camperfanatic

I've written for a few magazines in the UK over the years, and some time ago a reader (realising I was heavily into retro/classic campervans) sent me a copy of an old paperback book (which he wanted returning), together with a selection of photographs he had taken. The photographs depicted an old Cotswold motorhome (British conversion and chassis) which was sitting in a scrap/breakers yard somewhere in Devon, England. The old Cotswold motorhome looked to be in a very sorry state, with parts missing, though the general bodywork looked quite sound and surely restorable. The accompanying letter with the book and photographs made it clear that the author of the said letter had indeed tried in vain to purchase the Cotswold motorhome from the owners of the yard, who insisted that it had to be crushed, and as far as I'm aware, that is exactly what happened. The three pictures above show the Austin Cotswold motorhome sitting in a Devon scrapyard prior to its disposal. (I'm s...

"I can't remember the last time I saw one of those" , sound familiar? It's a saying we hear often in relation to once popular vehicles, and I've said it myself on more than one occasion. Camper vans and motorhomes were produced in even smaller numbers than family cars, so the survival of examples from the 1950's and 60's is even more remarkable today. Those of a certain age will recall those light commercial vans of the 50's which were converted to campers, such as the Austin-Morris J2/152, Ford Thames 400E, Bedford CA and Standard Atlas; but what became of the thousands of examples that were produced on those base vehicles? Well, they have survived with varying degrees of success, but in the case of the Standard Atlas, I doubt more than a handful still exist, ands I have not seen one in use in the UK since the 1990's. The two pictures above, show the Dormobile camper van conversion based on the Standard Atlas van. First released in 1958, the ...

In my 40+ year involvement with UK motorhomes and campervans, I have come across some weird, and strange examples, so in this blog I'm deviating from my own ongoing campervan story to bring you just a small sample, taken from my huge archive of motorhome material. I'm going to focus upon the British Mini, the iconic small car, which believe or not, did have several camper conversions based on it, though some more successful than others. I did include a chapter about this type of campervan in my 2007 book, Classic Camper-vans; the inside story (Crowood Press) , and I've included many examples over the years within  magazine articles. I will kick things off with one of my personal all-time favourite 'strange' models, the 'Caraboot', a 1960s car-cum-caravan, cum-boat and camper! It was based on the Austin-Morris Mini van and was simply trying too hard to be too many things, and as a result, few were ever sold, though I believe that there is a sole survivor bas...