Friday 29th November 2024
After nearly 10,000 miles, 135 nights, and a lot of searching (and a lot of money), we have picked up our new van!
“The Flying Fox” as our WXL was quickly named, took us to so many places that we’d never been before and we learned so much.
After a few trips in the Fox, we realised two things:
- We would have traded our fully-separate shower for a half-dinette, the tables in the van were never very good.
- We would have loved to have a separate bed and seating area - while the long sofas are great for lounging, you are spending the entire time on them.
We ordered the van at the tail end of the COVID pandemic, when availability was scarce, because the underlying vans were scarce, we didn’t know much, and we didn’t have a lot of choice, so we chose the Warwick XL, and I think we chose very well.
We were surprised by how dated the technology was in the Peugeot, Gayle’s car is pretty old now, but was way ahead of the van in terms of dash and lights etc, it wasn’t just manual (because of the shortage of automatic gearboxes), but no automatic lights or windscreen wipers, no fog lights etc.
We had rented a VW camper for a long weekend, and we knew that while it was great to drive (automatic!) and pretty easy to park, it was just a bit too small for us.
Our driveway at home is 7.3 metres long, but the garage roof overhangs it by nearly 40cm which severely restricts the maximum length of anything we can buy.
We considered a transverse bed, but I’m just a bit too tall for that to be comfortable in a standard panel van conversion, and someone having to roll over the other to get to the toilet in the night didn’t sound like too much fun.
That means that we really need “length-wise” beds, and ideally not too high off the ground.
We’ve looked at all sizes up to 6.9m, from the 5.4m short-wheel-base Ducatos, to the 5.9m Knaus Tourer Van (LT & MQ), a number of 6m vans, and a couple of much larger than our 6.36m vans, I will admit to really loving the Lyseo Gallery TD 689G, it is really nice, but right at the edge of what would fit and a prang would be pretty expensive.
And so, we were back to vans the same length as ours, 6.36m, and we opted for a Malibu Van Diversity GT Skyview 640 LE K, bit of a mouthful (or jumble of words), but it’s very nice inside.
Fixed beds at the rear, excellent garage, and a front-dinette, and with all the bells and whistles for driving, the 9-speed automatic gearbox, parking sensors etc, automation for everything.
A compressor fridge, which means we can actually put our fridge on while on the driveway! Fly screens, openable windows! Nice lighting!
The list of upgrades over the Warwick XL is huge, and while I’ll be sad to see “The Flying Fox” go, we’ve had so much fun and we’re definitely upgrading!
We dropped the Fox off at my mum’s and headed for a train to Penrith, and were picked up by our very helpful dealer to get us to their site at Tebay.
After a great handover, we drove back up the M6 and M74 stopping off for lunch en-route, while I don’t drive, Gayle said that the automatic is great to drive.
The chairs are comfortable, and we got back not long after 4pm with plans to load the van tomorrow with the bits from our old van.
We drop the “The Flying Fox” off on Sunday for it to be sold, we’ll get most of our money back on it.