Jan and Gordon Cromb will take their custom-built caravan to Beach Hop next weekend. Photo: PHIL HEWES
Jan and Gordon Cromb will take their custom-built caravan to Beach Hop next weekend. Photo: PHIL HEWES
Most people have blood in their veins, but not Gordon and Jan Cromb. Their veins pulse with American petrol.
Their lifestyle block in the Kaimai Ranges gives a bit of a hint as to what they're passionate about -- it has garaging for 11 cars, plus a three-car carport.
Theself-proclaimed "Chev people" will attend Beach Hop next weekend, taking along their 1957 Buick Special Estate wagon and the wee caravan Gordon built to match it.
Gordon says it took about 160 to 200 hours to build the caravan, which they've nicknamed 'Bed & Breakfast'. He finished it in the nick of time for last year's event.
"We finished it at 11 o'clock on the Tuesday night and went to Beach Hop at 7 o'clock Wednesday morning," Gordon says.
They also own a 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe, a radical custom "in progress", a 1976 Viva Magnum, a 1962 short-wheelbase J2 Bedford bus and a 1955 Citroen Big 15.
Gordon is an upholsterer and motor trimmer by trade, running Tauranga Quality Upholstery in Gate Pa, a business he started 30 years ago. He also made the squabs for the caravan that's being given away at Beach Hop this year.
Bed & Breakfast is the second caravan he's built from scratch and has all the mod cons -- a queen-sized bed, four-burner barbecue, four-speaker stereo, interior lights and pneumatic suspension. The caravan can be lowered so its chrome line matches the Buick's.
He says the couple that own the other caravan he built take it away often.
"They can't go to a camping ground and have peace and quiet because everybody comes across and wants to know what it is," Gordon says. "They love it."
He reckons he's owned a couple hundred cars in his lifetime, and refurbished his first vehicle when he was 16 -- a custom van. He also rebuilt a Citroen Big 15 at the time, which was his daily drive.
"That's why we've got the Big 15," Jan says. " He wanted another one because he had one when he was 16."
The 1957 Buick Special Estate is a love-or-hate car. Photo: PHIL HEWES
While this will be their seventh year at Beach Hop, they've only taken three cars up -- Suzy Q [a black 1951 Chevrolet with red flames], their previous 1952 Chevrolet and the Buick.
"It's funny, we were walking around last year and there was 36 cars I'd done interiors in at the Beach Hop," he says.
"Five years ago was Suzy Q's debut at the Beach Hop. Two weeks prior to the Beach Hop I finished a '57 Chev called Albino ... Out of 2100 cars, both of our cars wound up in top five, he got number 1 and we got number 2. It was quite cool, actually," Gordon says.
He says they'll enter the Buick and Bed & Breakfast this year, but they're not expecting to win.
"It's the wrong type of car. It's cool, it's got the cool factor, but people are going out and spending $50,000 on a paint job," he says.
"We're home builders," Jan says. "People either really love it, or they just don't look at it."
