Evernew seeks perfection

Many caravan brands survive only a few years before they fail, or are swamped and swallowed by larger conglomerates.

However, Melbourne’s Evernew is still going strong after 55 years and nearly 10,000 caravans and now celebrating its first anniversary in the hands of new owners has set itself a lofty goal: to become the best caravan maker in Australia.

To do this, career engineer Bib Dani, his wife Nancy and sons Aydin (21) and son Arbin (17) are slowly and carefully changing the course of the industry’s long-standing juggernaut with the approval and tacit support of its now-retired co-founder, Bruce Bailey.

Central to Evernew’s future survival is lowering the average age of its owners from the late 60s to the mid-50s through subtle styling changes and upgraded interiors, while working closer with more mainstream industry suppliers to hold them accountable for quality.

Keeping a closer eye on quality

Previously, Evernew caravans were 70 per cent finished at the company’s satellite factory in West Heidelberg, before moving to the rear of their long-standing Bell Street, Heidelberg retail sales yard, where their plumbing, electrics and other work was completed before being handed over to customers.

Now, 95 per cent of the work takes place in the factory and the time each caravan spends at the sales yard before delivery has been slashed from around seven days to just two.

As part of this process, some of Evernew’s 30 staff have been transferred back to the factory, while Dani’s elder son Ayden performs in-production quality control checks, armed with a packet of red dots to indicate faults.

Involving suppliers more in the production process has been another major change under the new ownership and Evernew now has a closer relationship with a smaller number of quality, major industry organisations.

“This way if we have a problem in production I can call them up and say ‘come here and fix it’ just as we used to do in the automotive industry,” explained Dani.

“Bruce Bailey told me when I bought the company ‘we are the Toyota of the caravan industry’ in terms of our conservative approach to untested technology and through this new relationship with suppliers we are moving to an industry best practice 5-year warranty this year, with 2-3 years on major appliances.

“As a result, we are rarely the subject of any negative chat or blogs on social media, which is what we want. For us, no publicity of this sort is good publicity!”

Moving with the times

Following Bailey’s handover advice of ‘whatever you do, don’t change its DNA’, Dani and his team, which now includes former Trakmaster Caravans’ Operations Manager Richard Metcalfe as Technical Sales Manager, have made a number of small, but significant changes to the brand’s cosmetics.

The most obvious of these is the logo, which now reads ‘Evernew Est.1963 Caravans by Craftsmen’ in line with its long-term commitment to custom building. However, keen eyes will also spot the new front and roof profile and the increased height of the checker-plate side cladding.

The front profile change has come through the move to a jig that has allowed the fitting of Dibond core aluminium cladding to the front, back and sides of up to half of all new Evernew caravans, with a more precise curve necessary for it to meet the ribbed aluminium roof. In the past, the front radium with all-ribbed cladding could vary from van to van.

Exterior venting for the vans’ fridge has also been changed substantially for an improvement of more than 30 per cent, thanks to a new baffle system developed in consultation with Dometic.

Built for off-road

Although most people think of  Evernew as tough all-road caravans, Metcalfe says about 85 per cent are built to full off-road spec from the chassis down, with the upper body built the same for all models.

“We have looked at ways of building lower spec caravans geared more towards bitumen touring,” Metcalfe explained, “but they are hard to accommodate within our DNA.”

This means Meranti timber studs at 300mm spacing (as they always have done) and feature conventional floors atop a custom-built G&S Chassis, eschewing the trend towards thicker composite flooring to save chassis weight.

“We still work on the axiom of ‘it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” explained Metcalfe. “We will not put something out on the market that hasn’t been validated by our customers in the way they use their caravans.”

Loyal customers

Amongst the loyal Evernew customers, who represent up to 70 per cent of all sales, is industry figure Tom Harding, who used to be an Evernew service agent and is currently involved in the restoration and rebuilding of the historic Farina Homestead on the Oodnadatta track.

He is now on his fifth Evernew, having just swapped his tandem axle 17ft model for a new, single-axle 17ft caravan with a toilet, but no shower.

Being a true custom manufacturer, Evernew still builds a wide range of vans, from 12ft single-axle pop-tops to dual-axle 23-footers. The cut-off line for single axles is beyond 17ft, the company’s most popular models. All caravans above 20ft in length automatically come equipped with twin 120AH batteries and two 150W rooftop solar panels.

An exception to the rule here will be the new 21ft 6in ‘Bruce Bailey Signature Edition’ luxury van being released in August/September this year to celebrate the company’s 55th year. This will be a showcase model equipped with the latest technology including Cruisemaster ATX air suspension, an Enerdrive lithium battery power system and many luxury features.

Strong and heavy

Built only in full off-road spec with an expected tare weight of 2700kg it won’t be light, but customers will be offered an ATM of either 3500kg or 4000kg, allowing them to load it up for long-term, off-the-grid living.

“It will be the most luxurious caravan we have ever built,” said Metcalfe, who expects it will be priced ‘well into six figures’, most likely northwards of $120,000.

This is still well below what customers might expect to pay for such a caravan from the other premium off-road makers, including Bushtracker, Trackmaster and Kedron, with whom Evernew is keen to be compared.

Dani says they have had conquest sales of 20-30 per cent from other brands over the past eight months, with one customer moving from a Bushtracker, reportedly because he wanted a custom-built caravan with a more modern look (along with a substantial price saving).

Would founder Bruce Bailey approve?

“He comes in for a day or so every couple of weeks to see how we’re doing,” said Dani, “and the last time he was here he said: ‘Son, you’re doing a good job’. That meant a lot.”