Bigfoot spotted in Queensland

Like the legendary, hairy ape-like creature after which it’s named, a special Roadstar off-road caravan unveiled at this year’s Queensland Caravan Supershow is destined to leave huge foot prints, or tyre tracks, wherever it goes.

In what is believed to be the biggest and possibly most expensive wheel and tyre package ever fitted to an Australian caravan, the dual axle, 20ft Roadstar Safari Tamer Bigfoot boasted Mickey Thompson 17 x 9in Classic Baja Lock black alloys with Baja ATZ P3 315/70 R17 all-terrain rubber.

Weighing around 40kg a piece, altogether they added about 240kg to the van’s overall weight, including the two spare wheels on the rear bumper.

“As far as I know there’s never been a caravan built before with (35in tyres) on it,” said Chris Michel, the boss of Queensland Roadstar dealer Freedom RV's.

“Everybody said it couldn’t be done and I wasn’t going to listen to it.”

A very capable rough road tourer in its own right, the Safari Tamer has “been to the gym and had a full course of steroids put through it,” according to Michel, a keen off-road enthusiast who worked with Roadstar’s Melbourne factory to bring the Bigfoot concept to life.

“I went down and sat down with the chassis manufacturer and said well, let’s do our measurements. This is the width of the tyre, and this is the space you need to have between the tyre and the chassis, so we need to put the chassis rails this far apart,” he said.

“If you tried to do it with a standard chassis and fit those tyres into the wheel boxes your track is going to be too narrow and it will be too tippy.

“So we’ve done it with a traditional chassis… we’ve cut out the whole wheel box and that’s why I’ve put the brush around the edges because we’ve got the track as wide as possible.

“Anyone knows the wider you can get your track the more stable it is. The caravan is 2.5m wide but the track’s wider (than usual).”

Despite its weight – the display model has a Tare of 2880kg Tare and 3500kg ATM – Michel says the Bigfoot van is designed to be dragged through all types of terrain, including sand.

“Because the Mickey Thompson rims are full off-road rated alloy you can let those tyres down to 10-15psi and get over any terrain, without a drama. You can also take it along the beach because the footprint is massive,” he said.

To back up his claims he plans to take it out on a beach soon close to his Caloundra, Sunshine Coast dealership, with a video of the results to follow.

Along with the monster tyres and all the luxury features fitted as standard to the Safari Tamer, the Bigfoot package also adds fully automatic independent airbag suspension, dual sway bars, hydraulic disc brakes, a tougher Securamesh entry door, Redarc BMS, RV Wi-fi, Fusion stereo, Sirocco fan, Fantastic roof hatch, and high-profile stucco aluminium cladding and a reversing camera.

“It’s realistically the most fair dinkum off-road caravan in Australia (with) the ground clearance, the tyres, the suspension, the brakes, the construction…” Michel claims.

The Bigfoot package adds around $25,000 to the cost of the Safari Tamer, with the show model displaying an on-road price of $124,850.

Freedom RV's currently has exclusive rights to sell the Bigfoot special edition, but Roadstar Caravans boss Ken Nizam said a similar style model could be rolled out through Roadstar dealers in other states.