HEROIC CAMPING

Paul Owen goes back to the future as he takes a wander through a new teardrop caravan that takes inspiration from some century-old aerodynamic mastery.

The ‘teardrop’ camping trailer is making a comeback, possibly for the way it oozes retro-cool as much as for its aerodynamic efficiency when towed.

Hero Campers are distributed in New Zealand by Hamilton’s RV Supplies Ltd., to a network that includes the best-selling New Zealand dealership, Tristram European.

The Hero slogan ‘Get Out and Stay Home’ is written in large letters on three sides of the Ranger, effectively summing up the kind of lifestyle that owning one will enable. For this isn’t a camping solution where you stay huddled inside four walls, staring out of windows. You’ll have to go outside to cook, for example; raising the large curved rear tailgate reveals a stainless steel kitchen unit divided into three sections. At the left is a stack of three drawers, while at the centre is a cupboard with a slider designed to house something like a Dometic 40L 12V/240V fridge, and the right-side cupboard located beneath the sink houses the 30L freshwater tank, leaving room for extra stowage.

The interior of the Hero can be accessed via a door on either side, and there’s a minimalist Scandinavian vibe to it. The arrangement of mattresses and squabs encourages you to sit facing the rear of the trailer with your back comfortably resting against the upright squabs resting against mounts attached to the inside front wall. A matrix of sprung plastic supports aerates and suspends the lower mattresses creating a king size bed (2.0m x 1.5).

All Hero Rangers come with a rack and attendant side ladders, giving the option of two hard-top ‘Skybox’ compartments to add another bedroom on top. The choice is between the three-berth Kepler Skybox or the easier to deploy two-berth Galileo. The narrower Galileo is lighter at 63kg instead of 90kg. Both require fitting a $575 mounting bar, and the Kepler costs $5,595 versus $4,495 for the Galileo.

With the starting points of $32,275 for the Ranger and $33,750 for the Ranger Limited Edition, you could spend up to $43,340 and $46,485 for the fully equipped versions by ticking every box. Be prepared for your caravan-owning friends to chime that ‘you could have got a proper caravan for that’. The best comeback is: ‘yeah, right, but it wouldn’t have looked as cool.’ Nor would that larger brick-on-wheels make your holiday fuel budget go as far. Find out more at rvsupplies.co.nz