer the other night and I came across this 1953 ad for a British made Coventry Knight caravan. It attracted my attention as it was described as the Rolls Royce of caravans, built with a duralumin construction.
I started off wondering what Duralumin construction was, obviously it was made from some type of aluminium. Then I started to wonder if this was the Rolls Royce of caravans, and it was a British made caravan in Australia, where had it gone.

For such a rare caravan in Australia you would think someone would know about it.

Oh well I think Iam spending too much time on the computer dreaming.

Cheers.

G'day Richard,

Interesting to know that there was a Coventry Knight floating around (metaphorically speaking) Queensland at some stage in the past.

Coventry Knights were built by the Coventry Steel company and designed by Clifford Dawtrey. They were a BIG unit in their time, with multiple rooms, central heating, baths, etc, etc. Looked as much like a small railway carriage as a caravan, at least compared to Australian caravans of the same era. There's a fair bit of info on them in the first volume of Andrew Jenkinson's books on UK caravans (the volume covering 1919-1959). The early Coventry Steel caravans were clad in -wait for it - steel, but Dawtrey was a bit of an innovator and by 1948 was building caravans using aluminium and perspex. Coventry Steel also were into exporting their vans, so I guess that's where the van you've referred to comes in?

The description of the van in the advert as the Rolls Royce of caravans may have been a bit of hyperbole on the part of the seller. I've seen other British vans described the same way. However, according to Jenkinson the Coventry Knights were amongst the most expensive vans around in 1948.

Regarding Duralumin, a number of Australian Viscount caravan models in the 60's were called Duralvans, apparently because they had frames built out of Duralumin. There's a bit of discussion about it here. According to an entry in Wikepedia, Duralumin is "is the trade name of one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys".

Don Ricardo

Hi Don R.
Thanks for that bit of info on Duralumin.

I would love to find one of these vans.
According to another source.
The Coventry Steel Caravans are considered to be the "Rolls Royce" of caravans and are a very rare as the design was way ahead of their time, and are very sought after here in the UK, even more popular than an Airstream in America..

That just about says it all.

Here is a picture Griffin found.
Cheers.
Richard

Here is another photo, this time of a Coventry Knight 48. And what a beauty it is.
At around 22 foot and weighing in at over 2.5 ton, it is probably a bit too heavy for my FJ ute to tow.

The amazing feature of this van is the curved section around the perimeter of the roof was actually amber perspex, which explains the bars running from the wall to the roof, which hold the roof in position.