The Fifteenth UltraVan

September 1968, Lake Elsinore CA

Records of the 1965 Oakland UltraVans (serial #203-210) are even more jumbled than the Travalon records:
-Dave Peterson's customer records show three owners of #15 and one of #204 (which should be the same coach).
-When Jim Craig bought #206 he found out it was the same coach that Pete Dodge had listed as #65 (similar to when Jim bought William Lane's #13 and found out it was actually serial #202).
-Customer records show one owner of #18 and two of #207 (and both numbers were listed with different owners in the 1969 roster).
-Vernon Sandel listed his 27 foot long coach as #108 for 4 years and then 208, 108, 208 for the next three (it does not have a 1st generation front end so it can't be #108).
-Hurd's #20 (serial #209) is not the same vehicle as Darwin's #209 (though both had leading-arm rear suspension).

September 1968, Lake Elsinore CA

In addition, almost all of these coaches have disappeared with hardly a trace.
#15/204 hasn't been identified since 1973.
#17/65/206 was stolen sometime between 2001 and 2011, and never recovered.
#18/207 hasn't been identified since 1973.
#19/208 (the 27 footer) was last seen in 2007 near the Salton Sea.
#209 hasn't been identified since around 2000 (but #20 was at the 2019 Ultra Week in Kearney).
#210 was last seen in a Santa Ana CA used car lot in the mid-1980s.

As a result, the only confirmed information we have for #15/204 is the names of five owners:
#15 was delivered to Judge Charles Bruce of Atlanta GA.
#15 was owned by C. M. "Mel" Winter of Winter Welding and Machine Corp in York PA.
#15 was owned in 1969 by John H. Jr. & Carmen F. Morris of Palm Springs CA (who joined the UVMCC for one year).
#15 was bought from Morris by Leon G. Paquett of Seattle WA.
#204 was owned by Frank Cheney of Waldorf MD sometime prior to 6/19/73.

September 1968, Lake Elsinore CA

When Mel Winter met Norm Helmkay at the famous Hershey swapmeet, Mel said he had owned the only 26 foot long UltraVan, but we don't know if he meant #15/204 was stretched, or if he also owned #19/208 (the 27 footer) at some point, or if there is some other explanation. For whatever it is worth, Dave Peterson never mentioned building any other stretched Ultravan besides #208, so it seems unlikely that #204 was 26 feet long.

In Christy Barden's 1992 "First 24 UltraVans" article, he states that #204 was a 22 foot coach with a modified late model Corvair suspension. The source of that information is not recorded.

Another possibility to consider is whether Victor "Jack" & Ethel Darwin of Carlsbad CA could have misidentified their coach #209 when they joined the Club in 1972. It isn't hard to imagine the DMV transposing the serial number 204 into 209...

(Photos from the September 1968 rally on the parade grounds of Lake Elsinore Military Academy, Lake Elsinore CA)