Auto-Sleeper Fairford

Berths: 4 Travel seats: 4 Base vehicle: Peugeot Boxer Extra-Long-Wheelbase Window Van Maximum weight: 3.500kg Payload: 450kg

Auto-Sleepers is just one motorhome manufacturer that sees the positives of the extra room provided by an extra-long wheelbase.

The company’s sole new model at last October’s NEC show was the Fairford, based on the extra-long-wheelbase Peugeot Boxer. The company has taken the front Pullman dinette of its Stanway model and added another lounge at the back. Auto-Sleepers has fitted the superior 150bhp Peugeot engine as standard.

The kitchen is one of the largest ever seen in a van conversion, with an enormous worktop, even if the end closest to the sliding door is clearly designed for a TV. The space underneath the end of the worktop is partly taken up with a half-height wardrobe with two access doors.

Further back in the kitchen you get a three-burner hob with Dometic extractor, a Thetford Triplex oven and grill, a Daewoo microwave and an 81-litre Thetford fridge. You also have two overhead lockers, a shelved cupboard next to the fridge, and a larger locker under the oven. But the gap between kitchen and washroom narrows to no more than 35cm at one point.

Both lounges are comfy. With the passenger seat swivelled around, there’s room up front for five. The rear lounge has two little pedestal tables. All seating positions get their own reading light.

The rear settees pull forward to make a double that’s only 1.83m by 1.25m. But it isn’t possible to move the knee rolls to the back, and you would have to remove the tabletops from their storage if you didn’t want to clout yourself at night.

As for the front bed, putting this together involves using five infill cushions. You also need to remove the cushion that lends extra support for the backrests in the daytime. So, day or night, you will always need to find somewhere to stash cushions.

Pull back the tambour washroom door and you might assume the eye-level metal rail in front of you is for storing cosmetics. Because of the curvature of the ’van, we found it virtually impossible to get anything to rest behind here. At least the sliding washbasin adds practicality as it heads left over the loo to allow more room to shower, using the tap as a showerhead

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The Fairford motorhome succeeds in squeezing in the little bit more in the kitchen and the daytime lounges, but the washroom and the beds need more thought.