KON-TIKI, 2019

Nothing sums up the Great British getaway like hitching up your caravan. The wind in your hair, the sun on your face… and the M6 gridlocked from Sandbach Services.

But despite endless gripes about them clogging our byways, the lure of the open road has fuelled Britain’s enduring love affair with the caravan holiday.

Their origin can be traced to Romany people and showmen who spent most of their lives in horse-drawn versions.

And this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first British commercial caravan designed to be towed by a car.

Now half a million families in the UK own one and the number is set to grow as Brexit boosts staycations.

From its humble beginnings as a glorified shed on wheels, modern vans are now as well appointed as luxury hotels and the industry rakes in a staggering £6billion a year for the economy.

Simon Mcgrath, from the Camping and Caravanning Club, says: “Since the first commercially produced towing caravan was launched in 1919, designs and manufacturing processes have evolved massively to make them lighter and real home from homes.”

The rush for the open road started in the 1880s when the aristocracy began adapting primitive trailers.

Adventure writer Dr William Stables commissioned the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works to build him an 18ft “gentleman’s caravan”.

He called it The Wanderer and toured the countryside, writing of his travels in his book The Gentleman Gypsy.

In a case of 19th-century one-upmanship, the Duke of Newcastle commissioned his own version, The Bohemian, and made caravanning the ultimate status symbol.

This form of leisure and travel was beyond the reach of ordinary folk.

But in 1919, as Britain tried to forget the horrors of the First Wold War, Birmingham-based Eccles Motor Transport spotted a gap in the market and produced the first automobile pulled caravan.

They cost £100 – just over £5,000 in today’s money – and at 9ft long and 5ft 7 Prim they from

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