A beautifully restored 1958 Eccles, spotted parked up on the street this week. By the late 1950s, Eccles was already a grand old name in British caravanning. The marque was founded in Birmingham in 1919 by Bill Riley senior and junior, who turned a struggling motor transport company into the firm that arguably invented touring caravanning as we know it. Through the 1930s they pioneered streamlined designs, model names like President and Senator, and even the first awnings; the original “lean-to” tents. A caravan like this one rolled off the line during Eccles’ last years as an independent, Birmingham-based maker, when models such as Progress, Active, Bounty and Coronation were introducing clever touches like movable lounge seating, and the brand was pulling celebrity endorsements from the likes of Gracie Fields. In 1960 Eccles was sold to Sam Alper’s Sprite and moved to Newmarket, so a 1958 example is very much from the end of an era. The brand, remarkably, is still going today as the Swift Eccles, having celebrated its centenary in 2019.

A beautifully restored 1958 Eccles, spotted parked up on the street this week. By the late 1950s, Eccles was already a grand old name in British caravanning. The marque was founded in Birmingham in 1919 by Bill Riley senior and junior, who turned a struggling motor transport company into the firm that arguably invented touring caravanning as we know it. Through the 1930s they pioneered streamlined designs, model names like President and Senator, and even the first awnings; the original “lean-to” tents. A caravan like this one rolled off the line during Eccles’ last years as an independent, Birmingham-based maker, when models such as Progress, Active, Bounty and Coronation were introducing clever touches like movable lounge seating, and the brand was pulling celebrity endorsements from the likes of Gracie Fields. In 1960 Eccles was sold to Sam Alper’s Sprite and moved to Newmarket, so a 1958 example is very much from the end of an era. The brand, remarkably, is still going today as the Swift Eccles, having celebrated its centenary in 2019.