DREAM CAMPERS

I like camper vans. I've never had one but we have rented a VW camper once for a week on the Isle of Wight, which was great fun.

I've not found many toy campers on my travels. No Big Jim for instance. I would like the Topo Gigio Century 21 Toys model.

I have bought and sold quite a few Barbie campers over the years. Huge things, they occassionally turn up at car boot sales with all or some of the accessories, which Mattel loved to throw in.

I've just sold this incomplete beast - the Golden Dream Motor Home from 1988 - and have the task of boxing it up and wrapping it this week.

Its not my favourite though. That has to be the 1976 Star Traveller, the Mattel release which captured the full massiveness of the Winnebago experience. How anyone could drive one of these is beyond me but then again I think our UK roads are smaller than American ones! They must be! Has anyone driven a Winnebago?

I managed to find an almost complete one of these at a car boot years and years ago and it was a sod to post. I might as well have driven it there it was that big! ha ha

Much smaller are these manageable Hot Wheels eagle-eyed collector Paul has seen in NZ.

Hi Woodsy

Another Hot Wheels 2021 model that was already available in late 2020, is the Barbie Dream Camper. A new casting of a motor caravan, which is based on a much larger, doll-sized toy camper. The copyright date on the baseplate is 2020. It is, of course, pink, with the Barbie name on the sides, and even a front Barbie number plate. 

One of five models in the HW Getaways series. The body is self-coloured pink plastic, but the baseplate and lower edge of the body are metal. There are no cab windows, but the right side of the body, moulded in translucent blue plastic, hinges down to show off the white interior. Hot Wheels have previously done other Barbie models, as Mattel own both Barbie and Hot Wheels, including a Corvette Stingray, again in pink. A nice, and well detailed model.

Paul Adams

NZ