The Camper That Started it All!!

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The Camper That Started it All!!

We hope this may be of interest to your website readers. We are one of the few A'liner owners in

New Zealand

and consequently are the focus of attention whenever we set up at a site. It came as complete surprise to us to be greeted by Karen at Brooks Valley Motor Camp in Nelson earlier this month who owns one of the original 'A' vans. She is not the first owner but showed us the sales brochure which stated it was of all aluminium construction, 12 feet in length and weighed 9 cwt. and the patent was pending. It was made by FA Johnson of Onehunga, Auckland . Those of you with grey hair like me will understand the abbreviation cwt. as being 20 of them make a ton. Karen learned from the previous owner that the patent was sold to an American company. We are glad they have come full circle otherwise we would have missed out on owning our best ever investment for a superb lifestyle.

Peter and Glenys Mills

For anyone interested in seeing a bit of an interior view there is a photo on the NZ Club page supplied by Pam and John Anson. Just click on the NZ Club link underlined above. Whilst there on that page you might like to click on the link for A'vans in New Zealand. There's a very nice photo of fishing with your A'van! Looking at the photo above notice how you don't have to bend down to raise or lower the stays - and this was forty years ago! John told us that "We may be interested to know that the A'van concept was patented in Auckland in the 1960s by one FW Johnson and manufactured here as a "Compact-A-Van".

Bob Eustace