Full review

Words: Val Chapman Photos: Richard Chapman
 

Eight-foot width, a central family dining area, a gorgeously spacious L-shaped lounge and beds for five... Is this a perfect caravan for families seeking lots of space?It certainly comes close.

This is the new Coachman Acadia Xcel 830, one of two new models to join the Acadia range for 2021. The other newcomer to the range is a model with strong couple appeal. That’s the 875 Xcel, with a transverse island bed and rear shower room.

Xcel is Coachman’s designation for eight-foot width. This company now makes six max-width tourers. Three are in the flagship Laser range and a further three are in the Acadia range.

The new, big, family-friendly Acadia Xcel 830 is an extraordinary caravan, as we discovered during a day at Glossop Caravans.

Many layouts broadly conform to patterns. This one, though, is out there on its own; an amalgam of elements that are proven to work well, brought together to create what we consider to be a fabulous family offering.

So, what are those elements? A generously proportioned kitchen, an L-shaped lounge with lots of floor space, a central dining area, bunk beds and a rear shower room that runs the width of the caravan.

What makes the 830 so unusual is the position of its bunks, directly behind the central dining area. So, when it’s lights-out time for the little caravanners in the family, they’re tucked up well away from the lounge.

The dining area makes a domestic-sized single bed (1.87m by 1.03m) using the telescopic leg table as its base. The base of the lateral front settee pulls out to make a double bed.

It’s easy to see the merit of this layout in family holiday mode, with plenty of floor space in the lounge and a kitchen that’s not just ample in size, it’s positively gargantuan by caravan standards.

Its cupboard capacity is awesome. There’s a double-doored cabinet plus a drawer above it, a tall cabinet with a pull-out drawer and plenty of height to accommodate stuff like tall cereal packets, and then there’s an extra cabinet, on the fore end of the kitchen.

The wheelarch impinges on the lower shelf space here but the cupboard’s 50cm width makes up for that. Factor in four top lockers and this kitchen can safely be regarded as among the most capacious of any caravan.

Storage elsewhere is first rate, too, with six top lockers, two drawers under the wardrobe, a 65cm-wide TV cabinet in the lounge, and, of course, space under the bunks and under the two areas of seating.

The watchword of 830 storage is always going to be weight; there is so much available space that it would be easy to risk exceeding the 170kg payload margin! Happily, you can simply upgrade the MTPLM to 2,000kg, which then increases its payload margin to 350kg.

Cooking space is key in a caravan made for five appetites and, again, the 830 excels, with a split-level surface: one 92cm wide plus a lower sector, 55cm wide. The microwave is at an unusually low level, which would make extraction of hot dishes brilliantly easy even for people who are of short stature.

It’s easy to think of the 830 as a caravan of two rooms, one for lounging and the other for dining. But think again, for the lounge can also be a dining area (the table hides away in its own cabinet on the aft end of the kitchen); each generation can have its own dining area.

So, this twin-axle newcomer offers family versatility as well as a luxury feel. And it’s very much a year-round tourer, with Alde heating. Coachman is the only manufacturer to equip all of its ranges with the Alde system. 

The 830 has all of the bells and whistles you’d expect of a caravan in this price bracket. Among them is an alarm system, a full-width sunroof, and the ATC stability control system that detects the first sign of a snaking movement and corrects it by applying gentle amounts of caravan braking.

Coachman has paid attention to music, too, with a new Pioneer unit that is specifically designed for digital music – and connects to Apple or android smartphones and other devices via the USB or aux-in port. 

Thanks to: review location, Glossop Caravans