Full review

The Knaus Südwind Exclusvie 590 UK layout is like nothing else in Britain. It’s a seven-berth caravan with two bunks, a double bed and a third bunk above the bed, all in one bedroom at the rear.

What also makes the Südwind Exclusive 590 special is its dimensions and weight. This is a maximum-width caravan, at 2.5m, which makes the quadruple bed layout possible, complete with a good-sized corridor between the double bed and the bunks. It’s 8m long, yet its MTPLM is only 1600kg.

And there’s more. This caravan has an internal water tank as standard, with a level indicator on a control panel beside the door. The model we reviewed also has Alde heating; that’s an option, though; if you opt for Truma heating, your 590 will cost £1499 less.

Knaus caravans are made in southern Bavaria. The company has been making caravans for 56 years, yet until 2016 Knaus models haven’t arrived in Britain in significant numbers. Now, though, Knaus has decided that the British market is ready for layouts and styling incomparable with British-made caravans.

One of the retailers stocking the Knaus range is Barnsdale Leisure, close to the A1 and M62 in Yorkshire, who loaned us the first Südwind 590 to arrive in Britain. We met up with the 590, and Barnsdale Leisure founders Samantha and Charles Scofield, at Rudding Holiday Park, just outside Harrogate, hooked the Südwind onto our Ssangyong and set off to assess the road manners of the caravan, of which more later.

The 590 is a very spacious caravan, with a big U-shaped lounge, vast floor space in the centre around the kitchen, and a lovely big bedroom. Everywhere you look, quality and robustness is obvious. Furniture is chunky. Doors close with a resounding clunk. Every component feels solid. Typical of German engineering, one might say. And this caravan has a character and a lot of fine detail to make it stylish. It seems to be good at everything it aims for, and that’s to please a family of up to seven, with oodles of space in all areas. Except one…
 

Showering

In typical continental style, the 590 doesn’t have a separate shower. The toilet-basin-shower room is beautifully designed, though, with a curtain to completely surround the shower tray and protect the generous array of shelves and two cabinets from a douching up to seven times a day. You can’t escape having to dry the shower tray, though, which could be a bit of a pest. But then that’s a reason to opt for campsite showers. The shower rose forms part of the tap assembly; the tap spigot extends on a flexible hose to be used as a shower rose and clips into a fitting in the ceiling. It’s a clever little arrangement that helps to keep everything neat in the little room.

Sleeping

The double bed is an ample 1.92m long and 1.34m wide, with only a slight corner cut-off. The bunks are 70cm wide, and a staggering 1.97m long, again with only a small cut-away section of create the corridor. There’s a built-in wooden ladder at the end of the bunk stack; it’s so well integrated with the bunk structure that it’s hardly noticeable.

The mattresses are foam, and feel soft and yielding. These mattresses might be too soft for people who prefer their beds firm; they feel cosily comfortable, in a sink-into sort of way.

Having bunks and a double in one “bedroom” is ingenious, and unique to this model. And there’s another surprise in this bedroom. Four lockers above the double bed have a dual function. You can store stuff here. Or you can turn them into a third bunk. The locker fascia hinges down to form the base of the bunk, and is held in place by straps that clip to fasteners in the ceiling. The mattress is hidden away within the locker. If you aren’t using this seventh berth, you can leave the mattress at home and use the lockers for storing stuff. Clever!

At the front, the beautifully engineered, exceptionally sturdy monopod table descends to half its table height with the flick of a lever, to form the centre of the double bed base. The bed is 2.17m long and 1.37m wide.

Storage

Five top lockers surround the lounge. Plenty of storage space is of course under the seating here. And there’s a surprise. Instead of having to raise upholstery and then seat bases, the upholstery and base is all one unit, so it’s incomparably easy to lift. There are no supporting hinges, though, but the seating sections are so light that they’re not really needed. A brilliant design!

Vast storage opportunities are under the fixed double bed and lower bunk, of course. And it’s all easy to access. The bed base is made in two sections; the half nearest to the corridor raises and you can reach into the whole area from here. Far corners can be reached easily by standing in the under-bed storage area. The 45-litre water tank is under here but there’s so much space that you won’t miss the little space that it occupies.

The wardrobe is 62cm wide. This caravan’s wardrobe credentials are exceptional, though, because there is another clothes hanging space, specifically designed for coats, right beside the door. And below, another fantastic attribute: a two-shelf cabinet that would be the ideal place to put shoes as you step inside. The 590 is full of splendid features.

Dining

There’s enough seating space for seven around the table, assuming some of the seven are little ones of course. Seven place-settings would be a bit of a squash on the table, though.

Lounging

As we sit over laptops cocooned in the warmth of Alde heating we decide that family evenings around the table would be delightfully cosy. There’s a place for a television on a shelf just across the corridor; power, satellite, aerial and even DVD connections are here. But Knaus caravans don’t come with aerials. Retailers can fit them, though; Barnsdale Leisure, for example, charges £200.

Kitchen

There is a phenomenal amount of storage space in and around the kitchen. In the main kitchen area there’s a three-shelf cabinet which is 53cm wide, plus a 50cm wide, 38cm deep cutlery drawer and a lower drawer of the same with but less depth, at 28cm.

Opposite, below the fridge, is a 53cm-wide cupboard. The lower shelf area is occupied by the battery, though, but that doesn’t matter, because there is so much storage space elsewhere, including a cabinet above the fridge, and two top lockers over the kitchen.

The 590 has a three-burner, in-line hob. There’s no microwave. The oven and grill are one neat unit, made by SMEV.

The kitchen is 1.31m long, with surface space in front of and to the left of the hob and around the (stylish, circular, gleaming metal) sink. There’s also a small raised area to the right of the sink. A mains socket is just under this area. That’s one of four in the caravan.

At first glance you might say there’s not a lot of surface space for feeding up to seven. But this is a well-designed kitchen, with lots of little areas around the appliances; we think it would work well, using the table to set out the plates and put food on them there, rather than in the kitchen.

Towing

The 590 felt great behind our SsangYong Rexton. On the slight hills of the region of Yorkshire in which we did the review the 590 presented minimal power drain on our 2-litre engine and it felt well balanced. Its typically continental long drawbar helps stability, of course.

Our return to Rudding Park, though, presented an unscheduled test of this long single-axle caravan’s on-car manoeuvrability characteristics (and your tester’s reversing skills). I took a wrong turning on the park, and ended up amid statics, lodges and roads not designed for tourers. Reversing some distance around corners and hedges, I am happy to report that this big caravan was really responsive on accurate manoeuvring. As good as any I’ve towed.