Caravan builders adopt vanlife bling
Classy copper tapware and 'songline' artwork entice caravan buyers at Queensland SupershowWith COVID-induced component shortages making truly new models relatively scarce at this month's Queensland Caravan & Camping Supershow, quite a few mainstream manufacturers turned to 'bling' to entice potential buyers.
Befitting its premium pricing, Queensland off-road specialist Bushtracker displayed a 21ft customer-built caravan featuring full copper tapware and basins in its kitchen and bathroom – a $2500 option on any of its tough off-road caravans.
Originally specified for a cashed-up customer, the copper option consists of a pedestal mixer tap, raised copper basin and towel rail in the bathroom, with matching ‘telephone’ shower head, vertical height rail and taps in the shower pod.
The classy copper caravan look continues in the galley kitchen, with the same material used for the sunken sink and its associated mixer tapware, tastefully offset against the gloss white subway wall tiles that form the splashback – the latter a regular Bushtracker option.
Other Supershow display caravans also adopted 'vanlife' style to pull in the punters including Caloundra’s Sunseeker Caravans, which turned the style clock back about 40,000 years with an optional indigenous wrap on its latest Vision off-road caravans.
Designed by by noted Coonabarabran indigenous artist Daren Dunn, his ‘songline’ is now a no-cost option on any new Vision hybrid or full-height caravan models, with Sunseeker donating $1000 for each Vision sold with the unique design to Shoreline, a charity that supports employment pathways for Aboriginal children.
It made a refreshing change to the totally impractical and heat-soaking black, red and blue smooth and relatively heavy aluminium cladding that some manufacturers still fit to their models when plain white is clearly much more serviceable and a lot cooler. These eye-watering colours work fine in the depths of a chilly Melbourne winter, less so in Marble Bar!
Inside, the brightly coloured kitchen splashbacks were absent from caravans at the show, but then Kedron weren’t displaying this year.
If you wanted real colour then you needed to look smaller, with a Tucana teardrop camper displaying a multi-pastel palette obviously designed for Byron Bay tastes. Crusader also showcased the rainbow on its compact Gladiator and Hurricane CRV compacts.
But colour was also used to drag buyers under, as well as into caravans.
The big news from Brisbane off-road coupling and suspension specialist Cruisemaster was the new glossy black ‘Onyx’ finish optionally available on its premium all-terrain ATX trailing arm suspension, as an alternative to its usual ‘Doe Skin’. Looked impressive if you’re the type that lies on your back admiring water pipes rather than bathroom taps!
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