Hi all, I'm new to caravaning. Me and my fiancee picked up a nice bargain on ebay, seemed pretty kosher to us (the guy had used it for storage while he was building his own house, and from the colour and condition of it, it was obviously the truth). It is in reasonable condition bar a bit of wood rot and a lot of the interior missing but the chassis and everything is all good.
Anyway it looks like a reasonably old caravan, and due to this, the stickers with the make and model of it have faded and I don't have a clue where to start looking for information about it.
I've decided to gut out most of the interior and re-do as much as my finances will allow. I've got some pictures of it on my website here, if possible, would someone be able to identify it? It's a big one at 19ft but I've seen some small Swift caravans online (example here) which look very similar so I'm wondering if this is the right make. (The burgundy strip on the side has been painted by a previous owner, I don't know the original colour of the strip).
Any help on this would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Rob
Hello and welcome fitzy . Can't help with identifying but wanted to say good luck with the restoration project.
Lots of members have done restorations and repairs on their vans. theres a list here with links to their blogs too which you may find useful as the work progresses.
Thanks for the friendly responses. We've had it for probably a couple of months now but I don't get much spare time to work on it at the moment so it's going to take me a while but I'm really excited to be doing such a great project. At 21, working on something like this has probably been one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had, and it's barely started yet! :)
------------- A self-confessed Geek by day... and night.
Its a Churchill. They were a small maker who built top quality 'vans for a short time around 1979 till 1983 ish.
They had model names like Statesman and Chancellor. For a while they also built lower spec 'vans with all white bodies. The ones with the maroon stripe were always the well equipped ones.
------------- 2020 Volvo XC60 B5 R Design Geartronic / 2018 Swift Elegance 580
With regard to the Carver Cascade mk1 water heater, feel on the floor plate under the the tank for a small folded piece of black paper taped to the plate.
Take great care removing it but this is the test certificate and is dated.
I'd say 82/3? but 79 to 84 is the limit for the mk1
Just read your project details. You might struggle to find a campsite with an electric supply powerful enough to power all your mod cons,e.g nintendo wii, lcd t.v ,movie projector etc etc.....
at IainM, Thanks for the info, I was along the right lines - one of the owners of Churchill now works for Swift, I see the similarities in their designs. After a few hours trawling the internet overnight I found a forum thread on .com (details on my blog) where a user 'Pugwash' had uploaded the original owners manual, price list and sales brochure for the Churchill range, all these are now on my blog as well.
at arc systems, Cheers for the info on the water heater, I will check this out when I get home from work today, I just hope I haven't damaged it or lost it while taking up the old flooring! I don't remember seeing anything like that so far so it could still be there.
at Is that all 60mph!!, I've decided not to go ahead with a few of those ideas, I think now the whole entertainment system will just be an old laptop plugged into a 19" lcd, I guess being on holiday we wouldn't be spending all day playing on the wii ;) I've got some car parcel shelf speakers mounted in the van and a low power car amp to run them, the sound quality is perfectly acceptable and runs from a 12v battery, so far I have had it running over 10 hours from a small batteryand it's hardly discharged at all. What wattage could I expect to have at a caravan site? I'm trying to keep the power consumption to a minimum now but still don't want to over-do it. Everything in there so far is running from a 5amp fused extension lead from the house and it doesn't get warm even when using power tools.
at gaz mc, Thanks for the feedback, I'll update the blog and post here when I get some more done, I'm waiting on a friend who owes me a favour who should be getting me lots of wood to play with so I can start on the kitchen area.
------------- A self-confessed Geek by day... and night.
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Topic: Identify make, model and year of caravan
