Golden Oldie Rebuild

A growing business in the USA

- Godfrey Castle

I always felt as though I could talk to a caravan, that it had a soul, that it could hear my greetings and lovingly respond to my care – just as if it were a living thing.

And so, like with anything living and aging, I ask the question: what happens when caravans are on the wrong side of age, having spent decades providing shade from an African sun, and giving warmth and shelter from drenching rain?

How do you care for something that has given so much pleasure, and been a home-away-from-home? Should old caravans simply be discarded and passed down to decaying scrapyards, their once gleaming aluminium now mere ‘bones’ reflecting the last rays of an autumn sun – just like a person lost in the wilderness and using a mirror to attract the attention of could-be rescuers? Or, is there life after … new?

Unable to sleep one night, I turned on the telly to watch the Travel Channel. DSTV was showing a program on rebuilding vintage American caravans or trailers, as they call them. My attention revved up to warp speed!

Here were really old, classic, American-styled ‘caravans’ being rescued from certain dismemberment by a machine that reduces everything to scrap.

Equally interesting was the young American couple who, perhaps don’t quite fit the mould of traditional caravan owners, had discovered a calling – a gap in the market – and were transforming old caravan wrecks into better-than-original caravans, from the ground up.

So much in demand are these rejuvenated caravans that, once complete, they fetch high, high prices of R500 000 or more – depending on the rarity of the original ‘trailer’ and cost of restoration.