Trakmaster Explorer

New hardcore off-road pop-top takes high road

Just when we thought that Australian off-road campers and caravans had all bases covered, along comes Trakmaster with its new Explorer.

Slightly wider, although equally – perhaps more - off-road capable as other hybrid pop tops, built like a bank vault and with hi-tech suspension and battery technology normally reserved for option lists, it targets a niche market of experienced travelers who are done with canvas, but still want to go in relative comfort to many of the places that campers could take them.

Yet in the Trakmaster tradition, whose history of building only off-road caravans and pop tops dates back to the mid-1990s, the Explorer is a pragmatic, rather than a high-tech solution to a market need.

More significantly, it also points to the company’s new direction since it was acquired last year by the Ararat, Victoria family manufacturing company of Gason.

NAME CHANGE BUT LITTLE ELSE

Trakmaster built its name on custom building off-roaders to last a lifetime of hard travel, but under Gason’s control Caramax Pty Ltd - as it’s now called officially - will build both bespoke and fixed-spec models.

The new Explorer is one of the latter. Although employing the same basic ‘NewGen’ nose to tail 150mm diameter SupaGal chassis with its 40 degree extreme rear cutaway and the same one-piece composite walls as found on Pilbara models, the Explorer is only available in one size – 13ft 6in x 7ft – and with one interior layout incorporating a transverse rear queen-size bed.

Sure, you can change the colour of its Ultra glaze Stylite gloss acrylic flat-pack interior furniture and reposition a few power points and the like, but Trakmaster plan to keep the Explorer’s price in the ballpark of its major hybrid pop-top rivals from Track Trailer (Topaz), Australian Off Road (Matrix and Odyssey II), North coast Campers, Complete Campsite and Rhinomax by this one-size fits all approach.

You can still order a truly bespoke caravan from one of the 27 different pop top and full-height caravan floor plans in Taskmaster’s Pilbara range and play with the specs to your heart’s (and wallet’s) content. But if you simply want to go off-road with the most bells and fewest whistles, the Explorer is your getaway machine.

Effectively the Explorer is the current generation successor to the 13ft x 6ft 6in Gibson, that with its tare weight of just over 1500kg was the lightest and smallest of the previous generation Taskmasters.

Modern features like the one-piece composite wall panels (instead of Meranti-framed walls and stucco-finished ribbed aluminum cladding), extra solar power (2 x 120W), solid timber furniture and a standard large roll-out kitchen and plumbed sink – not to mention an extra 6in in its body’s girth and length – have all contributed around 250kg to its tare compared with the Gibson.

However, the Explorer with its auto leveling air suspension and nearly twice the effective battery capacity for longer off-road stays can probably take you further for longer.

The main reason Trakmaster chose to make the Explorer 7ft wide was to accommodate its 2030mm long and 1550mm wide innerspring mattress that sits across the raised bum of the van and should fit the tallest of travelers.

The transverse bed and café dinette with its tri-fold table tucked into the nose of the van also liberate extra floor space to the point where the Explorer feels larger than its dimensions suggest, with ample room for two adults to move around.

That’s unless you‘re tall and try to snuggle up in the dinette, when you’ll probably bang your head on the curtain pelmet, which is one of the first things we’d delete from the Explorer’s spec. Trakmaster say there’s no available window of the same size that incorporate both flywire and blockout blinds, so the curtains are necessary, hence the pelmet. I’d find another way if it was mine…

OK, there’s very little plate-up space left on the kitchen benchtop by the time you add the four-burner Swift cooktop and griller and the stainless steel sink/ drainer with mixer tap, but there’s plenty opposite on the unencumbered bench above the Explorer’s smallish, 110-litre EvaKool compressor fridge.

ROOM FOR A PORTABLE DUNNY

Like most pop-top off road vans of its size, the Explorer has an exterior hot/cold shower and no interior toilet, although a portable unit can be stored in the outside locker at the front right side of the van.

However it would be much better if Trakmaster took a leaf out of Rhinomax’s book and utilised a lift-up portion of the dinette seat to access the toilet from inside the van, which is a great idea on wet or chilly nights.

This is perhaps a moot point with many Explorer buyers, who are more likely to want to embrace the Great Outdoors and all that represents.

For this reason the Explorer offers exceptional exterior storage, starting with a big 660-litre checker plate aluminium storage box on an extended A-frame in place of a regular boot.

Accessible by wide-opening side doors and a hinged top lid, the box can be configured to house a large portable fridge on a slide-on one side and a generator slide-on the other. With a modest empty ball weight of 125kg and nearly 600kg of payload available, the box is capable of swallowing almost anything you want to throw at it, while Trakmaster is currently working on a wood rack to sit on top.

There’s also a solid truck mesh stone shield, with large mud-flaps below, to keep stones away from the twin 4.5kg gas bottles behind them, the storage box and the Explorer’s upper front.

Keeping weight ahead of the axle line for stability, the Explorer’s 160Ah lithium ion battery and Redarc BMW1230S2 management system are tucked securely in the left front exterior locker, adjacent to a Merit plug exterior socket for a portable solar panel to supplement the van’s twin 120W roof-mounted panels.

Meanwhile on the opposite side, a large front locker is designed to hold a portable toilet and the compressor for the Trakair Auto Levelling independent suspension system.

As well as keeping the Explorer tracking level on undulating surfaces, the air system allows the van to be raised or lowered manually from side to side on sloping ground, while the centrally-mounted jockey wheel with its twin clamps takes care of fore and aft movement for level sleeping.

The air system can also be used as a compressor to pump up the Explorer’s LandCruiser-size 265/75-16 tyres for bitumen travel after their pressures have been lowered for off-road work.

OUTSIDE COOKING TOO

The van’s stainless steel kitchen pulls out of the rear nearside flank from under the bed and houses a combination Swift three-way hot plate/BBQ and sink, with a hot/cold mixer tap.

Trakmaster is looking at other kitchen designs for future Explorers that may take up less space under the bed, as the combination of the kitchen slide and the van’s 23-litre capacity Suburban HWS currently limit this.

Further rearwards a large bore pole carrier is built into the rear bodywork.

Looking underneath the rear of the Explorer is bound to draw gasps of admiration from onlookers, as it’s here that its true off-road strengths are laid bare.

As well as the rugged independent trailing arms for the airbag suspension, the thickness of the van’s purpose-built chassis and its sturdy cross members is obvious, as is the careful stone shielding of major plumbing.

Adding to its off-roadability, twin MaxTrax traction panels are mounted to the windowless rear bodywork, while twin towing hooks are fitted directly to the chassis in case you need help extracting yourself from a sticky situation.

WE LIKED:

>> Purposeful off-road design and solid engineering

>> Multi-mode air suspension

>> Huge exterior storage

NOT SO MUCH:

>> Front dinette short on headroom -- those curtain pelmets must go!

>> Crying out for a wood rack
>> Still hardcore with no air-con and internal shower

VERDICT

The latest Trakmaster joins a raft of other specialised hybrid pop top caravans vying for your off-road dollar, but by taking the high ground in its most important specs and keeping the design simple, the Explorer has its own special attraction.

At $79,300 it’s in the upper price section of this growing market, but prospective buyers should price the cost of its features that are usually optional on its rivals before drawing conclusions.

NOTE: The author of this article owns a Trakmaster caravan.

TRAKMASTER EXPLORER POP TOP

Travel length: 6450mm

External body length: 4320mm

External body width: 2100mm

Travel height: 2710mm

Tare: 1765kg

ATM: 2350kg

Ball weight: 125kg

Chassis: SupaGal 150mm x 50mm

Body: Composite 30mm walls/fibreglass cladding

Suspension: Trakair Auto Levelling independent airbag
Brakes: 12in Dexter off-road spec

ESC: Dexter DSC optional

Wheels/tyres: 16 x 8in alloy/LT265/75R16

Fresh 160Ah lithium ion with Redarc BMS

Air-conditioner: Optional

Gas: 2 x 4.5kg

Cooking: Four-burner Swift inside; Swift BBQ/cooktop outside

Fridge: 110L EvaKool indoor compressor

Ensuite: No - exterior shower and storage for portable toilet

Lighting: LED throughout

Entertainment: Winegard Sensar antenna, CD/radio/iPod head unit with two interior speakers
Price: from $79,300
Supplied by: Trakmaster, Bayswater, Vic

Trakmaster Explorer

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