Full review

Six of the eight ‘vans in Tribute’s 2016 range are coachbuilts built by Auto-Trail at its Grimsby factory. The new T-736 is squarely aimed at family motorhoming, offering six berths and an optional two extra rear seatbelts, making six in all. It’s the largest model in the range, too.

Tribute is an entry-level brand, but this motorhome doesn’t immediately show its budget nature.

The interior design here is perfectly predictable. There’s a larger than normal front lounge/diner, plus a centre kitchen and bathroom, with a compact U-shaped lounge in the rear. But up front there are choices.

The first option is the overcab: the Hi-Line provides a double bed, or the Lo-Line has extra lockers.

More choices come in the lounge, where the standard L-shaped offering can be replaced by a no-extra-cost pullman dinette. £550 adds the extra rear-facing travel seats, but only with a chassis upgrade to 3,650kg.

The omnipresent Fiat was recently facelifted and looks sharper on the outside – new nose with much improved ‘face’. Central locking and electric windows are standard and, surprisingly, so is a reversing camera, with an interior mirror-replacing monitor. You’ll need to buy the Driver’s Pack (£1,499) to get electric mirrors, but we can’t see Auto-Trail building any Tributes without the Pack as it also includes an essential passenger airbag. It’s another case of a ’van that’s 1,500-quid dearer than it first appears.

The chassis handled the less-than-perfect road well. Conversion noise seemed confined to some kitchen tinware, while the rest was reasonably hushed and felt solid. With a full complement of six, an engine upgrade would be wise. The 148bhp option seems a good choice – plenty more oomph, and for a sensible amount of cash.

The standard layout consists of an L-shaped seating group up front, so replacing it with a pullman dinette muddies the waters somewhat. It’s pretty good seating for seven, too, but dining is practical for just four. Diners five and six get their own intimate table in the rear lounge, one of whose sofas provides just 0.70m of sitting width.

This cosy corner is most likely to serve as mum and dad’s haven, as they can settle down in the transverse double bed this lounge becomes. There’s no bedroom privacy screen fitted, but there is a set of TV-serving sockets here and the top of the adjacent table locker makes a handy shelf.

The kitchen is as compact as in many ‘vans with this layout, although it’s further back than many. Fitted equipment follows British lines. There’s plenty of it – some unexpected in an entry-level ’van – and most is useful. The super stainless-steel microwave catches the eye. The cooker is Thetford’s half-height Triplex. The oven/grill is big enough and works well, the hob has three burners and one of them is a high-speed job. The sink is a designer item, mounted sideways. I’d rather see a conventional sink with drainer, which might fit in the same space.

But there ain’t too much storage. The less-than-large stove allows a decent cupboard below. There’s another deep-and-slim cupboard between the cooker and fridge and, above, a tiny cutlery drawer. With just one overhead locker, kitchen stuff will always have to migrate into the dinette lockers. But I’d like to see just one decent drawer. The fridge, also, is small for family use. And there are no ceiling-mounted lights, so the aisle is dark. Result, I needed my head torch to see into the oven and cupboards.

The bathroom has a practical basin, and the Thetford C260 toilet has a niff-busting ventilation fan built in and it’s set at a comfortable height. There’s an obscured opening window too – with no flyscreen - and good ventilation. The separate shower is roomy and has a rigid door, but storage is a tad sparse.

Six berths in three doubles is the bedtime menu and all is pretty much conventional. The overcab double has a slatted base. There is no window, but there is a large rooflight.

Downstairs, the dinette becomes a double simply by lowering the table and adding a pair of infills. The result is a 5ft 5in by 3ft 5in sleeping space – so a bed for kids. In the rear, bed-making is easy, but I’d add an overlay.

Aside from the kitchen’s aisle, the lighting generally is pretty good. The fresh water tank is surprisingly generous at 135 litres. Heating and hot water are by convector and separate boiler. Both run on gas and/or mains and both do the job well enough.

Aside from plenty of overhead lockers, and a generous wardrobe, there are roomy stowage spaces beneath all the seating. At the rear there are good-sized external locker doors, one on either side. Access can be had through the tops of the seats, but only the front lounge’s side seat has a hinged, gas-strut-assisted top: the rest are loose.

This is an abridged version of the full review appearing in the March 2016 issue of What Motorhome.