The Millard history has it’s origins way back in 1947, with Jim Darlington building caravans in a small factory in Mortlake, a southern suburb of Sydney. Jim had two sons, John and younger brother Peter. John would come in and give his father a hand building vans in the early days.
Around 1954, the business was moved to 26 Wicks Road, North Ryde and John became the owner, with father Jim on hand for guidance. In an interview in 1969, John Darlington said he decided to go into the caravan business after looking at a caravan and commenting “I’ll bet I could make a better one”.
Younger brother Peter also joined the business and worked his way up the ranks, starting as a carpenter and progressing into the Executive team.
It appears the brand name Millard was first introduced by John Darlington, whose middle name was Millerd (with an e). A check of family history websites shows this Irish name to be interchangeable with the name Millard (with an a).
John’s wife May was perturbed because the early Millar caravan range was limited in colour to Silver and Green. She became involved in the interior decorating of the vans, and introduced the homely touch, especially in her choice of colours for full-length curtains and other furnishings.
The Sydney Morning Herald archives provide information of new models ‘Safari’ and ‘Florida’, first introduced around August 1963.
The Millard Safari in 1963 was advertised as ‘Safari 12ft 6in Caravans. The lowest priced, top quality aluminium caravans in Australia today.” The Millard Florida was 14ft 6ins.
The Safari model carried through to early 1966, when adverts for the ‘new’ Capri model start appearing. When the new Capri came to market by May 1966, it was a 15ft Deluxe model with a 13ft basic Capri “at budget prices”. The Safari was then discontinued, but a new Florida 15ft was announced in July 1967.
By the mid-1960’s, the Millard business had grown so big that a new factory was setup at Smithfield, an outer western suburb of Sydney. By 1969, the factory employed 250 people, with a monthly output of 100 units. Through a network of dealers, Millard marketed a range of 60 models, from 13ft to 40ft.
At the peak of the caravan boom in the mid-1970s, Millard was one of Australia’s top caravan brands, along with Chesney, Coronet, Franklin and Viscount. At one point it was building up to 74 caravans a day, as well as averaging more than 4000 vans a year.
But Millard’s fortunes didn’t last for ever and it was more bad luck, rather than bad management, that forced the Darlingtons to sell their assets to Viscount in 1979. Alongside the petrol shortage of the late seventies, and sky-rocketing petrol prices, Australians were in no mood to buy big cars and tow caravans.
The Millard name was sold to Viscount Caravans. Of course, Viscount’s fortunes eventually ran out, and when the business was sold to the Gazal family, Millard went with it. When Viscount finally ran out of steam, in 2001 Gary Willer and the late Stan Edwards bought the Viscount jigs and fittings from the receivers of Viscount Caravans and, after being given permission by the Darlington family, resurrected the Millard brand soon after.
In 2019, Gary Willer decided to sell the business and hand over the iconic brand recognising new ideas and fresh minds were needed to reinvigorate the Millard brand to the market. The Millard brand remains Australian owned which was part of the sale criteria. From 2020 Millard restructured the business, worked closely with their dealership network to develop new design concepts, select new materials, colourways and introduce a new range-MFlow. The end result has brought new upmarket caravans to the market but retaining the Darlington’s philosophy “Affordable, top quality and the renowned Millard DNA - Hot Dipped Galvanized Chassis, Aluminium Internal Walls and Full Piece Roof”. Millard currently builds the MFlow, Toura and Breakaway caravans as well as Millards Slideon in its factory site in Sydney’s south-west.
