Insurance

Hopefully, summer 2021 will see a lot more touring than 2020, so make sure your ’van is ready for action

Making sure your ’van is ready for the camping season ahead

The days are getting warmer and longer, which can mean only one thing: spring has sprung and summer is just around the corner. Banish those negative thoughts of the past year from your mind and look forward, this year, to the season that you never got to enjoy in 2020. There are bound to be a few restrictions that you could do without but, by the time you read this, it won’t be long before you can enjoy the open road once again in your motorhome.

The thing is, your ’van needs to be prepared before you take it travelling, especially if it hasn’t moved for months. When you drive your motorhome the onus is on you to ensure that it’s in a roadworthy condition, which means checking it from bumper to bumper. It’s always a good idea to get your vehicle serviced and MoT’d at the start of the season, rather than part-way through. Think of an MoT as the inspection of your vehicle to give you peace of mind as you notch up the miles over the season ahead.

Bear in mind, though, that the MoT for your motorhome checks only the same things as with your car, such as the condition of the brakes, suspension, steering, tyres and so forth. What it doesn’t do is ensure that the gas or electrical systems within the living area are safe. One of the terms and conditions of your motorhome insurance is likely to be that you maintain your vehicle properly, so driving around with flat tyres, worn brakes or leaking shock absorbers could lead to a whole world of pain in the event of a claim that results from your neglect.

There are other considerations, too, of course, one of the most important of which is the weight of your ’van once you’ve loaded it up with all of the paraphernalia for a family fortnight away. Stick four bikes in there, food, entertainment and clothes for four people and you could easily find that your ’van is well over its plated weight. After all, it’s not unknown for a motorhome to be close to its maximum gross weight even when unladen and, if you then stick another half a tonne inside (four people can easily tip the scales at 300kg combined), your ’van will be dangerously overweight.

There isn’t the space here to go into detail about what your driving licence entitles you to drive because there are so many intricacies, but the chances are that you passed your test before 1 January 1997, so you can drive a vehicle that has a maximum gross weight of up to 7,500kg. If you passed your test between 1 January 1997 and 1

January 2013, your limit is only 3,500kg (unless you’ve taken an extra test), but, regardless of all this, your motorhome mustn’t exceed its plated maximum weight, which may well be no more than 3,500kg. If you’ve got a smaller campervan, rather than a motorhome, you could easily be restricted to 2,800kg or even less.

So when you’re preparing your motorhome for the open road this summer, invest a few quid in putting it on a weighbridge and establishing that you’re not going to break the law each time you take it out. Being unaware of your vehicle’s laden weight is no defence, so make sure that you always drive within the law.

Andrew Evanson of Motorhome Protect, comments, “With lockdown due to ease, hopefully you’ll soon be able to hit the road. You may have been maintaining your motorhome throughout the winter months, but it’s vital you do your checks before you embark on the season ahead. Potential jobs to add to the list include flushing out your water tanks, checking all your gas hoses have not perished or split, inspecting the tyres, testing the battery and electrics, and ensuring that your documentation is in order. Making sure you have the right insurance in place is essential, too.”

In 1990, John Major took over from Margaret Thatcher, ending her 15 years at the head of the Conservative Party and 11 years as PM, France banned the import of British beef in the BSE scare but we also linked with our Gallic friends under the sea, with Channel Tunnel workers from both sides of La Manche meeting 40m beneath the seabed. It was also the year that Aldi opened its first British store. It’s Audi (another brand from the Fatherland that had yet to really get going here), rather than Aldi, that we’re interested in here, though.

In our June 1990 issue we reviewed what might be seen as the most unusual motorhome ever to grace these pages. Called the Bischofberger Family, it was as German as the Audi 100 car that it was based on (or as Teutonic as Aldi supermarkets), and wore a £41,000 price tag.

At just 5.20m long, the Bischofberger wasn’t big and its interior – with two small side settees and a rear kitchen – wasn’t exactly palatial. What was different here was that the base vehicle wasn’t another Fiat, Mercedes or Talbot (remember them?) light commercial but a state-of-the-art Audi car, complete with five-cylinder petrol engine.

The forerunner of today’s A6 executive saloon, the third-generation 100 debuted in 1982 and hit the headlines as the most aerodynamic model on sale, with a drag coefficient of 0.30. That can hardly have been helped by an increase in width here to 1.90m and height to 2.25m, or the fact that the Bischofberger boasted an overcab pod that housed the main bed (extending lengthways over the lounge)!

The fully moulded monocoque body, however, was quite a work of art and the engineering involved in cutting the back off the Audi car and creating a vehicle worthy of passing the TÜV test must have been immense. Hence the cost and the fact that this was, probably, the only example ever to reach the UK.

This wasn’t just a one-off, however, with Bischofberger even putting the same body onto an even more expensive, turbocharged Audi 200 – imagine seeing that haring down the autobahn (it was claimed to be the world’s fastest motorhome!). The German company also made similarly styled but more affordable mini-motorhomes on the Volkswagen Golf and its closely related pick-up, the original Caddy. Bischofberger’s sole importer, Madisons of Preston, probably had a little more success with these VW versions but they were only ever a minor distraction alongside its real role as the UK’s Hymermobile Centre.

It’s hardly surprising that the Audi never became a best seller when, alongside the Bischofberger feature, was an ad for the brand-new Hymer 544 A-class at £21,995…