Franklin caravan

[sideways]

Greetings
I have a Franklin caravan 20 foot with a tandem axel.
The rego papers list it as a 1974. The welding on the A frame is either
1493-0
Or
1993-0
Does this information indicate it was built earlier than 1974?
Thank you

[atefooterz]

G`Day & welcome sideways, Looking at some early Franklin threads, the last number is the year & first lot how many were built = 1970 & so many thousand, depending on the 1493 or 1993.

[hughdeany]

Hi sideways,
If you put up a pic we can help you.
Cheers
hughdeany

[Mustang]

Hi Sideways,
Welcome to the forum.
To post images you can use Imagur, Flickr, any third party link.
This is our tutorial on Flickr link 
Cheers
Brent

[sideways]

Thank you
I have included some photos to help identify this caravans year of manufacture.

IMG_1806 by Paul Bertram, on Flickr

IMG_1721 (2) by Paul Bertram, on Flickr

[bobt]

Gidday sideways

Thats a nice looking van you have.

[sideways]

Thank you

I'm hoping the pictures will assist in confirming her age.

[atefooterz]

I thought we had a thread with confirmed date ranges, seem to remember it before the huge topic re shuffle.

The pics show the top stripe, that should narrow it down, the big stripe quite often ended with a capital F, also the stripe across the door look slightly different? not seen any original with the stripe. ( now seen Statesman 20ft 1972 model with stripe on vintage van site.

Windows, yours look to be push out, not internal handle winder ones, means pre 1973?

Our main expert Al, Franklin1 aka Piscies will hopefully drop by to help.Meanwhile some light (haha) reading about Franklins on our sister site.
vintagecaravans.proboards.com/thread/2045/franklin-history?page=1

Time to Roam magazine view.joomag.com/time-to-roam-issue-14-april-may-2015/0386308001427842299?short

[snoops]

Lovely van - early 70's. Top stripe and windows seem to indicate this. I thought the Franklins usually had a letter prefix before the number - my old Franklin was W then the 4 numbers, but earlier units could be different - mine was a 76. Best guess is say a 73 that may have been first registered in 74 - I don't think your rego papers will be far wrong.

[atefooterz]

Looking at the VV Franklin thread, original Franklin ( up to 1973 pre sale of business) quite often had a different chassis number to body, an example there is a 10xx-2 and body N 10xx. = 1972. Owner found the n numbers inside the unit when pulled apart for resto.

My Arrow has a rear cupboard that allows access to the rear inside skin where my body number is texta on, maybe have a pull out the draws & look see?

[bobt]

Hey Ate

Sideways was given a date on the VV Forum. The opinion is its a 1970 Franklin Arrow.

bobt

[atefooterz]

May 6, 2018 20:07:58 GMT 10 bobt said:

Hey Ate

Sideways was given a date on the VV Forum. The opinion is its a 1970 Franklin Arrow.

bobt

Luckily it is the same one given here 2 days previously.

From looking at and inside 5 tandem 18 foot plus Franklins ( all before 1977) have not found an Arrow just Statesman.

Apart from the sticker, i have seen so many original overlapping fit out specs & materials that i really do not know how it could be defined easily, in this day & age.

[pisces51]

Luckily it is the same one given here 2 days previously.

Yes, Ate, you were bang on the money.

To accurately date caravans from the 1970s, we have to plead with the owners to post the original chassis number info. In the case of this Arrow van, the zero (0) after the hyphen confirms the year of 1970.

This Arrow van would be one of the first to be built after the "Premier" model was discontinued in early 1970 and replaced by the Arrow model. It has the "FRANKLIN first in mobile living" sticker, which was introduced in 1970 after the founding owner of Franklin Caravans sold the business to a UK Investment company. Clearer examples of this Franklin sticker can be seen in the following thread: 1972 Franklin Regent 8606-2

From memory, the Statesman models started to appear around 1974 and indeed were the longer tandem axle versions. There might be a connection between the development of the Statesman models, and Cyclone Tracy that devastated Darwin on Christmas day in 1974. The Government call for emergency housing for survivors of the cyclone would have led to the need for larger caravans to house whole families, and the Statesman range of vans would have been a good fit for this.

cheers,
Al.

[atefooterz]

Excellent info thanks Al, i did use your long term detective work to guesstimate.
I remember seeing tandem Arrow adverts somewhere around the interwebs. 3 of the Statesmen i have seen were in QLD and since then another 2 have passed trough various parks i stay at. We have a restored 19-20foot ish tandem here atm, that is a Statesregent, as they had conflicting views from seller and his team of experts. It may be an Arrowregent or just good ol Arrow, it is a U XXXX chassis. Shame it is not clear cut like Kingswood to Premier,with set changes between the models.

[hughdeany]

Hi all,
The Franklin Statesman was an up market version of the Arrow,that ( depending on what the customer ordered) could be optioned up or down.
The standard Statesman had wrap around windows,glass cabinet over kitchen,Holland blinds and lots of other extras.
Don’t ever recall Franklins going to Darwin,just Viscount and Millard,of which the distinctive layouts occasionally pop up for sale.
The Statesman was available from 15 ft upwards.
Cheers
hughdeany

[atefooterz]

Thanks hughdeany, i think i have seen Arrows or Regents,with new badges! None had wrap around windows and one had the glass cabinet over the kitchen. ( the sales dude was not sure if it was original feature it was many owners along when for sale in 2015).