The times they are a changin'

Post from John

The October Caravan and Motorhome show at the NEC (see previous blog entries) is a dangerous place. Whether it’s the heady aroma of wood, leather and GRP, or some kind of low level mass hysteria, visitors seem to open their wallets and spend freely. In previous years, we have come away laden with items for Theodora.

This year was different, however.

We bought a new motorhome….

We had been considering changing vans for some time. Whilst Theodora had been a good and faithful servant for four years, the opportunities for longer trips brought on by retirement meant that a couple of improvements were needed. One, a bigger washroom to allow us to use more limited facility sites (Caravan Club CLs or aires in France) and two, a simpler arrangement for making up the bed, ideally with the option of two singles. We both would have liked another van conversion like Theodora, but the basic laws of physics meant that we would have to look at a coachbuilt motorhome.

My objective for our visit to the show was to come away at the end of the day knowing which van we wanted (Ruth wasn’t optimistic about achieving even that). Now that we live only 40 minutes from the NEC, we were at the doors when they opened at 10.00am – and were still there when they closed at 6.00pm. We spent all day looking at vans, but kept coming back to the Auto Trail stand. Initially we had not considered this range, as it conjured up images of hulking twin rear axle beasties. However, the baby of the range seemed to suit our needs. Only about 1ft longer than Theodora, it would still fit on our drive for loading, and met the washroom/bed criteria.

We were introduced to the local dealer, Edwards Motorhomes of Worcester. Their sales guy, Andy, offered us an attractive deal on a 2016 model they had in stock. After much pondering and a couple of cups of coffee, the deal was done.

So on November 17^th, we became the proud (but slightly apprehensive) owners of an Auto Trail Imala 615. We said a sad farewell to Theodora, and climbed into the new van. Gosh, it felt big! 1 foot longer, but 18” taller, it towered over Theodora.

Three days later we took the van, now christened Amelia, to Cheltenham on a “shakedown cruise”. We stayed at Briarfields Caravan Park, on the outskirts of the city. The site is well maintained, with excellent facilities, and a bus runs from outside the gates to the town. Unfortunately, it poured with rain virtually the entire 48 hrs we were there, confining us to the site.

This allowed us to spend time going through all the manuals and sorting out how to work everything.

Initial impressions? Well, we were pleased with the space inside, the bed(s) are much quicker to get ready, and the big washroom looked fine. Unfortunately we couldn’t test the water systems as we couldn’t remove the water filler cap! As we discovered later, there is a knack to it…

In terms of driving, the 2.3ltr engine in Amelia does not give the same oomph as the 3.0ltr unit in Theodora. Accordingly, our progress is rather more stately, as befits a lady of somewhat larger girth. Having said that, we have hardly pushed the engine, given it only had 100 miles on the clock when we collected her. Otherwise, the difference in size has not been too noticeable so far.

Over winter will see a return to Edwards to resolve the few teething problems that were “shaken down” on our Cheltenham trip, then 2017 awaits!