Full review

If you’re looking for fixed-bed luxury and the extra tow stability of twin axles, you have a wide choice among 2013’s crop of new caravans. There are several, at not much over £22,000 – but very few have a bed aligned across, rather than down the caravan.
Swift added three twin-axle models to its ranges in January this year. One of them is the transverse-bed 645.
The advantage of aligning a bed across the width of the caravan is that it takes up less of the caravan’s length, which means more of it can be devoted to daytime area.
When you're sitting in the lounge, the 645’s bedroom looks a long way back – which is nice, because you get the feeling that there are truly two rooms here. The corridor between the two (bridged by a pleated blind) has the 175-litre fridge with separate freezer on one side; far from being an intrusive bulkhead, it nicely helps create the division between bedroom and kitchen-lounge.
The 645’s showering arrangements are to the rear of the bedroom, giving it a rather domestic en suite appeal.
 

Showering

The shower is rectangular, and sizeable; it's on the nearside. It has a trigger shower rose that enables you to simply turn the flow on and off having set the temperature, so saving water. There are two shelves for shampoo bottles and a rail across the ceiling to hang towels to dry.
Two cabinets and five shelves give more than enough accommodation for necessities. On the rear wall, alongside the washbasin, a heated towel rail (part of the Alde central heating system) keeps you toasty – but we can’t help thinking that the caravan’s designers have missed an opportunity here – had they fitted a towel rail or loop above it, that would have ensured optimum drying efficiency. There are, however two hooks and a towel loop on the reverse of the sliding door that divides the shower room from the bedroom.
 

Sleeping

At first glance you’d think this transverse bed was too short for tall caravanners – until you examine a clever mechanism that enables you to pull the bed forward, into the corridor, to extend its length to 1.85m. A section of mattress drops down under the pillows to make up the extra length. Even with the bed pulled out to its night-time length, there is enough corridor space to walk down to the loo.
The mattress is sprung, deep and feels firmly comfortable when you lie on it.
It’s a well thought-out bed arrangement. But there is one shortcoming – and it’s purely visual. The base of the bed is clad in brown plastic – and it looks unattractive, especially against the background of the Challenger’s quality woodwork and other fittings. At this price we’d have liked the bed base to be unobtrusive at the least. We know weight saving is king, and we applaud that, but the bed base detracts from the otherwise quality look. Similarly there’s a matching plastic intrusion to the dressing table base; it's part of the wheel arch housing and it looks, well, slightly ugly.
Most buyers of this model will regard the lounge as potential auxiliary sleeping accommodation.  Single beds can be made for children (up to 1.56m in height) or a double can be made up by extracting webbing-linked slats from under the two drawers in the centre.
 

Storage

Lifting the bed up is really easy. And because it's an island bed, you can get around three sides of it, making getting stuff in and out easy, too.
The lower lounge lockers have full-length drop-down doors, so pulling and pushing sleeping bags and pillows for occasional occupants of the lounge beds would ne no arduous task.
This layout has two wardrobes. The forward wardrobe has two wide drawers and a drop-down cabinet; the aft wardrobe has one cupboard with two shelves. That means a little negotiation for most couples, because the forward wardrobe is twice the width of the other.
Each person gets one over-bed locker, though – and these are the same size.
Lounge storage involves a wide locker on each side, with sections that reach forward into the body line, right to the front of the caravan alongside the sunroof. The nearside locker has metal clips for two bottles and six stemmed goblets. The offside locker contains the radio CD unit; speakers are mounted in the roof alongside the sunroof.
 

Dining

The table goes into clips on the inside of the larger wardrobe; it's easy to extract and replace. Dining for two, though, doesn’t need to involve that table, because the top of the chest of drawers extends far enough to create enough space.
 

Lounging

There isn’t enough length to lie down to relax – but that’s what the bed is for. There is, though, enough space for kicking back with your feet up and shoulders into the large squashy comfortable bolters at the fore end of the settees. Two scatter cushions help you to get cosy.
Time to appreciate the Challenger SE styling, then…  Hessian–type weave is well and truly a caravan fashion statement this year. Here it's teamed with dark brown edging on the bases of both the backrests and seat units. But it’s the curtains and cushions that grab the attention here. Big poppies, in red, brown and grey on a plan cream background look lovely and bright.
As day faded into darkness during our test we pressed the button marked “power” on the control panel above the door and the caravan flooded with light, in a specific, stylish sort of way.
Light is directed down the front of the kitchen lockers, along the ceiling from above the top lockers including those over the bed. The shower room mirror has lights built into the glass down each side. The plastic wall of the kitchen has lights built into it on each side, sending white shimmers across it. A brilliant white task light is set flush into the base of the kitchen lockers, to augment that coming from two spot down lighters in the ceiling. Five bright LED lights are set behind a white frosted plastic shade just behind the sunroof. It’s a stylish combination which gives the Challenger SE range a distinctive character.
 

Kitchen

The 645’s kitchen has two major plus-points. One is the big fridge with separate freezer (opposite the kitchen). The other is the large amount of cupboard space, with double doors and three metal basket-style shelves and loads of space beneath them.
Just in case you still want more storage opportunities, there’s a two-shelf cabinet above the TV position by the door and another one beneath it, plus a cabinet above the freezer. Two lockers flank the microwave. All top lockers have positive catches.
Cooking equipment includes a mains hotplate. For occasions when you need more surface space, there’s a hinged section that increased with width forward of the sink by 36cm, to around 76cm.
 

Towing

Our test tow started in an unusual manner. The 645 was delivered to us (by transporter) immediately after the model was launched in January, in the deep snow that covered Lincolnshire at the time. Our Kia Sorento’s four-low ratio was given some exercise as we smoothly drew the 545 onto its pitch and over a 15cm depth of snow at Woodland Waters Holiday Park as we later pulled out onto the roads. The salter vehicles had removed problems on the main roads so we were able to get the 645 up to proper speed, although sticking to four-high ratio for safety. We were careful not to give the ATC any cause to wake up – and even though road conditions meant that caution prevailed, we were able to convince ourselves that this was the easy, stable twin-axe tow that we had anticipated.