Full review

THE Rimor Superbrig 699 Living – an imposing addition to this staple brand range that takes the end lounge philosophy so seriously that it forgoes the usual AL-KO rear chassis extension in favour of a top-flight double rear-wheel Transit chassis, complete with rear-wheel drive.

There’s no doubt that the 699 is quite a looker, with the traditional white and blue markings allied to an unusually muscular-looking body that, when viewed in tandem with the equally butch-looking twin-rear-wheel chassis, gives it the appearance of a motorhome that could go anywhere.

The flush-fit windows add an air of quality, too, while the unusual sight of a window sunk into the leading face of the overcab moulding somehow manages to look at once pleasingly avant-garde and charmingly retro.

Certainly, Rimor must be very sure of its latest models’ resistance to the dreaded water ingress to have gone down this route.

Once pitched up, the 699’s owners climb into the habitation area via the lounge, which comprises, perhaps surprisingly, nothing more than a pullman dinette. As previously mentioned, the cab seats play no part in the lounge make-up, and the area opposite in which you might have expected to find an inward facing seat is actually filled with the 150-litre AES fridge/freezer and small eye-level TV station.

Then, you remember that the 699’s true lounge is actually slung way out back; undoubtedly, most families will use the forward living area more as a place to eat than as a place to relax.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that the pullman area sports a full quartet of travel seats, although the fact that the rear-facing seats are equipped only with lap-belts, and not the proper three-point belts fitted to the forward-facing examples, is a little disappointing.

The in-line kitchen area lies just aft of the habitation entrance door, and it would take the grumpiest of Gordon Ramsays to take a look at the domestic-style Smev cooker (complete with spark ignition and an in-built oven/grill unit), extractor fan, huge sink unit and extra-generous levels of worktop space and feel short-changed.

There are lockers and drawers galore in which to stow all those ingredients, although it’s true that the remote-located fridge/freezer would possibly feel just a bit too remote if a certain recipe required repeated forages therein, but this really is nit-picking territory.

Given the king-sized nature of both the forward lounge and kitchen areas, you could, perhaps, be forgiven for imagining that the centre washroom is going to be rather pokey.

Somehow, though, Rimor have managed to squeeze, not just a decent-sized toilet/washbasin area, but also a proper-sized fully separate shower cubicle into the available space.

Full-height shower doors in place of the three-quarter height examples actually fitted would have been a further improvement, but there’s a decent amount of cupboard space, and the opaque plexi-glass roof locker doors and huge window lend the room a welcome feeling of airiness.

And so to the 699’s true raison d’être: its rear lounge. It’s probably fair to say that we’ve yet to see many convincing Euro-designed end lounges, simply because most have tended to comprise little more than re-engineered existing end-bedroom models.

The bad news is that the Rimor’s end lounge isn’t perfect, either. The lighting arrangements are curiously one-sided and the settees are slightly unequal in length, but there’s little else to complain about back there.

Access and egress is straightforward, the windows are nice and big to make the most of those 180-degree views of Lake Garda, and there’s plenty of locker space. It’s mighty impressive.

Bed make-up is simple, too (although maximising the available inches does mean you’re left with a job lot of loose seat backs to find homes for) and this would be a good area for mum and dad to sleep in, as the kids could retire earlier in one of the front beds, leaving the adults to their Shiraz and John Grishams out back.

Incidentally, the overcab bed’s unusual front-mounted window has an added bonus: only one side window is required – at the opposite end of the bedroom to the reading lights and open-fronted storage.

This is the most successful attempt yet by a continental manufacturer to build a rear-lounge motorhome, and this is almost certainly because the 699 was designed as such from the outset, and not merely hacked about from an existing end-bed model. It has a well-equipped cab, huge kitchen and washroom and space enough for six. In fact, if we didn’t know better, we’d suspect that the design team from Rimor had been over to the NEC with their own tape-measures...

A full version of this review first appeared in the July 2008 issue of Which Motorcaravan. To subscribe to the magazine, click here.