Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Yury]

Hello To you all.

normaly a commercial participant is a little suspected but i would sincearly intruduce myself; My Name is Yury and i'm a professional classic caravan restorer from the mainland (Holland)


up front i would like to excuse myself for my poor English but because of my job and the many languages involved my english is getting also average...or even less

for our buisines we buy realy old and rare (european) caravans and restore them on our own behalve. therefor we're always looking for extraordinary vans.
we are selling all over europe (from bigger projects to private clients in all countries)


since money is not our main goal we're operating as a Foundation (for preserving Vintage caravans)
we restore about 30 vintage vans a year wether there is a client or not...
we're not aiming for the absolute highest result but for the best value for money. because most of our clients wants to use their new vintage van secure and in the best possible shape without being scared for playing children on the campsite...

(if one is interested our website is www.st-bvoc.nl)


but now my actual reason for joining this forum:


i just bought a real ugly and complete destroyed caravan without any knowledge about what it is and how old it might be.

i put this question all over the world now because finding out is part of the job/fun

its certainly to wel built to be a home made and regarding it construction and other details i suspect it to be english (its comparable to the ones built during the 20ties/30ties)

there are also remains of an old logo which i do not regonize..

on the other hand it has a "modern" brake system and westfalia hitch-connection which ofcours could be added during its excistance and probably during the early 50ties0. although the axle seems to be quit original and english?

i put the same question on an Australian website ( for pics http://vintagecaravans.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=chat&thread=12258) and the rest is on my website:
http://st-bvoc.nl/?page_id=2603

anyone familiar with this material or has any one ever seen a similar one? all suggestions are welcome, lots of tnx in advance


yury

[Rick]

Good to have you with us, does anyone recognise Yury's caravan:



????

Home-built????

RJ
_________________
Rick - Admin
Home:https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk
Videos:https://www.youtube.com/user/oldclassiccarRJ/videos
OCC & classic car merchandise (Austin, Ford ++):
https://www.redbubble.com/people/OldClassicCar/shop

[Clair320]

Hi Yury

I can't help with identifying your caravan but I am dismantling a Bluebird Cambrian if you are interested in any of the parts.

I'm in Rochester in Kent.

[Yury]

ok , had a small chat with old van man and i trust here on his experience with prewar vans

as far as he recognizes there is no part english on this van not even the parts of which i was 'certain' of

i do have some severe doubts about its age (actually im completely lost); design and construction for me points somewhere about the 1930-maybe 1940 and ofcourse some details might be changed in a later period (as for the frontbrake system and the windows mounted in rubber instead of window frames...) but being an early 50 van doesnt seem right as wel

my next best gues would be early east german but not sure if there where any bands over there by then...

other possibility might be france (someone pointed out the axle might be french (has the letter FNS and SNS as a kind of cross) but cant find anything about this

last possibility would be some small dutch brand since many (small ) factories those days just bought parts from known parts factories and built their own van on/with them. There was a small early brand named HANO and it has some simularities but once again not much info...

but in general its much to simple built/designed to be early 50ties. no brand would have sold anything like this those days since competiters built much more equipted and luxury built vans that period.

[Dalek63]

Looks like a converted horse box or something ex-army to me.
_________________
I can resist anything except temptation ! ( Oscar Wilde)
"Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." ( Mark Twain)
http://www.period-classic-caravan-club.co.uk/

[Yury]

[christine lowery]

grat hat you now have some information and we all look forward to following her restoration
christine

[Yury]

will take some time before i can start on it.
besides the 'normal' restaurations im now working on a 1952 German van; a Sportberger..http://st-bvoc.nl/?page_id=2612

but certainly will do it during this winter as soon there's time

[Yury]

all i know for now:

after indentification i was able to search deeper and made contact with the sun and doughter fom Jaap Blanken. (this was his actual name)

after a long telefone call and enormous amount of information i now know almost everything about this specific Huifcar! and everything is as it was ment to be, no additions at all. (btw nomore as only 5 pieces from the various models are known to be still excisting) i also get original logos to put back on this one and they also have the original brochures WOW!


doesn't make it a pretty van but it has a unbelievable story:


in short: Jaap Blanken caravans was Hollands first real caravan factory. since the mid/end 20ties there where also 2 others who designed and had this designs made (so not own production as with the blanken factory)

one of them was Frans Hausbrand who've had produced caravans since 1926 with the name Hauscar.
this engineer f.hausbrand was living in the same earea as Blanken so they ofcourse knew eachother.

the first and original huif-cars were produced as you saw on the pictures as designed by Blanken with raisable roof panels.

this particular one was built as a small (limited) serie of only 6!! in the Blanken Factory but on demand and by special specifications of this Frans Hausbrand!!
they were ordered to be rented out by hausbrand! therefor it also became equipted with this westfalia hook/brake system and some other details. all on demand and by hausbrands specifications. (hausbrand was a technical engineer so keen on technical highlights )

knowing above for sure i can point out that in this particular caravan carries almost the complete dutch caravan history in it and more important its fully original (not saying its getting more pretty by all this but certainly a uncomparable history)

besides this engineer Frans Hausbrand makes his own caravans, he wrote books about caravanning , established the dutch camper club in 1937, and established in 1957 the stil existing dutch caravan club. he died in 1986 and is now known to be the or at least one of the most important persons in dutch caravan history