Full review

IT’S inside where Auto-Sleepers have done the most work with Nuevo II EL.

Where standard Nuevos sport reassuringly familiar double-curvature cabinetry, finished in a modern light hue, Nuevo II warrants the flat-plane and darker Amati furniture that features in the bigger Broadway.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it has the twin effects of making the EL feel more grown up, as well as factoring in a more expensive-looking ambience. The new wood is of no higher a grade than the standard model’s cabinetry, but as Auto-Sleepers have always used top-grade furniture in their motorhomes, this is hardly a criticism.

In layout terms, the EL comprises a parallel lounge out back, central kitchen area with the washroom and wardrobe opposite, and a pair of swivel cab seats.

The end lounge is this motorhome’s key selling point, of course, and in isolation, it’s pretty good, not least in light of the optional flatscreen TV (which materialises out of the stand-alone locker above the rear window for ultimate ease of watching) and the surrounding large windows dressed with top-grade pleated blinds.

And yet… whereas in bigger motorhomes that employ this sort of layout, it tends to work quite well, the EL’s twin settees feel a bit regimented, and somewhat segregated from the rest of the vehicle.

If you’re simply lounging about, and not cooking or visiting the washroom, it feels almost as though you’ve been painted into a corner and aren’t making use of the whole interior.

Sure, you can occupy one of the cab seats (both of which swivel, even if movement in the driver’s seat is restricted by the presence of the adjacent washroom wall), and having a small occasional table to bear up here for when you just want a light lunch and don’t want to wrestle with the main folding table, is unquestionably a good idea.

But if one of you is reading up front and the other reclined out back it would all feel a bit anti-social. For my part, I can’t think why you’d opt for this layout over that of the more sociable and encompassing EK.

If there’s one upside to this lounge design, it’s that it makes up quickly and easily into a good-sized (6ft 11in by 4ft 2in) double, although the EK once again holds the ace card by offering a pair of single beds as well as a (slightly larger) double.

Kitchen-wise, there are curious detail differences between the two Nuevo II siblings: where the EK uses Spinflo’s excellent Caprice Mk III domestic-style dual-fuel cooker, for instance, the EL makes do with a more basic separate four-burner hob (no electric hotplate) and a combined spark-ignition oven/grill, whose door opens then slides away to allow through-passage.

The sink, too, while slightly bigger than the EK’s, employs a lift-out plastic drainer where the EK sticks with a fixed linen-effect affair.

You do, however, get a slightly bigger (at 88 litres in capacity) fridge with in-built freezer, and the same handy microwave oven.

The washroom is to Auto-Sleepers’ current standard example, with pleasant warm yellow wall coverings breaking up the previous all-white chill and a swing-wall arrangement opening up a surprisingly accommodating semi-separate shower area.

There’s a handy little storage locker on the forward wall, which bolsters the otherwise rather meagre provision on this front.

The toilet is the older-style Thetford C-200, but as this is a more slimline affair than the bulkier new C-250, this isn’t necessarily a criticism when space is at a premium.

You will, however, have to carry the full cassette to the emptying point, where the later model’s cassette is wheeled.

So, something of a lukewarm reaction to the new EL layout. I’m not exactly hostile to this newcomer to the Nuevo ranks, I am slightly confused by it. I just don’t see why you’d buy the EL over and above the EK.

I’m usually a big, card-carrying fan of end-lounge motorhomes, and I imagine that the EL will find its niche among like-minded customers who don’t want anything longer than 20ft on their driveway (though they could choose the high-top Warwick or Warwick Duo instead).

And the fact remains that the EL’s lounge (which is meant to be the heart and soul of a motorhome) feels cut-off from the rest of the vehicle. Worse, you feel like you’re not really using all of the available interior space, most of the time.

Certainly, if you like to entertain while on-site, you’d be much better off with the EK. It might have an older-style heating/boiler system, but on pretty much every other level, it’s the better motorhome by far – and it’s the same price to boot.

A full version of this review first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Which Motorcaravan. To order a road test reprint tel: 01778 391187. To find out more about the magazine click here.