ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Who made the first motor car-pulled caravan?

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Who made the first motor car-pulled caravan? Is there a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.

uk By Charles Legge Published: 01:59, 20 August 2024 | Updated: 02:23, 20 August 2024 e-mail View comments A pioneering UK motorised caravan maker was Eccles of Birmingham . In 1913, William 'Bill' Riley built a caravan-like body on the chassis of his 1909 Talbot car. But his progress was halted by the onset of war.

After the First World War , his son Bill Jr returned from service in the Royal Flying Corps. He had been inspired by the use of trailers on the front line, and so the pair built a touring caravan. In 1919 they took over Eccles, a failing Birmingham haulage business, and put their ideas into practice.

Horse-drawn caravans had been produced for many years before the war. Like today, they were homes to the Romany people. A picture of a family group posing alongside their 1925 Eccles caravan The first recreational caravan was that made for the Scottish doctor and adventure author Dr Gordon Stables, whose 18ft horse-drawn Land Yacht Wanderer came complete with a sofa bed, cooking range, washing facilities, a bookcase, china cabinet and even several musical instruments.

Built by the Bristol Wagon company, a maker of railway carriages, it was used by Stables for a much-.