SUPER SIROCCO, SUPER ‘VAN

We were recently kindly given the opportunity to live in the 2009 Elddis Crusader Supersirocco for a few days on a small site only six miles from York city centre. Called “York Touring Caravan Site” this is a family run site with an adjoining golf course and a small shop and café. This turned out to be our sort of site, quiet and peaceful. For motorhome owners there is an excellent “park and ride” fairly nearby where the machine can be parked in the extremely spacious car park.

We have always wanted to visit York so this test killed two birds with one stone so to speak, we were able to visit the wonderful “Minster” the largest gothic cathedral in Europe, a truly incredible building.
We also managed to visit the “National Railway Museum” and curse the very name of Beeching.
York is the most vibrant city that we have been to in a very long time, crowded, nay packed, with no sign of the recession in sight, we walked the city walls and vowed to go back.

Yes we know this is not a travel feature, get back to the caravan. We picked up the Supersirocco from Discover Leisure where we were treated superbly, nothing was too much trouble for the crew at this dealership, and the caravan was ready so that after the necessary refreshments we were soon on our way.
To tow this monster caravan we had chosen a Kia Sedona, a full sized MPV, this weighed in at 2160kg which gave us about an 89% towing figure, just right for safe and stable towing.

The Supersirocco is a twin axle, 21ft caravan based on a BPW chassis, the attractive features, as far as we are concerned, are the fixed bed and the excellent washroom, as we rarely use the site facilities a good washroom is an essential. Our test coincided with some extremely cold weather so we wondered if the heating in the Elddis would be up to the job, we need not have worried, and if we used the gas as well as the electric parts of the Truma heater we were warm enough.

Perhaps we had better start at the beginning, a very good place to start, where have we heard that before?
Elddis Caravans are made by the Explorer Group based in County Durham, this group also make Compass Caravans and Elddis and Compass motor caravans. The Motor caravans represent excellent value for money and have won several awards lately.

As we are testing an Elddis Caravan we will concentrate on them, there are three ranges of Elddis, The Avante, The Odyssey, and the Crusader.
The Crusader range is the most expensive so maybe it is the best, “our” model was a fixed bed twin axle model with an “L” shaped lounge.
“L” shaped lounges give plenty of showroom appeal and our Supersirocco looked just the ticket. The kitchen was a little limited but working methodically, which you must always do in a caravan, we were able to prepare a little more than beans on toast. The addition of a microwave would no doubt help although we are not fans of these gadgets in caravans.

The double bed was very comfortable with plenty of room for our two bodies to lie in virtually any way that we wanted. Our regular reader will know that we always use the caravan’s onboard facilities and the washroom installed in this Elddis is one of the best, the shower is huge with stacks of elbow room and room enough for several “dropped soap tests” it is so good that you begin to wish that the water heater had more capacity. The Supersirocco has an onboard water tank under the fixed bed so that this tank can be filled and the water used, then at the turn of a valve water can be drawn from the “Aquaroll” outside or used to refill the onboard tank.
We were grateful that we had this facility as the exterior tank froze up every night that we were on site.

The interior fittings and equipment all seemed to be of a good quality and felt solid and durable, all the windows, except the front three, were Seitz series 565 fitted with privacy glass. Maybe in a lovely summer this dark glass would be a good item, we are not yet convinced.
Of course the weather had to play up, what would have been nicer than a cool glass of wine sitting in the sun, dream on boy this is England.

The Elddis is a handsome caravan from the outside as well, its size is impressive so that you are forced to use a rather large vehicle to tow with, and given a suitable tow car the Supersirocco followed your instructions impeccably.
The Explorer Group are fairly unique in that they use BPW chassis for their caravans, these are still only two bits of girder masquerading as a chassis but having raced one of their caravans round Rockingham Raceway for 24 hours we can vouch that nothing broke or fell off.
The wheels are nice looking silver alloy and are balanced, as is the standard fit steel spare wheel, essential we think, the stabiliser is a Winterhoff model WS3000 and to save all the broom handles the jockey wheel has a noseweight indicator built in.

We would not advocate that the Supersirocco is for everyone, we think that it is an ideal caravan for a couple, and in our opinion the “L” shaped lounge is for showroom appeal only, we would chose the “Cyclone” with the fixed island bed and twin front seating, lovely!
Make sure that your tow car is up to the job, then go out and buy this well made and desirable caravan, then, the main thing is use it!

Model:                   Elddis Crusader Supersirocco
Price:                     £18595
Internal Length:      6260mm (20ft 6in)
Overall Width:       2286mm (7ft 6in)
Overall Height:      2580mm (8ft 6in)
Max Headroom:    1908mm (6ft 3in)
Awning Size:         10460mm (34ft 4in)
MRO:                   1597kg
MTPLM:              1875kg

We collected the caravan from: Discover York, Malton Road, Flaxton Moor, York, YO60 7SE  Tel; 0845 1200 173.

We stayed at: York Touring Caravan Site, Greystones Farm, Towthorpe Moor Lane, Strensall North Yorkshire, YO32 9ST Telephone: 01904 499275. e-mail: info@yorkcaravansite.co.uk

Our Thanks to the above and the Explorer Group Ltd, Explorer House, Delves Lane, Consett, Co Durham, DH8 7PE Tel: 01207 699000

Adrian H French