Sunseeker Mirage Sport 2021 Review

What makes a good off-road caravan?

It’s a question many potential buyers struggle with, given that caravans with the wanted ‘off-road’ tag start below $60,000 and stretch all the way to nearly $300,000.

To answer this, you need to be very honest about what you will do with it ­ – not in your dreams, or as a carefree young person with unlimited resources, but as a more mature person whose skills and bank balance perhaps fall short of your ambitions.

Few ‘off-road’ caravans are called on to do a fraction of what they are capable of.

Like most of the 4WDs that tow them, they're too expensive to put at serious risk of damage, so often to the protests of our partners, we limit our ‘off-road’ adventures to a few corrugations on unsealed roads and convince ourselves that a regular on-road van could never do this.

Truth is, most caravans spend the bulk of their time snoozing on powered sites in caravan parks where their large water storage capacity, grey water tanks, expensive battery systems, inverters and rooftop solar panels, have a holiday.

With closed borders and more travellers filling popular caravan northern parks to overflowing, free-camping is sometimes more of a necessity than an option. So it’s prudent to buy a caravan that can take a bit of the rough with the smooth. It also makes it easier to re-sell down the track too.

All round package

Sunseeker’s latest 18ft 6in Mirage Sport Mk5 couple's caravan walks this line easily, with extra standard equipment over its predecessor to cater for our new travelling environment. There are also fewer compromises between comfortable blacktop cruiser and capable unsealed-roader, thanks largely to the personal input of the company’s well-travelled founder and owner, Chris Michel.

For sealed road and caravan park travel, it’s well-appointed and comfortable for a wandering couple with few exceptions. And for off-road travel, there’s little missing on the ‘want’ list.

Let’s look at its on-road travel balance sheet first, and it’s not until you live in and travel with a caravan for several weeks do you really appreciate it.

With a body length of 18ft 6in and a Tare weight of 2424kg, the tandem axle review model towed confidently at all posted speed limits, with minimal interference by passing truck or gusty side winds. Getting it sitting level behind our Toyota Fortuner tow car was a first priority, with a slight weight bias on the Mirage’s Cruisemaster DO-35 coupling for added stability.

The first thing that could be improved is a double step into the caravan, as the Mirage Sport’s great off-road clearance works against it in more manicured on-road settings. A double folding aluminium step, please.

Inside pros and cons

Inside the Sunseeker Mirage Sport, there’s a conventional layout, with a north-south orientated queen bed up front, a central café dinette lounge with fold-down footrests on one side, opposite the Swift cooktop with its 3+1  gas/electric hob cooktop with grill and oven below.

The NCE microwave sits high above the stainless steel sink – too high for short people to access safely – but being up there it does liberate more bench space.

The 188-litre two-door, three-way Dometic tropical-grade fridge-freezer is a good size to hold the stuff most people will take with them on their travels, while the separate cassette toilet, vanity basin, laundry and fibreglass pod shower are conveniently spread across the rear of the van.

Although a bit squeezy, there’s just enough space outside the shower, particularly if you leave the sliding door open when towelling yourself dry, or when using the standard Destination RV 3.5kg top-loading washing machine.

What is tight is the space between the foot of the bed and back of the cafe dinette, and I’d seriously recommend that couples planning to live in a Mirage for more than a weekend spend the extra $2912 to upgrade to the 19ft 6in model, or the $5948 to go to the 20ft 6in version in order to free up a little people space here.

As it is, getting a fitted bottom sheet over the pillow-top queen mattress is also a struggle for the less agile.

I’m also not a big fan of the self-locking cupboard and drawer catches either, as you can’t see at a glance before setting off whether they're securely locked or not. As it turned out, the large top kitchen drawer containing the cutlery and other things wasn’t, and it slid out on corners - the catch had broken, but no other damage was done.

As I've said if I was buying a Mirage Sport caravan, I’d go for the 19ft 6in version and also option a separate drinking water tap with filter, an internal gas space heater, like a Truma, and perhaps an inverter, but that’s it. Just tick the boxes, although you'll pay a bit more obviously, and have more weight to tow around...

Easy to live with

Otherwise, the 18ft 6in Sunseeker Mirage Sport is very easy to live with, delivering loads of storage space including under the bed. Although the overhead cupboards are a bit shallow, they're good for clothing.

While outside, there’s a large unencumbered through-body tunnel boot up front for all the 'wet' gear.

It's also built for some rough stuff, starting with the caravan’s robust rivetted aluminium interlocking wall framing, which allows just enough flex to avoid stress fracturing, while promising longevity and lifetime freedom from rotting.

The outer wall cladding is smooth aluminium composite sheeting, while the roof is formed by 32mm composite sandwich panelling, for decent thermal insulation.

Sunseeker offers the Mirage in white, silver or charcoal, plus a range of three checkerplate shades (black, monument, or chrome) and the choice of seven colourful decorative body flashes, allowing you to customise your 'van so that you’re unlikely to see another similar one on your travels.

'Ours' was silver, with black checker plate and green flashing, and looked smart.

All this sits atop a sturdy Australian-made Supagal steel chassis manufactured by Melbourne’s FP Chassis, with a 150mm A-frame and independent coil spring tandem suspension underneath.

The ride is cushioned by twin shock absorbers per wheel, while there’s good stone shielding for the three poly roto-moulded water tanks with their brass fittings. However the large diameter plastic waste pipe for the grey tank looks a little vulnerable to stones.

Tough exterior

Further checker plate stone-shielding all round along the Sunseeker Mirage Sport’s lower body sides, plus a standard front truckmesh stone deflector allows you to travel off the bitumen with confidence, and if the stones fly higher, then you’re simply travelling too fast!

Sixteen-inch diameter alloy wheels shod with chunky Toyota Landcruiser-size all-terrain tyres, deliver impressive ground clearance over any terrain that most owners would be prepared to take a caravan of this size and value.

All Mirage Sport models also come with a standard generator box on the rear bumper. The good thing about this box is that it has twin pop-open ventilation flaps on either side that allows the gennie to function safely without removing it, with noise and vibration kept at a maximum distance from the bedroom.

You’re unlikely to call on the generator unless you're planning to stay off-grid in the tropics for some days, as along with good insulation, the Mirage Sport has an impressive array of standard water and power capacity.

Twin interconnected 85 litre fresh water tanks with separate fillers are underneath, with a similar-sized grey water tank bringing up the rear, while twin 170 Watt solar panels on the roof pump charge back into the caravan’s twin 125Ah deep cycle batteries, all orchestrated by an Enerdrive battery management system.

Unusually, there’s no standard inverter to run all your 240-volt goodies, so you’ll need to fire up the ‘genny’ if you want air conditioning or pod coffee off-grid.

Summing up

On a 5000km trip like we did from the Gold Coast to far north Queensland’s Cape Tribulation, you get to know a caravan pretty well, and it was with regret and respect that we handed the Mirage Sport back when it was over.

Sure, we would have preferred more room to move around the bed, a double entry door step and a few more options, but the caravan’s ability to handle both smooth bitumen and corrugated unsealed roads confidently left us in no doubt that the Mirage Sport is a great all-rounder for today’s travelling conditions.

How much does the Sunseeker Mirage Sport 18ft 6in cost?

Price: $85,165
Travel length: 5700mm
Body width: 2350mm
Travel height: 3050mm
Interior height: 2000mm
Tare weight: 2424kg
ATM: 3300kg
Ball weight: 159kg
Body: Aluminium silver composite side walls over rivetted aluminium frame with 32mmn thick composite roof
Chassis: 150mm Supagal Australian steel drawbar with 50mm chassis raiser
Suspension: Coil-spring trailing arm tandem suspension with twin telescopic shocks per wheel
Brakes: 12-inch electric drums
Wheels: Black 16-inch alloy wheels with 265/75-16 light truck all terrain tyres
Water: Two x 85-litre fresh water tanks with separate grey water tank
Battery: 2 x 125Ah deep cycle batteries with Enerdrive BMS
Solar: 2 x 170W rooftop glass panels
Gas: 2 x 9kg
Hot water: Gas
Washing machine: 3.2kg Destination RV top loader
Cooking: Swift  3+1 gas/electric cooktop with grill and full oven
Fridge:  Dometic 188-litre 3-way, gas/electric
Supplied by: Sunseeker Caravans, Warana, Queensland