Full review

Expectations run high when a caravan marque celebrates an incredible 90 years.

And Swift marks 90 years of the Eccles name with a range of stunning cool-grey sided models.

Ours for this test was the Sterling Elite Emerald; Elite being the premium range in the Eccles family. It’s a classic, proven four-berth layout with high quality finish and lots of specification.

But manufacturer Swift has taken this range much further. Step inside and you’re in a mixture of Habitat, IKEA and cosy, practical tourer.

It’s all about colour. The woodwork is pastel-pale, accentuated with dark chocolate-coloured locker base edging. 

The worktops employ that dark brown too. The deep, dark brown theme carries on into the soft furnishings, top-edging the voile and cream fabric curtains, enhancing the settee backrests, edging the curtain ties and forming the centre panel of two-fabric button-feature cushions.

The washroom, too, gets the cool pale wood and touch of chocolate theme. It’s radical. It’s unlike anything anywhere else in caravans.

This new-for-2009 model gives you a superbly large kitchen surface with useful shelf beneath the forward end just above the drawer that sits atop the heater.

Kitchen cupboard space is a bit confined at first glance – but then cast your eyes to the offside and you’ll notice a large cupboard with a pull-out basket arrangement.

The kitchen is a winner. Large central sink (with removable drainer stored in a cupboard), more work surface than the majority of caravans – and the added bonus of the two-seater offside table to use as extra food-preparation space if you should ever need it.

Grey edging outlines the washroom door, too, all in clean-lines appeal style. Tiniest spotlights plus two mains corner lights that follow the curve of the head-locker furniture take care of the lighting.

There are no central lights – a bit of a surprise, perhaps. But there is ample lighting from the spotlights which, incidentally, use high output soft white LEDs that take less power from your battery.

Security gets the Elite touch for 2009, in the form of a high security door lock with cool-style “flip” key rather like that used on some cars, plus AL-KO Secure wheel locks, an intruder alarm – and a tracking system called HAL Locate, which Swift says is the first tracking system for the leisure industry that is Thatcham-approved.

The washroom is stark, minimalist in styling – and huge. The shower is the step-in sort. No door, just a large plastic screen and a towel-yourself-dry area within the shower itself. The wardrobe’s in here, with two useful drawers beneath it.

Carpeting is thick-pile, high-quality fawn that’s an exact match for one of the shades in the upholstery.

C

This review was first published in the February issue of Which Caravan magazine. Read about the magazine.