Full review

THE Autocruise brand continues to grow apace with the introduction of a new (and slightly controversial) take on a familiar name.

It’s an immutable truism that you cannot truly know a motorhome’s innate strengths and weaknesses until you’ve spent a day or two actually living in the thing.

It’s as I’m about to commit the view forward from the lounge to memory card that a circuit is suddenly completed in my head; I’ve been here before.

One of my first-ever Which Motorcaravan (as it was then known) comparison tests was back in our March 2007 issue between an Auto-Sleeper Ascot and an Autocruise Starspirit.

Plenty has changed since then (not least in terms of who actually owns the company), but the basic elements remain broadly the same: Peugeot base vehicle, U-shaped rear lounge, nearside kitchen (L-shaped back then) and washroom opposite. Basking in the warm glow of an unexpected stroll down memory lane, I set to work.

All very impressive, then, but no more than you’d expect of a true, blue-blooded Autocruise? Well, true as that may be, the Starspirit is actually a bit of a sleeper with a naughty secret – peel away the silver exterior jewellery and replace the high-quality interior cabinetry with something a little less whizz-bang, and what you’re left with is a Swift Sundance 580PR, much the same as the one we tested back in the May 2010 issue...



A full version of this new motorhome review is published in the February issue of Which Motorhome magazine. Read it online by clicking here.