Are caravans getting too heavy?

COMMENT

Back in 1973, Porsche introduced the bare bones 911 Carrera 2.7 sports car to homologate the model for GT racing. While it had the punchiest engine fitted to a production Porsche, many home comforts like the second sun visor, sound deadening and even the glovebox lid, were left out for weight-saving.

This ‘diet’ resulted in better performance, braking and roadholding.

Porsche planned to make up the necessary numbers by giving them to senior employees as company cars, but they didn’t want them, preferring the cheaper and much better-equipped 911 2.4S model.

Porsche then turned to its German dealers, but customer demand wasn’t strong either, with many still sitting unsold at 12 months later. Just six came to Australia in 1973.

Today the 911 Porsche ‘couldn’t give away’ is the marque’s most valuable series production model you can buy, with prices for the survivors of the six that sold locally in 1973 for less than $20,000, now approaching $1 million.

The lesson for the Australian caravan industry here could be similar; ‘less equals more’ for the things that really matter and lets us stand apart from many bling-bloated imports.

Paying more for less

At present, you’ll pay more for an Australian-built camper, hybrid or caravan than its imported equivalent and if you tick all the option boxes for the things the imports include as standard, a lot more.

But every gram of thick, coloured aluminium cladding, checker-plate or hot-dip chassis galvanising, every extra millimetre of tyre and wheel diameter, every extra kilogram of rooftop air conditioning, washing machine and plumbing, increases weight, requires you to own a larger, heavier tow car and reduces your ability to explore more of Australia, economically.

Some of that premium can be attributed to our higher labour costs, thanks in part to better regulated workplace practices; another factor is the extra cost of the higher-quality raw materials that you’ll generally get in a locally-built camper, hybrid or van.

Do you really need a hot-dipped galvanised steel chassis?

If you don’t live or travel near the coast and your steel is good quality to start with, you can save weight and money if you have the option for a primed and painted chassis instead. As a bonus, it’s easier to touch up stone chips with some emery paper and a paint-brush.

As you may have noticed, if you compare equivalent local and imported models, the local models are usually lighter. This costs extra to achieve, as higher-tensile products generally involve using better quality materials and they are more exhaustively tested for our conditions.

Related: How to prevent an overweight caravan

The cheaper, heavier option

As Melbourne-based Track Trailer chief Gerard Waldron noted recently: It costs a lot more to make light weight in terms of materials engineering and testing, which is why many imported RVs are relatively heavy for their size.

The quality of the steel used, the length and depth of the welds are important factors here. It doesn’t mean the imported products are bad, it’s just that many are built to a price and that may not allow for as much R&D, rigorous Outback testing, or paying those building them for their decades of experience.

Some importers have addressed this issue by forming joint ventures with overseas factories, where an experienced Australian is in charge of things. It’s often sad and true, that countries without a culture of camping, where the pleasure of self-sufficiency isn’t passed down through families, can’t really be expected to appreciate its finer points.

It’s also true that if you’re an office-bound Campbellfield caravan manufacturer busy paying the bills and running a factory, you're far less in touch with your owners than if you also embrace the caravanning lifestyle.

The extra weight and reduced longevity of a cheap import (or some local RVs) may not be important if you're indulging in a short term ‘off-road experience’ to replace a cancelled overseas trip in these COVID-19 times.

You may even be able to justify your choice in financial terms, as the price drop when you sell a cheap RV after 12 months or so may be less than you’ll lose on re-selling a pricier local product. But try that test again in five or 10 years’ time.

If you're planning a bonding trip with your teenagers before they flee home, it works, but if you want a lifetime of relatively trouble-free Outback travel afterwards, you need to give your choice more thought.

Also read: Why are Aussie caravans so expensive?

Back to basics

Which brings us back to relatively bling-free campers, hybrids and caravans.

I say ‘relatively’, because I have camping friends who regard anything more than canvas as ‘not real camping’. I respect their opinion, but I counter that I’m not really camping; I’m caravanning.

I want to get comfortable fairly quickly once we stop for the night, which means digging trenches and blowing up air mattresses, isn’t part of this. Sorry.

As I’ve got older I’m more appreciative of power lifts on pop-tops, beds that don’t require major re-arrangement of interior furniture, indoor toilets and hot showers and cooking under shelter than I used to be. I’ve done all the hard camping yards; now it’s my time.

Maybe I’m unusual, but the thing I really enjoy about remote area travel with more of everything except people is the contrast it provides to my relatively much more comfortable everyday life.

So I don’t adhere to the same rigid timetable: I can enjoy making a campfire, cooking a pot-roast, washing and drying dishes and generally getting satisfaction in listening to the birds, watching ants and generally looking after myself in a foreign environment.

Do you really need an inverter?

Every gadget I have diminishes this experience.  For example, I’ve stopped taking a coffee pod machine and instead rely on ground coffee and a simple stove-top percolator which can work in or outdoors.

It also means my van doesn’t need a 1000-Watt inverter to run the pod machine, which saves weight, money and prolongs my off-grid battery life.

By carefully positioning my van where I park, choosing a white reflective exterior rather than a colour to match my tow car, having roof hatches that open to expel hot air and having a couple of 12 volt internal fans, I don’t need air conditioning, or a 3000 Watt inverter in an off-road van, or to carry a portable generator, to run it off the grid.

Exactly why you would want to stay inside an air conditioned van in the middle of the bush escapes me. Heating – well that’s a different story where you can’t enjoy a campfire, or ‘bush television’, as a good photographer friend of mine aptly calls it.

So, if you don’t need an air-conditioner, a washing machine, a dishwasher, big inverter or multiple batteries, think how much lighter, simpler and easier you'll travel?

To complete the picture and bring your locally-built camper, hybrid or caravan down to price competiveness with fully-loaded imports, simply analyse your real RV needs.

Then choose a well-designed and built local RV that uses quality materials rather than bling to justify its price tag.

Also read: The dirt road caravan dilemma