End of the road for Roma

Melbourne's Roma RV, which dates its origins back to 1928 and was kick-started by the late Vittorio Palmarini in the mid-1950s, has gone into liquidation.

The family-owned and run business, Crowded Caravan, trading as Roma RV Pty Ltd, was declared insolvent in early-August this year, with B.J. Taylor & Co of Melbourne appointed as receivers.

A virtual meeting of creditors was held in Melbourne in March this year.

Melbourne-based insolvency and forensic accountants CIG Advisory provided the following statement in response to a number of questions put to it about the wind-up.

"At this stage all I can confirm is that the Company was placed into liquidation on 9 August 2023 and that the Liquidator's investigations are ongoing," Daniel Sizer, Senior Manager at CIG Advisory told caravancampingsales. "The main creditors at this stage appear to be customers who paid a deposit on a caravan."

The liquidation followed a family management reshuffle and a change in direction at Roma a few years ago, when Brendan Palmarini took over the day-to-day running of the family company from his father Tony and the company turned its back on Chinese-built caravans after buyer backlash.

During this period, younger brother Mark Palmarini left the manufacturing company to run Roma’s former sole-franchise dealership in Sydney Road, opposite the former Ford factory in Campbellfield, Victoria, where he was selling Roma, Chinese-built Avoka caravans and a range of Canadian, French and Italian small caravans until the dealership’s recent closure.

The company’s Avoka 22ft family van along with later versions of its tough Razorback off-roader, were both fully assembled in China, before being shipped to Australia for final sign-off and compliance with local regulations.

A smaller 20ft 6in Chinese-built Avoka family van also joined Roma’s range at the time, alongside the company’s more traditional custom-built Elegance, Sov’reign, Pinto and Karisma caravans – and monster three-axle models – that were still being built in Campbellfield.

Roma also built some fifth wheeler caravans during this period, and had several dealers around Australia, as well as an outlet in New Zealand. Annual production was around 350 units, with many of these custom built for repeat customers.

Roma’s Brendan Palmarini, grandson of company founder Vittorio Palmarini, whose son Tony took over building Roma caravans in Melbourne in the 1950s, said at the time the Campbellfield, Victoria-based company was simply moving with the times, as it was with its parallel offering of quirky European and Canadian micro-caravans.

The portfolio of small RVs introduced to Australia by Mark Palmarini included the quirky BeauEr 3XC collapsible caravan, although it's unclear whether any of the French creations were ever sold down under.

Roma launched the French-Canadian glass-roofed Alto here in early 2015, the cute, lightweight fibreglass Italian-sourced Rookie the following year, along with the fibreglass Buddy teardrop hard lid camper.

Roma was also keen at one time to secure the Australasian rights for the innovative, US-built and teardrop-shaped Inka Outdoor off-road camper trailer that was expected to become the fifth model in Roma's ‘LittleRV Company’.

The long-standing Melbourne caravan builder hit the headlines in 2020 when it was ordered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to refund $83,000 to the owner of an overweight caravan that experienced sway at speeds under 90km/h.