A 1926 Twenty HP, chassis GUK7. Presumably rebodied sometime later, in Australia.
Vintage Snapshot: The Rolls-Royce of Motorhomes
– Posted on June 11, 2020
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Curbside Classics Archives
A 1926 Twenty HP, chassis GUK7. Presumably rebodied sometime later, in Australia.
Given that by 1957 one could buy a 1930 Rolls for £99 in the UK, making a depreciated Rolls-Royce into a luxury RV wasn’t a far-fetched idea.
https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/motoringweekly.htm
We’re more familiar with Great War armoured cars built on a Silver Ghost chassis than this……
This is what happens when you drive your Rolls too fast into a parking spot occupied by a small tow behind camper.
In a similar vein, a 1969 Rover P5B converted to a caravanette:
https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/events/2015-auctions/the-restoration-show-sale-2015/the-restoration-show-sale-2015-sale/the-restoration-show-sale-2015-sale-session/1969-rover-p5b-caravanette
Sacrilege.
Jed Clampett would have thought that this would be a Dandy rig for those trips back to Bugtussle to visit Cousin Pearl and Jethrine and everyone. Just a Dandy rig. Weeeell Doggie!
I went to the towing and recovery museum in Chattanooga a few years ago, they had a Packard and Chrysler limos which had been converted to tow at some point when their value as a lux car had diminished enough. Both conversions were carefully and even stylishly done. It’s too bad today’s depreciated S-classes and 7ers lose their ability to run concurrently with their value. Imagine all the 750iL Caminos there could be!
well, actually…
And if you’re handy enough to convert one, you’re handy enough to keep it running 😉
I like this doka. Was it a hearse? That’s a very long wheelbase, but a shortened door.
Rollers cost as much as a house here – especially if you then attached one.
Something about the clerestory windows and the tyres on this charmer makes me suspect it’s a conversion from as late as the early fifties, which, given that even the plebian 20hp Rolls was always an exclusive item here, is mildly surprising. But then, once old cars wore out, there was no internet or CNC remaking of bits, so a dilapidated 20 was just an old bus by then. (In fact, to this very day, the 20hp’s seem to need very special bodies, which most did not have, to be worth much more than about $30-50K AUD).
I wonder if it still even had the Rolls mechanicals beneath that still-extant lying lady? Remoteness yet again meant Oz bush mechanics were famously pretty ingenious at keeping old jalops on the road, and when that finally could be taken no further, at wholesale conversions of great unlikeliness, so there’s a an even-odds bet that this Caravolls could in fact be something like a StudebollsRoyceOlden.
Local vintage car club had one of these with a badly rebored block a replacement engine block was 65K they sold it and used the proceeds to undate their premises parts are about but they were never cheap,
I remember the channel 9 story about the old guy in Victoria still using a 20s Rolls cut down to a ute to get his firewood so seeing one turned into a RV isnt a surprise though with only rear wheel brakes a heavy caravan body mounted on it isnt going to help stopping and that is an all wood construction caravan
Seems like visibility out of the “cab” would be pretty terrible. Probably one of those things the builder didn’t think a whole lot about until they were done and climbed behind the wheel for the first time. Looks like there’s a mirror on the driver’s side, but I’m not sure how useful it’s going to be where it is positioned in regards to that squared-off A-pillar.
Questions about the design aside, the workmanship seems pretty well done.