NAMED MODELSpecial · Expedition & CampersUnited Kingdom
Searle Mini-Carawagon.
The Searle Mini-Carawagon, Carawagon International's compact camper conversion of the late Series IIA 88-inch hard top, with side windows and the folding elevating roof in a short-wheelbase package, offered in 1970 as a Land Rover special-approved vehicle.
BASE VEHICLESeries II 88″CONVERTERSearle Ltd (Carawagon)IN SERVICE1968–71OPERATED INUnited KingdomPRODUCTIONBuilt to orderLAYOUT4 wheels · 88″
The record
Alongside its 109-inch Carawagons, Carawagon International — the Sunbury-on-Thames firm of R.J. Searle — offered the Mini-Carawagon on the 88-inch Series IIA hard top: the hard top gained side windows and Searle's folding wood-and-metal elevating roof, and inside a compact kitchen and seats converting to a bed made a two-berth camper small enough for the lanes and ferries of a touring holiday. Hermen Vlothuizen's brochure archive holds the 1970 four-page Searle Mini-Carawagon leaflet, whose cover shows the car, XPK 154G, on a seafront with its roof closed.
The registry's model is a Series IIA 88 hard top in marine blue — a period colour chosen for the black-and-white photograph — with the elevating roof closed as a cream cap, hard-top side windows and the brochure's registration.
MANUFACTUREDLate Series IIA; Searle/Carawagon International price list June 1970
ENGINERover 2.25 L petrol inline-four
PRODUCTION RUNBuilt to order; count unknown (Carawagons were the most numerous Land Rover camper conversions overall)
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
STATUSunknown
REGISTRATIONXPK 154G (brochure)
ROOFFolding elevating roof; hard-top side windows
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries IIA
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE88″
CATEGORYSpecial · Expedition & Campers
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Variants & colours
Factory colours
Marine Blue
Limestone
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
Imagery
No published image yetA rendering impression or a free-licence photograph will appear here once one is published — the sources below link to photographs elsewhere
