CLASSIC CAMPERS SET FOR FACTORY REUNION
Register’s pilgrimage celebrates 50 years of holidays in converted Brit cars
Owners of classics converted into SunTor camper vans are being encouraged to take their vehicles to a 50th anniversary reunion at the site where they were originally built.
The Torcars SunTor Register’s Rally (16-19 May) is expected to attract 20 of the company’s campervans. Torcars of Torrington, Devon, converted around 2000 vehicles in its ten years and the register knows the whereabouts of at least 800. Owners of Torcars’ Morris Marina convertibles, built by Mumford, are also welcome, together with Nimbus (C&W) Conversions’ campers built by ex-Torcars employees and SunTors produced by Brownhills of Newark.
The highlight of the rally will take place at Torcars’ former factories; members and their campers are to gather at the three-acre site where Torcars began converting vans in 1969. A visit to the temporary Torcars facility later used by Nimbus Conversions for its work on Escort vans is also planned. In period, potential customers could try motorhomes at Torcars’ own ( but sadly now long gone) campsite; this year, register members are staying at the Smytham Manor Camp Site in Great Torrington.
Anyone with a running Torcars, Nimbus or Brownhills campervan is urged to get in touch with secretary Jim Matthews via the Register.
Torcars SunTor Register member, Susan Brocklebank, who runs an example of Torcars’ earliest SunTor model – a Morris half-ton van – with partner Donald Gorol described the event as a ‘factory pilgrimage.’
She said: ‘Obviously, the vans are getting older and most of them appear to be located in the south of England.
‘ We’re taking our campers home to where they were originally built; it’s been half a century since the first Austin A60/Morris half-ton SunTors went on sale.
‘A round trip of almost 1000 miles to see an old shed might seem kind of bonkers but that’s what we do for our hobby!’