Viking Fibreline Caravan • History and Rebuild

The Viking Fibreline was manufactured near Carlisle by Viking Rendezvous Tours Ltd. Built from the mid sixties to the late seventies and based on a South African design. At the time it was one of the best built caravans.
The Fibrelines became a great success, they had a distinctive look, were easy to tow and were hand built to a high standard. Leakages in Viking Fibrelines are rare due to the one piece fibreglass roof. The bottom, front and rear are also fibreglass with aluminium sides. Early Fibrelines had glass windows, these were later changed to double glazed perspex windows.
The two berth version had a washroom, fridge and cooker.

Viking Fibreline Caravan and Triumph Herald 2000 tow car

Our Viking Fibreline

Purchased in July 2016. Although it had been badly handpainted inside and out it was in overall very good condition.

Herald Exhaust — First job was to get a tow bar on the Herald sorted. This necessitated getting the twin exhaust re-routed to make the gap between the pipes slightly wider to accommodate the towbar

First outing to the Cakes and Ales campsite at Theberton. While not very far it was far enough to make us realise there was more to caravanning than just hitching up and going.

Strip down — The work starts. Hand painted surfaces had to be sanded down

We decided to remove the damaged A-frame cover as it was beyond repair which revealed a rusty A-frame

Mid renovation trip to Stonham Barns Classic Car Show

The caravan had been given a ‘shabby-chic’ make-over by the previous owners so we decided the only option was to sand down and repaint the doors and woodwork.

So can it tow?

Weight of Vitesse (which this Herald basically is): 940kg
Weight of caravan: 648kg (when loaded we normally take it up to just over 700kg)
Max laden weight of caravan: 838kg

Maximum recommended tow weight for Vitesse:
Manufacturers: 838kg
Practical Motoring: 660kg
85% of car weight: 800kg
And of course the 2 litre straight six has no problem in pulling it.

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© Retro Caravan Club
Video taken at the Retro Caravan Club rally at Banbury.

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Adding to the set-up has become somewhat addictive. Recent additions have included:

1970s orange camping kitchen unit — 1970s orange kitchen unit.

Eltex Camping toilet — Our refurbished Eltex camping toilet along with good ol’ Izal Medicated toilet paper.

Caravan bunting — Where we’ve been bunting, one flag for each outing we’ve had since we got the caravan.

Tintin inside caravan — Where we’ve been bunting, one flag for each outing we’ve had since we got the caravan.