Holiday in Noosa every day

I’ll stand to be corrected here, but new kid on the off-road hybrid scene – Noosa ORV (Off Road Vans) – has the distinction of being Australia’s most northerly caravan builder.

However, the smaller (three-person) Noosaville-based company has every intention of eating into the crowded hybrid pop-top market currently represented on the Sunshine Cast by worthy rivals such as Australian Off Road, North Coast Campers and Rhinomax.

Although Noosa ORV first displayed in public at this year’s Nambour Caravan Show in April and made its capital city debut at the Queensland Supershow in early June, founder Darren Wilson is comfortable taking on the ‘big boys’ with what he says is Noosa ORV’s point of difference.

Wilson, who displayed his 9ft Campbox teardrop camper at the 2017 Brisbane Show, says his hybrids employ Italian composite fibreglass walls with no plywood or MDF anywhere in their construction, making them lighter and more suited to Australian climatic extremes.

“Many companies are building hybrids like scaled down caravans,” he said. “Our approach is the opposite, so we offer customers the versatility and feel of a camper.

“We use only insulated fibreglass sandwich panel construction, so if you remove the mattress and the electrics, you could literally hose our vans out with no ill effects.”

Wilson’s background  is in the luxury shop-fitting business, in which he spent some time outfitting high-end Gucci stores throughout Asia and he says the skills learned from working with a range of materials in a confined space – like luxury boat-building – are perfectly suited to the RV business.

His initial foray into RVs was with composite walled DIY vans on rolling chasis for home handymen to finish off, but he abandoned that idea when he was unhappy with the way some of his clients completed their projects.

The Campbox is also on the backburner, as Wilson says he has learnt there is simply not enough money in building small teardrop caravans as a stand-alone business, hence the move to more profitable hybrid pop-tops.

The current Noosa ORV range sits at three models – 12ft, 14ft and 16ft –with larger sizes custom built to order. The 14ft and 16ft Hybrids are available as either couples or family bunk vans and all models come with the buyer’s choice of an interior combo shower/toilet, or an exterior capsule.

A galvanised steel 150mm x50nn chassis and Cruisemaster independent trailing arm coil spring suspension, twin 120W AGM batteries and 300W of rooftop solar are standard across the range, with prices ranging from just under $70,000 for the 12-footer, sub-$75,000 for the 14-footer and around $80,000 for the 16ft model.

Wilson says despite the crowded hybrid camper market, he’s found plenty of demand for his custom-built hybrids, with production slots currently filled until March next year.

Click here for the Noosa RV website.