The Trailer Tent came into being in 1963
after Bonds chief designer, Alan Pounder and his wife, Sheila, had
gone on their first camping holiday with the local Bond Owners'
Club to Penrith in Cumbria. Having no camping equipment of their
own, they had borrowed a ridge tent, two airbeds and a camp bed.
The holiday was memorable for the very long, damp grass in
the camping field, the collapse of the camp bed and the nocturnal
noises made by the wildlife in the nearby reeds!
Deciding
there had to be better ways to spend a night under canvas, Alan
Pounder
approached Colonel Gray with the idea
of producing a trailer tent. Approval was given and design and assembly
of the first prototype took place in Alan's workshop back at India
Mill. Using many of the Minicar components to hand, (Flexitor suspension
units, hubs, 8" wheels, lights, etc.) the resulting design
was a 7' 6" long, 5' 0" wide, two-wheeled aluminium trailer
with a wooden floor and an upper section, hinged at the rear. After
unfolding the upper section and extending the supporting legs, the
tubular frame and canvas was erected to provide a large 15' 0"
long frame-type tent with a headroom of 6' 8" in the centre.
The complete operation was claimed to be possible in only 90 seconds!
By removing the frame, canvas and upper section, the lower half
could also be used as a general purpose trailer.
The original prototype was completed in
November 1962 and the Bond Trailer Tent was first shown to the public
at the Motorcycle Show at Earls Court in London on 10th November
1962. The price was £98.00. Although the sales brochure talks
of trailers being "....available
in a choice of hard-wearing finishes in attractive colours." in reality they were either white or
silver!
Whilst the Trailer Tent was quite successful, its overall length at 15' 0" was also too long and soon there were stories of tents being blown over in high winds because of the large side area of canvas. Clearly a new design of Trailer Tent was called for and production finished in October 1963.
Trailer Tent Number Range: 62/11/101 to 63/10/245
Total Trailer Tent Production = 145
