How I went to buy an Australian caravan but ended up with a cheaper Chinese one

When the time came to become a grey nomad I was committed to buying an Australian-built caravan. I trace that back to my working background as an automotive journalist.

During that time I was incredibly fortunate to cover the last brilliantly creative period of the Australian car industry before it was killed off.

The VT and VE Holden Commodores, the Ford BA Falcon and Territory, Toyota’s attempt to crack the V6 sedan market with Aurion, Mitsubishi’s fight for survival with all-wheel drive Magnas and the 380.

Incredible, inspiring, people. Peter Hanenberger, Geoff Polites, Tom Phillips, John Conomos, Mike Simcoe, Tony Hyde, Trevor Worthington, Russell Christophers and so, so many, many more.

It was the last brightest burst of energy from a dying sun. From those incredibly creative three-dimensional days the industry has been much reduced. Still interesting, but a pale one-dimensional shadow of what it once was.

This respect for what a local manufacturing and design industry can do made me determined to buy Australian when we started out on what turned into a long and involved expedition, even before we hit the road.

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My wife Jane and I knew our budget, so we knew we were looking second-hand but hopefully not too old.

Seventeen to 18 foot, single axle and semi off-road.

So yep, sitting in our driveway now is a brand new 19ft, dual-axle, on-road, Chinese-made caravan.

Jeepers, I feel like that character in the Fast Show who was sent out for a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread and some carrots and came back with non-alcoholic beer, Ratsak and a flier for a meeting of the Nationalist Socialist Brotherhood.

How did we manage to miss the target so spectacularly?

Well, it’s much the same story as what’s going on in the Aussie car industry right now, where the Chinese car brands are able to generate demand simply on the basis of being able to provide more for less.

The difference between the car and the caravan industry is there are still local manufacturers and they are undoubtedly feeling the pain.

Because what’s happening is the imports are moving steadily upmarket and inexorably taking market share.

We came to understand that as we spent some pretty intense days in Melbourne caravan hotspots, primarily Campbellfeld and Pakenham. Snowy River, MDC, Lotus (just dreaming), Atlas, Crusader, Dreamhaven, Avan, High Country, JB, New Age, Traveller, Viscount, Fantasy, Hilltop and so many more.

As we made our way from caravan company showroom to showroom, some representatives of the locally-built brands would rubbish Chinese build quality.

Then when we told them our budget many admitted they really didn’t have anything that specced up competitively against what the Chinese were offering. Even among their demo and second-hand stock.

Chris Polites, a bloke I’ve known for years because of his senior roles in the Aussie automotive industry, is now at the coalface of this fight as the CEO of the JB Group, proud Australian manufacturers of the JB, New Age, and Traveller brands.

He thinks the local caravan industry can avoid the fate of Holden, Ford and co.

“The Australian car industry produced Falcon and Commodore, they were entry-level products. They were tool of trade vehicles, entry-level family all-rounder vehicles,” he says.

“Where it's different in caravans is the Australian made versions now are premium, they're luxury, they're fully purposed off-road and there's not a comparison. The value comparison at the top end of the market doesn't work for imports.

“Our ‘vans are built for purpose for this country. Our ‘vans are a foot wider simply because they [imports] can't fit them in the shipping container.

“Our service networks are better. Our help for customers is better.

“And one of the things with the imports, there's probably one or two that do it okay, but people have been trying to import ‘vans for a long time. They pop up for six months and they disappear.

“They change their names. They do all sorts of things and that does burn people.”

The Chinese-linked brand that ended up at the top of our list is not one of those pop-ups.  MDC, or Market Direct Campers, is an Australian company that started out 20 years ago importing Chinese camper trailers.

It’s steadily got more ambitious, expanding into off-road caravans and then the on-road Forte SR series, which is what we became interested in.

The way it works is MDC in Australia designs its caravans locally, but the galvanized steel chassis, aluminium frame and composite body are formed and assembled in a factory in China.

They are then shipped in a container to a factories in Brisbane and Perth where the electrics, gas, hoses and appliances are all installed to Australian Design Rules compliance.

But clearly that initial assembly in China is where a heap of the savings are made.

How much? Well the recommended retail price for the Forte SR 19 we zeroed in on was $64,990 plus on-road costs. A summer demo deal knocked a few thousand dollars off that.

And there it was a new van with a full warranty in our price range. Tempting.

Included in the deal is full off-grid electrics including a lithium battery and inverter (nothing too powerful, consider it a starter kit), gas appliances including water heating, stove and oven, separate toilet and shower, a small washing machine and a lighter duty version of the independent semi-trailing arm suspension used by MDC XT off-road vans.

It even had the island bed and L-shaped lounge layout we were looking for.

Not that it had everything. No TV, no gas bottles standard and the powered annexe was about half the width of a normal one. No options or customisation either. What you see is what you get. That’s another reason the price is so achievable.

Aussie ‘vans in this price range, and thousands more expensive, often come with leaf springs and beam axles, no inverters and old-school AGM batteries.

Wayne Chevis is the assistant national sales manager for MDC parent, Market Direct Group, and he’s a veteran of the Australia v China caravan wars. He says after dying down for a while he’s seen a recent resurgence in the debate.

“It's one of those things where you can physically walk onto somebody's stand at a caravan show in civvies and say ‘oh I'm looking at an MDC or I'm looking at another importer’ and you'll have a salesperson from an Australian manufacturer go ‘oh you don't want to buy that Chinese van. It's expletive’.”

Wayne suspects it’s happening because the industry is facing tougher times after heightened demand and expansion in the COVID era. At the same time Chinese brands like MDC and Snowy River are pushing upmarket into more lucrative parts of the market.

“Imported caravans are now slowly turning into high-end caravans that are still cheap and affordable for people whereas the high end of Australian built caravans, they're not cheap,” he says.

In defence of Chinese build quality Wayne reels off a heap of acronyms that sound impressive: RVMAP accreditation, ISO9001 Quality Certification and Caravan Industry Salesperson Accreditation Program (CISAP).

“We've always tried to be that market leader and that industry leader and we like to do everything properly,” says Wayne.

It sounds a bit like the way Kia introduced a seven-year warranty years ago when Korean brands were a bit on the nose. And the way Chinese car brands are offering up to 10 years now.

We tried hard to find the Aussie ‘van that got closest to the MDC’s spec and price and in Pakenham we thought we’d found it. A near-new 17ft 4in Design RV Odyssey V1 semi off-roader that was on special for about $72,000.

We were prepared to cut and shape and knock other bits off our budget to make it work, even though it was a real stretch.

But no inverter! And that was going to cost another $3500.

Despite the best efforts of the very positive sales person Catherine (no shit-canning of Chinese ‘vans, just high quality information, follow-up and a real desire to do a deal), that scratched that.

We did the list of pluses and minuses over the weekend, and the spreadsheet to compare features. We even joined various forums to ask real people their view of the ‘vans they had bought.

The overwhelming verdict on the MDC was positive.

In fact, Wayne Chevis says one of the most vocal advocates and defenders of MDC are the owners on these highly active internet forums.

“You have a lot a lot more of satisfied customers replying to stuff these days rather than satisfied customers just going ‘oh that guy's just complaining again’. They'll jump in there and defend the brand themselves.”

We can attest to that. It swayed us.

So we made the commitment and bought the MDC. Maybe down the track we’ll be disappointed because it may not prove to be as good as we believe and hope it is. The naysayers may be right.

But right now I’m disappointed because we couldn’t, within our budget limits, support the Australian caravan industry in the way we would have liked too.

I sincerely hope there will be a vibrant local caravan industry still operating in a few years’ time so we can go shopping for that dream locally-built ‘van with a bigger budget (if the super fund starts pointing in the right direction again!). Chris Polites is a pretty good salesman for JB and they sure look good!

But for now the MDC will do just fine. We have our home-on-wheels and the chance to go out and explore this great country.

And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about…