Full review

The Lunar Quasar 586 is proof that accommodating six in a caravan doesn’t mean you have to go for something large or heavy in order to get the number of beds you need. This is among Britain’s lightest six-berth options.

It has a brilliantly-designed layout, with bunks for four (two fixed and two more to create from a dining area) and a long lounge capable of making two single beds or a double.

Quasar styling for 2016 is amazing; a combination of plain grey upholstery and shiny mint-green curtains elevates this range of caravans far above the preponderance of fawns and creams that are in fashion right now. And there’s a fabric surprise. The cushions are upholstered in material that pays homage to the diminishing art of postcard-writing. Ancient postcards from around the world are pictured on the fabric; they offer a fascinating glimpse into a bygone world of global travel when communication involved a fountain pen and handwriting was an art.

Among the notable equipment changes for the current model year is that Quasars get an enhancement to their Truma blown air central heating system.

Called Isotherm, the new addition to the system features ducting behind the seat backs, sending warmed air upwards through tiny apertures; it’s designed to improve evenness of heat distribution. And it works well. The Quasar’s 4kw Truma Combi heating system is known for its rapid warm-up time, especially when used on both gas and electric power. And on the winter day of our review the 586 was nicely warm within just a few minutes, using the system just on 2kw mains power. When we came to sit in the lounge, only 10 minutes after we had switched on the heating, the heat rising from behind the backrests was already discernible.

The 586’s layout is a clever concoction of lots of beds, lots of seating – and a good-sized shower room. The keeping-clean department is in the offside corner, and it’s much larger than you’d imagine before you open the door…
 

Showering

The shower is circular, and plenty large enough, at 68cm in diameter. Importantly, there’s enough floor space for a parent to organise the showering and towelling routines of at least one little caravanner here.

Five small shelves for shampoos are built into the structure of the shower walls; that’s a real plus-point. There’s a towel loop plus a double hook; that’s accommodation for three towels but, with six on board, there are likely to be more than three towels hanging to dry. A couple more hooks would be useful; most caravan dealers can sort this out.

We love the big, deep, oval washbasins in this year’s Quasars. Their size gets our praise in terms of practicality and the style is superbly modern.

Sleeping

The bunks beds are 63cm wide and 1.76m long. The bunks that you can make in the dining “room” are 10cm longer, at 1.83m, and 56m wide. Each fixed bunk has its own curtain and bright light on a directionally-changeable stalk. The curtain for the dining area “bedroom” has an impressively neat hide-away arrangement; its track takes it into its own cabinet that forms part of the wall dividing the lounge from the dining area.

The settees are amply long enough to use as single beds, at 1.86m. When you make up the double bed, the centre of the base is formed by a series of slats, linked by webbing, which draws out from under the chest of drawers.

Storage

With two long settees (each with full-length front doors) and two dining seats, plus a large area beneath the bunks, there’s plenty of lower storage space for the needs of six. There are three ways to get into the space under the lower bunk. You can raise the bunk; it’s self-supporting, on two springe hinges. You can open the door in the base. Or you can put stuff in through the exterior hatch. Brilliant!

Quasars have head-height lockers all around the lounge; that amounts to six. The four at the sides have shelves; the front ones reach 38cm into the front wall of the caravan. In total, there’s superb accommodation here.

The wardrobe offers 54cm of hanging width. Two drawers and a drop-down-front cupboard are beneath it. In total, the 586’s storage capability is ample to enable you to keep the caravan tidy, which is sometimes a challenge when there are lots of people with lots of equipment.

Dining

The versatile dining arrangements will suit pretty much all family needs. Two can dine on their own (kids love their own space!) with four at the main table, or everyone can dine together; the settees are long enough for three to sit on each. And if you want more space than the table provides, you can pull out the chest-of-drawers unit extension, too.

The table stores away in its own compartment inside the kitchen cabinet. It secures in place with a strap and press-stud plus a turn-button, it’s a big fiddly to reinsert; you have to keep hold of the strap and press-stud, otherwise it disappears inside as you push the table into place.

Lounging

Lunar is good on styling. And often very inventive. Take the bright blue lights set into the grab handles on Clubman and Delta models, for example; no other feature makes a caravan range stand out on campsites like this. And the limited editin Saros range, which appeared in 2014, with a number of awesome style features including a long skylight, the first of its type to appear anywhere. Now, for 2016, that feature is in Quasars. It’s amazing, giving the lounge so much daylight.

Four big bolster-style armrests and two cushions guarantee lounge cosiness. Your TV can be mounted on the bracket fixed to the lounge-dining area dividing wall. As an alternative to facing the lounge, the bracket can be angled towards the back of the caravan, enabling TV to be watched from the bunks.

Kitchen

Analysis of a six-berth caravan has to involve very close scrutiny of the kitchen. Is it up to its six-plates task? Well, the answer has to be “yes”. The surface is long enough, at just over a metre. The sink is big enough, at 36cm in diameter, to make washing-up easy (that’s assuming you don’t send the young ones to the campsite washing-up facilities, of course!). Storage comes in the form of two top cabinets, a lower cupboard containing a cutlery drawer, plus a three-shelf unit in the room divider opposite. While this doesn’t amount to over-generous space, there is enough for the culinary needs of six.

Quasars have full-sized ovens and grills, plus a microwave. And you have the option of preserving your gas supply by cooking some stuff on the mains hotplate, or of course in the microwave.

Towing

Our motorway-plus-narrow-lanes test tow route demonstrated the 586’s characteristics as a predictably solid performer, albeit behind our hefty SsangYong Rexton; this lightweight tourer would be just as well-behaved behind much smaller cars than this. We’d go for the ATC option if we were buying a 586, though, just for extra peace of mind.