2017 ROLLER TEAM T-LINE 590
After years of camping, we’d reached the age when we had to acknowledge that our ageing frames would have to be supported by something more substantial than a Therm-a-Rest. For months we were fixated on the romance of owning a classic VW camper, but the scales fell from our eyes when a friend started hiding the exorbitant cost of repairs and renovations of her vintage VW from her husband.
Once we’d shed the VW dream for something resembling either a small bus or a Tesco delivery van, we congratulated ourselves on how sensible we’d become. Plus, the fact that our future travelling wouldn’t be punctuated by vibration-induced RSI, struggles to get up any incline over a molehill or unexpected breakdowns in remote rural idylls. The search in earnest began and we expected it to take a couple of years while we approached retirement.
NARROWING IT DOWN
We had an embryonic list of criteria when we excitedly visited our first NEC show in 2014. Although we no longer cared about the external aesthetics, since we’d be spending months at a time living on the road, we knew we wanted the internals to be as spacious and stylish as possible within the confines of a six-metre ’van.
We’d limited ourselves to 6m because we wanted easy manoeuvrability down country lanes, the ability to park in standard spaces, and affordable tolls and ferry crossings. We’d also added a dropdown bed, which we could leave made up without compromising on lounge space, lots of storage, a big fridge and, above all ( for me), a well-designed living space with no hideously patterned fabrics.
Wandering around the end-ofseason selection of used vehicles, we ³
came across a small A-class Itineo. It seemed to fit the bill, such as the bill was, so we were persuaded to give it a test drive.
We both managed a roundabout without mounting the kerb so, although we had no storage organised and our lives were still too busy to make use of it, with a rush of blood to the head, we decided to go for it anyway. Fortunately, our very low offer was rejected, but the benchmark was set.
Four shows later, having been offered a deal we couldn’t refuse, we became the proud owners of our Roller Team T-Line 590 – the very first new vehicle either of us have owned.
“We can’t imagine anything that would better” meet our needs
ON THE ROAD
Four years of owning and using our Roller Team has led to an appreciation of many features in addition to the tasteful fabric. The Fiat Ducato base is a 2.3-litre, 130bhp, six-gear manual diesel. Who knew then that a supposedly environmentally friendly diesel would decline into a tariffattracting mega-polluter? The next one will hopefully be electric but, in the meantime, I can report that it manages both motorways and country lanes with ease and we average about 30mpg across trips.
All four travelling seats are comfortable and visibility is generally good, but the reversing camera is partly obscured by our bike rack and doesn’t work well at night or in the rain.
Outside storage gives enough space for camping chairs and table, as well as all the other hoses, leads and general paraphernalia. Shelving also folds down for taller equipment should we take up hang gliding or buy our own skis.
LIVING SPACE
With the white L-shaped sofa and bench opposite, the front cab seats reversed, the glossy central sliding table, the wooden floors and the multitude of lighting options, our then 18-year-old daughter declared that the lounge area was ‘super cool’. High praise indeed from someone who, until then, had refused to have anything to do with our motorhome project, decrying us for ‘selling out’ by turning our backs on ‘proper camping’. We love the subtle strip lighting hidden behind mirrors and shelves, the floor-level blue LEDs and the great variety of overhead lighting for reading, cooking and showering.
We’ve spent months at a time away and have never felt cramped in the living space – a testament to the clever positioning of the furniture and relative location of the other areas. When it’s just the two of us we never turn the front seats around as we find the L-shaped sofa perfect for meals as well as relaxing in front of a DVD.
We had an Avtex 18.5in TV/DVD player installed by the habitation door, which is perfectly big enough for watching from the sofa. The dining table, which I initially thought was a bit too big and considered removing, is also great for evening drinks and snacks as well as propping us up if we should inadvertently drop off to sleep.
As we thought we might take the ’van skiing, we opted for a winterising pack, which we’ve not used so far – not even the thermal front curtains in the bleakest of UK winters. The Truma Combi E heating/water boiler system is super-efficient and we’re sometimes too warm if we don’t manage it properly – hence the dropping off in front of the telly!
It runs off LPG when we’re wild camping – electric when we’re hooked up – but it seems to consume very little of either. One of the early
adaptations we made to the ’van was to install an external Alugas refillable system, which we haven’t regretted and we have always found somewhere to fill up when we’re running low.
SLEEPING EASY
We like the fact that, unlike some, the bed drops down low enough to be able to vault up without a ladder if you’re feeling athletic enough. We do, however, use a small collapsible step to avoid accidents during our increasing number of nightly washroom trips. And because of the layout, one of us (me – being the younger, female, less frequent visitor) has to clamber over the other.
I like a bit of a lie-in and the layout doesn’t really cater for different body clocks; we’re either both in bed or both sitting in the lounge with the bed acting as our ceiling. But, when we’re in it, with the addition of a memory foam topper, the slightly cutaway bed is very comfortable. There’s a wellpositioned reading light above and a USB port and three-pin plug on either side for overnight device charging either on or off hook-up.
We’ve only occasionally made up the sofas and table into an additional single bed when one of us has gone away with a friend, or on the rare occasion when our daughter has deigned to lower her canvas-only standards for a short walking trip with a parent. It works OK for a night or two, using the supplied ladder to get to the half-raised upper bed, but I’m not sure anyone apart from the very young would get a consistently good night’s sleep on the patchwork-ofcushions bottom bunk; and to make it up into a double, you compromise storage by carrying extra cushions.
COOKING WITH GAS
We love the kitchen layout – in such a small space it would be hard not to achieve that perfect working triangle designers strive for, but preparing meals really does feel effortless. In a 6m ’van, having enough work surface is always a challenge so we do mainly use the table for chopping veg.
You could, instead, lower the glass hob cover and use the surface by the sink, but we often have washing up drying there in our proudly purchased Joseph Joseph expandable drainer (get one – it’s expensive but you won’t regret it). Our other Joseph Joseph purchase is a matching washing-up bowl with a central lockable drain – great for carrying dirty dishes to on-site facilities or to hide them in the shower for dealing with later! It fits in the sink as if it were made for it.
The Roller Team has a tall, capacious Thetford fridge/freezer which runs off gas, leisure battery or electric hook-up. On longer trips we mainly cook from scratch so need lots of space for storing fresh produce from our biweekly shops. For shorter trips we’ll usually take pre-cooked frozen meals to reheat, and the freezer is big enough to accommodate a few days’ worth.
We’ll use at least two of the three gas hobs daily and occasionally the gas oven/grill, too – all cope with anything we throw at them. I’d have included a microwave rather than an oven, but that’s a matter of taste.
Storage for dry foods and kitchen equipment is more than ample, with two large cupboards over the kitchen, and pull-out drawers behind a door under the sink. There’s an additional large cupboard over the fridge but, as it’s surplus to requirements, we use it for TV equipment, DVDs and manuals.
KEEPING IT CLEAN
The full-width rear washroom works very well for us – as the wardrobe and clothes cupboard are located opposite the shower it acts as a dressing room, too. There’s plenty of additional under-basin storage plus a large ³
mirror and overhead cupboard.
Like the rest of the ’van, the sanitary fittings and surfaces are all pretty stylish and the lighting works well; the heating vent could do with being slightly more effective, though, as the washroom sometimes feels a bit cold compared to the other areas.
And the Thetford loo is a bit too high for us sub-six-footers so we use our multipurpose folding stool to raise our feet.
The pencil showerhead gives a forceful enough shower without using up too much precious water.
We both like to take a daily shower and both like the freedom of wild camping and the large on-board water tank allows us up to three careful days off sites.
Before we bought the Roller Team we assumed energy consumption would be the thing that would be our main constraint but, with the standard roof-mounted solar panel, the leisure battery and efficient LPG usage, it’s actually the water and toilet cassette capacity that we struggle with – but I doubt many other 6m motorhomes do much better.
IN CONCLUSION
We feel a lot of purchase decisions become a compromise between form, function and expense. Whilst we feel we got the balance about right for us, every time a cupboard catch stops clicking, or a screw cover drops off, we remind ourselves that we went for Italian rather than German engineering and design, but we preferred both the Italian aesthetics and cost.
As well as our Joseph Joseph finds, we’ve made a few very simple improvements: a piece of oilcloth fabric to protect the table from spills and scrapes, a washable doormat to protect the entrance floor and some plastic boxes to organise the generous wraparound overcab storage.
On the first habitation service we had the table mechanism and a shower tray leak repaired and our underslung grey waste lever mounting replaced. We also learnt the hard way about removing the overnight USB charging cable before raising the bed in the morning and needed to get the socket replaced.
In spite of these few niggles, we absolutely love our Roller Team and we can’t imagine anything that would meet our needs better or being happier with the living space.
If only someone could produce all this in a vintage VW campervan shell then all our dreams would truly be fulfilled.