Full review

The Buccaneer Barracuda is a super-luxury caravan. It comes with underfloor heating and automatic levelling, and a TV

Words: Val Chapman

Photos: Richard Chapman

The Barracuda is like no other caravan. Whereas most tourers adhere to layout patterns and fashions, this is one on its own. Named after an enormous and sleek sport fish, this caravan has an offside window, and a large television.

And there's more. 

This is a caravan designed for entertaining, be it yourselves (cosy TV nights in) or many (many!) friends. They say the party is always in the kitchen; in the Barracuda you can. 

Picture this: cocktails, nibbles and plenty of room for everyone to stand or sit. Buccaneers are eight-feet wide. This means, in the Barracuda, you get a huge space in the central kitchen area as well as a large lounge.

Cocktails will get the party started in style (after all, in a Buccaneer you have to do things in a sophisticated manner!). 

The big fridge-freezer has more than enough space for a plentiful supply of ice. The mixologist has his own dedicated raised area at the front of the kitchen to concoct the drinks.

The three-tiered shelving under the TV gives you ample space to put your glasses and bowls of nibbles. The two lower ones are wave-shaped, following the maritime theme of the caravan's names. 

The Buccaneer level of luxury is well documented. The Barracuda's lounge and kitchen takes this to a new level. 

And the rest of the layout? 

A luxurious bedroom with en suite shower and separate toilet-washbasin room. This is among the ultimate of caravanning excellence. If you're accustomed to boutique hotel holidays, and want the same standards on wheels, here it is. 

And, you get an automatic levelling system, made by E&P.  The system has two enormous axle stands, as well as E&P's own beefy corner steadies. 

There's a 40-litre water tank, plus the luxury of the silent Alde heating system. And underfloor heating. You also get two floor level lights in the bedroom and by the entrance.

Showering

A sliding door divides the bedroom from the central en suite arrangements. 

Then, the hinged door of the toilet 'room' opens across the corridor. This door divides the entire washing and bedroom area.

The shower walls are 'tiled'. There's a pull-out rail for four towels in the shower. 

In the washbasin-toilet room opposite, there's a chunky, chrome heated towel rail.  Plus there are two cabinets, four shelves, three ultra-bright spotlights.

Also, the Barracuda has concealed LEDs running down each side of the mirror. It's lovely!

Sleeping

The bed is 1.34m wide and 1.9m long, with the option to increase floor space by pushing the base back. It has a retraction mechanism to shorten its length to 1.56m. Doing this gives you 70cm of floor space at the foot of the bed.

Wardrobes, each 40cm wide, are on both sides of the bed, with three drawers beneath. Lights come on when you open the wardrobe doors. Ledges are perfect for coffee mugs. The corner dressing table has a mains socket plus two USB ports. 

A further mains socket plus TV connections are on the forward offside wall. If you want a second TV you could have a bracket fitted here. Speakers are above the bed. 

This is a luxurious bedroom.

And for guests? There's a sofa bed! 

The front section of the L-shaped lounge makes into a double bed.  You pull out a base on a very large metal frame. And, using the upholstery plus extra sections supplied, to make up a mattress.

Storage

The L-shaped lounge configuration creates unusual storage opportunities.

You pull out the front section to make up the bed here. It hinges down, to reveal storage areas on each side of the power distribution box. 

The nearside under-seat area has external access. And there are TV points so you can watch that extra TV you might buy for the bedroom in an awning. 

You can open the top but you have to remove all the upholstery sections. 

We don't see this as a negative. Although, because, with the vast area under the bed at the rear, it's unlikely you'll need to use this under-sofa space. You could use for storing the extra mattress sections.

Four top lockers are in the lounge. Two more are above the bed.

There's a cabinet by the door; this can have a multitude of uses. For us, it would be the shoe cabinet – and there's a shelf alongside it for more shoes.

Dining

After those cocktails, it's time for dinner. Get the table out of its own cabinet in the kitchen and place it in the lounge.

This little cabinet has a soft-close mechanism like all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and bedroom. 

Two can sit side-by-side and a third person can sit at the end of the table. Or you can turn the table around by 90 degrees so that all three can watch TV while dining. L-shaped lounges aren't great for dining for four, though. 

But then the Barracuda will find its fans among couples who like to entertain.

Lounging

Would we miss the offside window? No. The lounge has plenty of natural light coming through the long, rectangular skylight and sunroof. 

We'd make good use of the four USB ports and two mains sockets set into the 'wave' shelving under the TV. 

Two more mains sockets are in the kitchen, accessible from the lounge should you need them. We love the backlighting behind the TV and the three very white spotlights. 

And we love the amount of leg-stretch space in the lounge.

Kitchen

The kitchen has four large LED clusters. The light from the LEDs is whiter than the warm-lighting elsewhere. Lines of LEDs illuminate the splash-back and edge the work surface.

The sink is large (50cm x 31cm) and has a cover which matches, and is almost flush with, the surface. 

With the cover in place, there is 1.13m of surface length. It's L-shaped, giving 73cm of width at its largest point. 

Then there's the raised section to consider. 

This is a place on which to put food that's ready to go on the table. Then think of it as your own kitchen pass. All 'caravan chefs' will love this!

The storage is a 47cm-wide cabinet. The cabinet contains two smooth-sliding basket-style pull-out shelves, plus a wooden shelf above. Also, there are three drawers, each 43cm wide, and two double-doored top cabinets. They have refined, concealed catches.

There's a locker opposite, above the smoke-mirror fronted microwave. The oven sits flush-fitted into the cabinet, on top of the 155-litre fridge-freezer.

The hob's hotplate is above the level of the burners, level with the (cast iron!) pan trivet, so you can use a large pan can be here. 

This year's Thetford cookers have a fan, which comes on when you raise the cover. Its purpose is to keep the knobs cool when the grill is in use. 

It's rather noisy, though, so you'd close the lid as soon as you could after the hotplate and trivet have cooled.

Towing

Ready to tow? Press a switch on the E&P Levelsystem's handset and watch as the hydraulic stabilisers (AL-KO Big Foot) rise.  The axle stands retreat so that the caravan is sitting on its four wheels. It takes a couple of minutes.

How very refined! 

We've towed several Buccaneers and always found these max-width, twin-axle models stable. And the Buccaneer is responsive on corners. Our review Barracuda matched that. ATC stability control is a given at this price level, of course.

Verdict

If you want the best space and spec, you should consider a Buccaneer. If you want a caravan for entertaining and for movie and TV watching, the Barracuda has to be on your shortlist. 

We love the amount and style of lighting, and the tough automatic levelling system. The underfloor heating is great. So is the gauge by the door that tells you how much water is in the caravan's inbuilt tank. Everything, it seems, works to make caravanning luxurious and easy!