Canadian van heads down under

Mark Palmarini, who with his brother Brendan and father Tony now runs Roma Caravans founded by his grandfather Victorio back in 1928, believes he has seen the future – and he wants to build it in Australia.

“The Canadian designed Alto is the most exciting new development in caravan design I have seen since the first camper trailers in the 1970s,” he says with no hint of understatement.

“It’s the highest level technology I have ever seen in a caravan and I believe it represents the future of our industry.”

With its unique teardrop, pop-top design covered by both Canadian and US patents, the Quebec-built Alto is a lightweight ‘uber-green’ caravan that has proven equally as popular in the Canadian winter as in the Florida sunshine since it broken cover in North America around six years ago.

The models Roma is targeting initially are the R Series retractable glass-roof Alto 1713 and 1723, which will come standard with a King (1713) or Queen (1723) bed (both with alternative single bed configurations), a two-burner gas cooker, flush toilet, Truma air conditioning, solar panel, European-style windows and matching Euro furniture and ride on adjustable-height Dexter independent suspension.

Made from largely recyclable materials and fitted with a 60-litre fresh water tank, 60-litre grey water and 46-litre black water tanks as standard, the Alto ticks all the environmental boxes, making it as welcome in a National Park as in regular caravan parks.

And with an overall length of just 5.26 metres, a width and height both of just 2.1 metres (with the roof folded), a dry weight of less than 800kg – and a payload of up to 400kg – the Alto can be towed by just about anything rated to 1500kg.

An innovative feature of the Alto’s construction is its sandwich-style roof and wall construction, consisting of a plastic honeycomb core laminated with Alufiber on one side and aluminium on the other.

Inside, the furniture consists largely of aluminium and composite materials, with rigid and ultra-light sandwich panels integrated into the bed cushions, while the entire bed structure is made of aluminium extrusions.

But what gets the most attention is the Alto’s retractable roof, built from a single piece of curved Alufiber, which is opened and closed by a pair of electric linear actuators at the touch of a button – somewhat like an Eco Tourer, but without cables, folding or lifting – with its crescent-shaped windows formed from tempered glass.

When open, it provides a roomy interior with up to 2.08m of standing space, while with the roof down, the wind tunnel-developed teardrop shape is said to shrink in size and can be stored in a conventional garage when not in use.

Roma has been working with the family-owned Safari Condo company that builds the Alto in Quebec on what has been dubbed the  ‘Koala Project’ for around 18 months, with the development focussed on developing it in a left hand door configuration.

Roma expects to land its first Altos around mid-January and to have them on display at the upcoming Melbourne Caravan, Camping & Touring Supershow at the Melbourne Showgrounds from February 11-16. It will certainly make a strange show-mate to another new Roma on the stand – a triple-axle 10-metre ‘monster’ caravan featuring a massive wall slide.

“The slide-out alone is almost the size of the entire Alto!” Mark Palmarini quipped.

Pricing is still being finalised, but Palmarini expects the Alto 1713 to sell initially for around $45,000. Initially the Alto will be sold through Roma dealers on Australia’s east coast.

To see the Alto's roof in action, watch the video below...