Auto-Sleepers Fairford campervan

Berths: 4 Travel seats: 4 Base vehicle: Peugeot Boxer Gross weight: 3,500kg Payload: 424kg

Auto-Sleepers’ range of van conversions are distinctive, all based on Peugeot’s Boxer and featuring darkened, athermic, single-glazed windows running along each side. With characteristic decals, colour-coded door handles and front bumpers, there’s no doubt all seven models make glamorous motorhomes.

Starting at £54,700, the Fairford competes at the higher end of the market, along with its siblings, the Kemerton XL, Warwick XL and Kingham. However, no one is likely to buy one in ‘basic’ trim as the Premium Pack, at £2,500, is a no-brainer. This offers alloy wheels, Al-Ko Air Top suspension, cab air-con, cruise control, awning, colour reversing camera, Garmin sat-nav, a solar panel and leather wheel and gear knob. Then there’s a £295 Winter Pack, which is also pretty essential, upgrading the Truma Combi heater to 6kW dual-fuel, providing Remis cab blinds instead of curtains, water tank heater blankets and insulation to pipes and wheelarches.

Access is easy thanks to an automatically retracting step and plenty of room, despite the long kitchen extending partway across the door. Opposite, the dinette contains two forward-facing travel seats, behind which comes the washroom, then, at the rear, is the second lounge. Furniture here is in new pale grey Limewash but a more traditional oak is also available.

The front lounge seats five at a pinch, with one on the swivelled front passenger seat (which sits higher and away from the table) and four in the dinette, around the large wall-mounted table. The driver’s seat doesn’t turn; instead, it forms a comfortable backrest for one person on the rearward-facing settee, the other person will need to support him or herself. The opposite seat, with seatbelts, has a removable lumber support Velcro’d to the upright backrest (necessary for comfort) but, when in place, it does make the seat squab short at 36cm deep.

The rear lounge is more comfortable with two, four-foot-long settees and shaped backrests. Well-appointed, with another television point, reading lights in each corner, sockets and extra audio speakers, it’s much cosier than the front lounge, with the option of opening the rear doors on a sunny day and watching the world go by. Two small pole-mounted tables are provided, the tops storing in recesses behind the seat backs, and though we’ve seen this system work well when the tabletops meet to make a large surface, here they remain separate.

The kitchen worktop is notably large and practical, although we felt the the current en vogue plastic drainer tray and a dinky cutlery rack clipped onto the raised glass sink lid are not as good as the traditional draining board of old – how fashions change. Well away from the sink, right up against the rear lounge, the Thetford Triplex cooker has a three-gas burner hob under a glass lid (rattly when driving but easily muffled by a tea-towel), with integral oven/grill. There’s an extractor above the hob and a microwave atop that. Then over all this, there’s an open shelf that will probably get minimal use as it is high. Under the worktop, the 81-litre, three-way AES fridge, with freezer compartment, is the minimum capacity we would expect in a modern luxury motorhome.

Opposite the kitchen, behind a tambour door, is the washroom. It’s quite roomy and stylish in here, with Thetford’s new 223 swivel loo to the left (set on a plinth so, if you’re considering this model, sit on it to ensure its height suits you), and a washbasin straight ahead. Unusually, the basin slides sideways along a rail and, when showering, is parked out of the way. Because it moves, the washbasin doesn’t have a tap and instead the shower head is used, so there are two brackets: one high to the right, one low to the left.

For those of us of average or below-average height, the rear lounge bed will suit just fine, as the settee bases pull together forming a transverse double bed measuring 1.85m by 1.25m. The metal bosses of the two stored tabletops do intrude slightly in the middle of the bed-ends, but shouldn’t be a problem, and a mattress topper would cover any joins in the cushions. We imagine many Fairford owners would leave this bed made up semi-permanently, using the front dinette as their lounge.

The front bed is more complex, involving eight cushions, five of which relate only to the bed and are therefore stored in the overcab, under the rear nearside settee and under the front dinette bench. Extended to full width, this bed completely fills the front of the ’van and measures 1.90m by 1.34m. If a small grandchild or two were visiting, using it as a three-quarter bed at 89cm wide would make sense and this would provide easier washroom access. 

If you enjoyed this review, you can read the full version and more in the August 2018 issue of MMM magazine. You can get a digital version of this latest issue of MMM magazine here.

Here’s a relatively rare but popular twin-lounge layout in a panel van conversion that is well equipped and well finished. It’s capable of carrying four people, but the extra cushions required for the complex front bed take up valuable storage space. The Fairford is probably best enjoyed by a couple, with occasional visitors – a true two-plus-two.