Not mine but I had a later version, with deeper windscreen; and original rigid, rather than lifting, roof.
It is one of the original "[i]Dormobile[/i]" motor-caravans, by Martin-Walker Conversions, based on the [i]Vauxhall-Bedford CA van [/i]of 15cwt capacity.
That shown is of late-150s or early-1960s vintage. The word "Dormobile" even became a generic for caravanettes for quite a long time.
Its four seats can be folded flat to form either two single beds with a narrow central aisle, or moved together to form a double. Behind the rear seats are a small sink unit and gas-cooker, with the bottle contained in a cylindrical locker sunk into the floor. There was also room for a cool-box such as I had, using water evaporating from porous plaster walls around an aluminium box.
You could drive these with the front doors open, as they slide. A canvas strap rivetted to the door pillar to loop round the handle, held the door open.
I enjoyed using mine, both as daily transport and for holidays.
Mechanically: the same 1600cc, carburetted, petrol engine (or optionally a Perkins Diesel engine) as fitted to the larger Vauxhall saloon cars, mated to 3-speed, later 4-speed manual gearbox with column change-lever. Rear-wheel drive. Though heavy work it was technically easy to replace the 3-speed with a 4-speed unit, as I did.
The engine and gearbox are under the scuttle, using a large enclosure between the footwells. The panels are easily removable for servicing.
One weak point was the many, too-simple joints in the rod links from accelerator pedal all the way round to the carburettor on the opposite side of the engine. I made and fitted brass bushes to mine to remove all the lost motion due to wear. They also tended to wear the king-pin bush, a somewhat complicated thing in the wishbone suspension, and I became fairly adept at replacing these, using a jacks and baulks of timber to support the vehicle safely and a second jack to compress the coil spring against the van's weight.
