Zone vans survive torture test

Queensland’s Zone RV is the latest Australian caravan manufacturer to subject its vans to a real world torture test, releasing a series of videos of a recent 8500km off-road adventure that takes in three bucket-list Outback roads including the Gibb River, Tanami and Plenty highway.

Dubbed the Triple Crown Tour, the whirlwind, two week trip involved Zone’s Z-16.6 Off-Road and Z-21.6 Off-Road caravans fitted with Cruisemaster XT suspension, along with a ZV-20.6 Venture that's part of Zone's new semi off-range, fitted with Cruisemaster Cross Country suspension.

Complete with commentary from Zone RV director Matt Johns and some stunning drone footage, the warts-and-all documentary includes vision of the vans attempting (and in some cases conquering) tracks not really suitable for big caravans, including the Kalumburu rd to Mitchell Falls in the Kimberley and the top of Birdsville’s Big Red sand dune.

The smaller, more off-road capable 16ft Zone caravan made it to both the Mitchell Falls campground as well as the summit of Big Red, while the semi off-road Venture van didn’t quite make it to the end of the increasingly bumpy Kalumburu road.

“A big part of this trip was product testing for us; the suspension on the Venture is cross country suspension, and that’s what it’s made for,” Johns explains in one of the videos.

“We really gave it our best shot and got within 30kms of the Falls and it was then we decided we’re doing too much, we’ve reached the limit… but it was pretty amazing achievement for a semi off-roader to make it that far on that track, it was pretty bad.”

Other footage shows the vans tackling nasty corrugations, thick dust, and deep water crossings, often at a cracking pace, and via iconic stop-offs including El Questro, the Bungle Bungles, and Wolfe Creek Crater.

The “ultimate endurance test” also included a tyre-busting 750km stretch of the Tanami Track completed in one day, with van damage throughout the trip limited to minor items like cabinet fittings and microwave doors falling off, according to Johns.

“The trip has been challenging, the roads have been challenging, it’s probably everything we expected it to be, as far as punishing the caravans," he says.

“We’ve learnt a lot about how the vans perform off road, and there’s a few things that we’ll put back into the R&D pile”.

Click here to watch the full series of videos.