Full review

AT this time of the year the race is on among manufacturers to invent the ultimate caravan, to capture caravanners’ hearts and money with the best design and specification.

Of course opinions on design are highly subjective – and it’s on this playing field that most of the competition takes place.

In the case of Bailey’s latest invention, the Unicorn range, certain things are almost taken for granted. It’s the third Alu-Tech range, sharing its wood-free construction and 10 year warranty with Pegasus and Olympus. Unicorn comes in above the former top-of-the-range Pegasus – so we expect extra spec, and we get it. But how does the Unicorn fair in the wow-factor stakes?

The largest of the range, Barcelona model, was ours for four days, delivered to the Go Caravan test base for evaluation.

As I write this, the Barcelona is sitting on a pitch beside our long-term-test Pegasus 624, with which it obviously must be compared.

But before we opened the door on Bailey’s latest creation we took it for its test tow. No surprises there. A perfect score on stability thanks to twin axles and the AL-KO ATC stability system.

A high wind and a few lorry overtaking manoeuvres on the A1 enabled us to demonstrate just how reassuringly well this system works by applying braking in small quantities whenever the system detects a tendency to sway out of line.

The Barcelona’s our first peep at Unicorn; as a representative of the range, we’re judging it on spec and appearance and quality.

Spec first. Big fridge with separate freezer, water tank, Alde heating and accompanying washroom heated towel rail, three television points – it’s all there (and more) as you’d expect from something sitting at the top of a range. And the quality? Throughout, it’s superior to Pegasus.

Barcelona woos its caravanners with a feeling of spaciousness. This is a maximum-length caravan that manages to put in a tower fridge, full single-bed length settees, a double bed, end-washroom, a big kitchen – and still have a big central floorspace.

Bailey has taken the startlingly successful 624 layout and injected that important big fridge without taking away the spacious aspect; indeed, the Barcelona is even more spacious. How? Alde helps, of course, because it removes the layout constraint of a Truma heater unit.

And the designers have stolen some of the washroom space to give it to the centre of the caravan in order to accommodate the big fridge between the bed and the dresser by the door.

The kitchen is longer than the Pegasus equivalent, giving you an enormous workspace, topped with fabulously glossy cream marble-effect surface.


But that’s enough about appearance for now; our pictures speak for themselves! Top cooking equipment is the same four-burner Thetford hob as in all Pegasus and Olympus models.

The oven and grill are offset, to the extreme right of the hob. The microwave, by comparison with the 624, moves from the kitchen into the dresser opposite, making this a classic galley kitchen, complete with a little extra work surface if you don’t use this cabinet for the TV.

At this point our test just has to unleash its pent-up energy on the looks of the Barcelona, having managed to rein in our enthusiasm up to this point in favour of all the other important factors.

It’s the doors of the three top kitchen cupboards that set us off on the looks subject. They’re white, frosted – and so superbly crisp in style, keying in with the pale cream surface and the equally pale cream upholstery.

This, perhaps more than any other factor, is how Bailey has made the most of the Barcelona’s big, airy feel. There is colour around – in fact it’s purple and mauve. It’s the pale cream that’s significant,  though. 

The carpet is pale cream. We worried about this initially, but our long-term test Pegasus’s cream carpet is completely mark-free after six months of use; it needs daily Dysoning but so far it’s stand up to wear and tear.

The Unicorn’s visual appeal goes on into the washroom, where a deep, rectangular sink with square chunky lever tap will startle you with its style.

Beside it, a linen bag hides in a hinge-top cupboard; it’s supposed to contain dirty laundry but during our test we found it was the perfect place for rolled-up clean towels.

Above the heated towel rail is a large curved towel holder, plus a loop on the inside of the door – and there are two more hooks near the shower.

Now for the downside of this washroom. Adding the big fridge means the Unicorn has lost space compared to the equivalent Pegasus, and the washroom is where you notice this. Barcelona’s shower is square, rather than rectangular – there’s less elbow room. And washroom floorspace is more limited than the rather generous 624’s.

We think this compromise is worthwhile; after all, you’re likely to spend more time in the kitchen than in the washroom.

After the first couple of days in the Barcelona we find three things we’d like to see done differently.

A shelf above the Alde heating unit in the wardrobe would protect it from anything stored in here and make better use of space.

Our second comment is this: we love the big dining table with extending hinged sides that Bailey has for some time put into Pageants as well as Pegasus. It’s missing here, replaced by an ordinary table that’s  – well, OK but not special. This seems a strange decision to take.

The final factor is the water system. Like Pegasus and Olympus, Unicorn models have a lift-in water tank.

It’s a major nuisance and not one hundredth as convenient as flicking a switch to fill an in-board tank.

This point detracts from an otherwise exemplary tourer of style and maturity. Alu-Tech, in this, its third incarnation, is well established. In the Barcelona, it comes with so much style and good layout design.

The inconvenience of lifting a water tank seems a let-down. We know the thinking behind it – when the campsite taps are frozen you can wheel your tank to a shower building to obtain water.

But you can still do that and pump the contents into a proper full-time fitted inboard tank – one that will contain twice as much water as that in Alu-Tech models. We would love to see Bailey rethink the tank design.

Go Caravan magazine verdict:

The big Barcelona is everything you’d expect for a caravan of its status and much more.

Only the absence of a conventional in-board water tank mars this superbly appealing caravan that has a real home-from-home quality in its fittings and furnishings, its seemingly limitless storage space and its level of equipment.

Style and modern character are everywhere. Whether you would prefer the wrap-around seating of the Pegasus, by comparison, is a matter of taste; with this much storage space you don’t need that central drawer unit and the wrap-around lounge is so comfortable and spacious for dining and lounging.

• This was first published in the September 2010 issue of Go Caravan magazine.