DETAILED REVIEW

Lunar Moonstar 570

At first glance, Lunar’s new Moonstar 570, while undeniably smart, modern-looking and one of the more cohesive-looking overcab coachbuilt bodies to have made it onto the new Fiat Ducato base, doesn’t look like a headline-grabber. It’s well-equipped, sure, and the stylish rake to the luton windows lends the motorhome a certain something, but show-stopping it ain’t.

Well, not so fast, because there’s a surprise in store inside. What at first appears to be a standard pullman dinette on the offside wall actually hides a novel secret. Remove the seat cushions, extend the backrest flap behind the driver’s seat and physically swing the entire rear-facing seat in towards the wall, then replace the seat cushions. This reveals that you can now lounge on a less rigid-looking, less space-guzzling and considerably more relaxing L-shaped settee. You get this novel innovation in the Goldstar 640 and Roadstar 726, too.

Why bother, though? The reason – apart from the obvious point of being able to convert a rather rigid pullman dinette into an altogether more relaxing and comfy lounge – is simply that without this swing-out section, you’d either have to make do with just one forward-facing travel seat (the one by the wall would have a seat base in the way) if you wanted the lounge, or considerable encroachment into the central walkway if you wanted the full two rear travel seats. With this swing-out arrangement, though, you can have your cake and eat it.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the show model (a pre-production model) had a couple of glitches with its system – not least of which was the fact that the carpet sometimes prevented the seat base from swinging all the way out to the back of the front seats, leaving the rear-facing seat looking a little crooked. The other issue concerns the sliding backrest: for some reason, it doesn’t slide all the way to the end of the walkway-side rear-facing backrest, so you can’t actually lean back on it. A longer metal track and a longer piece of wood would effectively remedy this problem, though.

Elsewhere in the 570, the kitchen is rather lacking in the worktops department (but makes up for it with a profusion of storage lockers). And the disappointingly old-fashioned-looking corner washroom is just too small for a family motorhome, and is saddled with twin shower taps in lieu of the preferable monobloc mixer to boot.

Summary
Convertible lounge is a good idea in theory, but needs a couple of minor modifications to make it work better.

Factfile
Make: Lunar
Model: Moonstar 570
Base vehicle: Fiat Ducato 130 Multijet
Price from: £32,795 on-the-road (£34,145 for the 130 Multijet)
Length: 6.25m (20ft 5in)
Width: 2.31m (7ft 6in)
Height: 2.95m (9ft 7in)
Gross vehicle weight: 3,500kg
Payload: N/A
Berths: 2