the beginning
People
mostly starts camping with a little tent, because the budget, when you
are young, is small. For us it was the same story, we also liked our
holidays on a campsite in a small tent. We kept doing it each next year.
For 12 years we camped in a tent, and later we borrowed an old caravan
from my parents, it was a knaus 350 from 1975.
from the moment we became children the tent was to small, and so we
bought a brandnew big tenttrailer.
Big advantage of the tenttrailer was lost of room for luggage, and real
beds away from the ground.
So we kept camping in a tent, but with more comfort.
The tenttrailer was a Jamet ARIZONA, the biggest in their
program. Because lots of space we needed as a young family!
It was 1999 then the ARIZONA came, we went for holiday 2 till 3
times a year, sometimes for a long weekend in Holland, but mostly
for 2 or 3 weeks in France and Spain.
After a few years we learned that the lots of space in the
tenttrailer had a big disadvantage. When ariving at the campsite it
took a couple of hours unfolding and arrange the tenttrailer, while
doing this the childen start to nag. But even worse, when leaving, to
clear all up was a major job.
Because we want to visit several campsites during a holiday, the
tenttrailer became a pain in the ...
With a average of 3 to 4 campsite per holiday, we dicided to leave a
part of the tent (the living area) at home and only build then sleeping
part with the awning.
The kitchen was arranged under the awning, and so we hoped for the best
weather.
This was much better because we saved a lot of work and could
enjoy the holiday more.
Now we only needed some luck that we could pack the tent dry.
It was 2003 when I spotten an older couple on a french campsite, they
arived with a small caravan with a pop roof. He arranged the caravan
and she took the folding table and chairs out of the trunk of their car
while he erected a awning. 10 minutes later the couple was enjoying
wine an bread, and had no stress at all.
The caravan looked oldfashioned, but not old at all. I was
interested....
A few days later when we came home, i searched the internet for the
caravan we have seen. It was a Eriba Touring, and the we still new
available.
Two months later we sold the tentrailer and with the same money we
bought a used Eriba Touring. It was a Triton-M, the one with a big
dinette/bed and the kitchen located in the front.
He also had a toilet room
In the winter i'o done some upgrading at the Triton. He became a new
floor, and the leaky sink was fixed. I throw out lots of cable and the
toiled room was comverted to a closed.
during voth holidays we had a few days with bad wether, and so de boys
couldn't sleep in the tent. They slept with us in the caravan, all in
the same and only bed.
This model had one big disadvantage: each day setting up and
break down the bed. For the rest was it a nice and superb driving
caravan.
One year later we sold the Triton-M, because we would a purchase a
bigger model with 2 sit/sleep area's. A Troll-T was the one we were
searching.
The number of Trolls offered on the internet were low, so i dicided to
buy a older one with work, so we could eventualy do some upgrades,
October 2004
The internet offered a Eriba Touring Titan, some parts of the floor
were exchanged, but the caravan needed some attention.
They asked 650 euros. I made an appointment with the sellers to take a
good
look at the Titan.
A Titan, that was awesome ! I've studied the big tourings like the
ODIN and TITAN, but buying one, thats another story.
The big advantage of the Odin and Titan is that they are 10 cm wider,
on this way a 200 cm long bed is possible in stead of the usual 190 cm
long bed,
They are also a few cm higher, so you have more head clearance and a
higher
entry.
I prepared myself well when looking for info sources on the internet,
so that i knew what all the weak spots are. When building it I wasn't
really hoping for a nice looking caravan, but I wanted the titan to be
complete and the interior had to be good. I also wanted there to be a
good base.
Once we arrived at the visit address the Titan was excactly what I had
in my mind, but it was much longer in length than I'd expected. A Titan
like this in reality looks like a huge caravan, but it actually isn't
much longer than the normal caravans. This huge length is visible
because of the scale, a touring is just a thin and slim appearance,
which makes the length/height scale go crazy.
On the first sight the outside looked very good, it is a Titan from the
year 1976 withouth the brown sections at the bottom, so it's completely
white with blank windows in it. It is much nicer dan the Touring
caravans with brown tinted windows and a brown undersection, which came
to existance after this caravan. The cloth of the liftable roof was
broken so it had to be replaced.
Fortunately the Caravan already had a licence plate (required since
2004).
The air in the caravan was all mouldy and dirty. According to the
owner, the caravan had always stand underneath a carport, except for
the last two weeks, but the 'new' floor was all wet and humid on some
places which indicated that the caravan's roof was leaking.
The floor was for the biggest part made of thick MDF en it was
irregular shaped, so it was much to heavy. The first thing I though
when seeing the floor was, I have to replace this floor.
The wooden part of the interior had a nice colour, it is made out of
oak veneer but as the years past the colour changed and made it nicer,
and a new layer of lacquer will make it look ever better. Everything
was still in there except for the curtains ( later we found out they
were put in a plastic bag which was in the cupboard ). The cushions
were made out of a dark red ribcloth, not original, and not nice. The
caravan was equipped with ring heating and a toilet room.
Now it was time to take a closer look at the outside. Underneath the
caravan was nothing more than trouble, the owner had replaced the
rotten steel pipes with aluminum profiles which were attached with
blind rivets which weren't attached to anything. The front corner
steady's were missing together with the frame to attach them on. All
the sleepers were badly corroded by rust at the ends. So these sleepers
needed a lot of work.
The original windows were provided with new rubbers, which made it all
looking good, but there had to be one point were water could enter the
caravan, but where ???
In the rear window there was one screw missing, and I thought that's
the place where the water was entering the caravan. The roof ( the
polyester part ) was fortunately in a good shape, just as the pop roof,
these are the parts which are impossible to replace.
The axle and the drawbar were looking good, but the tyres weren't,
there were old diagonal tyres on it, which was full of cracks. So I had
to replace those too. The braked coupling was stuck, but the handbrake
was still functioning well.
So in the end, it had to be dismantled and restored completely, I
thought that it was going to work out.
First pictures of the Titan,
immediately after I bought it.
A couple of days later I called the owner of the Titan and made an
offer of 450 euros, I really wanted to have the caravan, because I saw
a good future in it. The owner immediately accepted my offer, and I was
the new owner of this Titan which was in a critical condition.
The Titan is just like the Odin, a very rare touring model, in which
the Titan is build out of a welded tubeframe, called spaceframe,
excatly as the smaller models, but the Titan had a A-frame drawbar
instead of a tube-drawbar.
When looking at the construction of the Odin, it is a bit aberrant from
the other touring models, the Odin is built up of a conventional
caravan chassis in which the floor has a spaceframe construction, so
when looking at the Odin, the chassis and the construction can be
seperated. The Odin has to be seen as the follower of the Titan.
Interior of the TITAN
The next saturday, I made an appointment with the owner to pick up the
caravan, it is about 100 km away from home. I went to pick up the
caravan with my BMW 520 from the construction year 1977, so I had a
good impression of the combination. I thought the BMW was very modern
compared to the Titan. Eriba touring models look older thant they are,
they have an old-fashioned look, which makes them more popular with
oldtimer owners and oldtimer lovers, just like me.
Driving back to my house with the Titan went fine, despite the defect
braked coupling which was stuck. At the first gas station I put enought
pressure on the tyres ( 3 bar ) so I could drive safely at a speed of
80-90 km/h. The caravan was extraordinary stable, it didn't feel
heavier that the Triton we had before.
Once I arrived home the object had to be shown the my family ofcourse.
Even the neighbours were outside in just a second, so that they could
see the caravan. After everybody had seen it, the caravan was put in
our 'shed' where I immediately started with cleaning the caravan.
In my mind I was already busy with the restoration
GO TO THE CATEGORY "THE RESTORATION" FOR A MORE DETAILED RESTORATION
REPORT.
