Full review

TRIGANO puts its new four-model Tribute range on the latest 2.2-litre Ford Transit base; it’s the first European motorhome range to use this vehicle, which has been specifically designed for motorhome use.

This Transit has been honed with stability and road handling in mind – and, on our brief test around some winding, narrow north Lincolnshire lanes around our campsite location at North Somercotes, it lived up to its promises.

We’re already committed fans of Transit base units – and this latest version, with its slightly wider track seems somehow slightly more taut and stable.

The Tribute range’s defining characteristic is its bright, modern look. Pale cream, flat-fronted locker doors increase head-space illusion, LED light piping set into the cream ceiling enhances the bright appeal further, as does pale cream and grey-fawn settee fabric.

It’s a shade IKEA in appeal, plain but with enough pattern to make it interesting. Curtains are hessian-look weave in brown and the carpet, in two sections that can be easily removed and rolled up, is plain cream. The whole look is bright and refreshing.

Looks count, of course, but it’s the liveability that counts more about a motorhome,. Especially a smallish one.

By day you have a four-seater table (the forward facing seats are belted), and, on the nearside, a long settee. It’s a proven layout that has been used by other manufacturers, with over-cab double bed plus a double bed making in the lounge.

The advantage is in its versatility. With five aboard you have two doubles and a single bed. With four you have two doubles and a permanent settee.

With three to accommodate you can leave the dining area in daytime mode. And if you want to make the dining area double bed wider, cleverly-designed extensions come out on hinges into the corridor.

Kitchen capability is amazingly comprehensive considering that the overall length of this Tribute is a mere 6.24 metres. In addition to the two head-height lockers, which are both fitted for tableware, you have a large double-doored cupboard and a second deep cupboard under the oven.

Worktop arrangements centre around a glass-lidded triangular sink and three-burner hob which, by reason of their shape, create a large food preparation are in the centre. The surface adds to the clean-lines IKEA image; it’s dark granite-effect, with a depth similar to that which you’d find in a house kitchen.

And there’s a very practical, praiseworthy surprise in the kitchen: two mains socket set into the back of the worktop, right where you need them for a kettle and a toaster. The oven and the grill are one unit, which gives space for that deep cupboard underneath.

But the kitchen doesn’t stop there. On the forward side of the habitation door is the Dometic 77-litre fridge with more of that dark grey granite worktop above it, to provide additional kitchen space or a position for a television; connectivity is provided here.

Beside the door is a useful – and good-looking – unit which gives you three recessed shelves, deep enough to enable you to keep small items here on the move. There’s also a meshed magazine store in this area.

But, well-specified as this unit is, there is one aspect of its equipment that disappointed us. Heating is reliant on gas; the Truma unit does not operate on mains electricity.

There’s no blown air – which, in a unit of this small size, you’d never miss, as warm air would circulate quickly. But in winter, with 24-hour heating needs, you’d soon run out of gas, which the resultant inconvenience there to irritate you.

An £499 option pack buys you mains heating, cab blinds, a TV aerial and two cushions. For our money, given that you get silver insulating screens as standard, Tribute would have beet better to simply offer the mains heating option and the TV aerial. That apart, this Tribute is an excellently-equipped unit.

And there are more surprises in terms of its facilities. Amazingly, in a motorhome of only 6.24 metres in length, the T-620 has a separate, walk-in shower.

The little room is a real Tardis, with ample dressing space in front of the large mirror that gives you a top-to-toe view.

Tribute tells us that one of its female members of staff had an influence over the design of this motorhome – and at her insistence there is a mains socket within reach of this shower room mirror, for the use of hair straighteners and drier; even though you have to stretch the lead across the corridor, at least the facility is available.

It’s another pointer to the comprehensivity of this motorhome for the money. An additional minor quality feature you’ll notice is that all the head locker doors have hefty metal hinges and very positive catches.

Verdict
For not much over £30,000 the T-620 gives a family light, bright, crisply-modern holiday accommodation in a size that’s not hard to park and a weight that doesn’t exceed 3500kg so can be driven on a post-1997 licence.

Add to all that the high quality of fittings that’s evident everywhere you look and you’ve got to regard this newcomer as among Britain’s brightest budget family motorhomes.

This review was first published in Go Motorhome magazine.