Danbury Royale campervan (2011)

PROBABLY best known for their conversions on the 1970s-style Type 2 VWs, imported from South America, Danbury have slowly built up a range of motorhomes built on modern base vehicles.

From their impressive factory near Bristol, the company now also builds van conversions on the VW T5, Fiat Doblo, Fiat Scudo and Renault Master.

This Royale Volkswagen T5 conversion is available in both high-top and elevating-roof versions and with a couple of different interior seating layouts. If you opt for the version with a pair of single forward-facing seats in the rear, then you can carry a total of four people, since both these seats come with three-point seatbelts. At night, these seats convert to form two single beds.

The model we tested features an inward-facing settee on the offside, with a single forward-facing seat opposite. The single seat has a three-point seatbelt, allowing a total of three people to travel securely.

At night, you can convert this seating arrangement into one large double bed, or use it as two singles with a narrow gangway between. The foot of the beds is formed by infill cushions placed on the seat squabs of the swivelled cab seats.

To make up the double bed, a slide-out section under the settee fills the central aisle. This has a clever section, which slides forward on rails to fill the space between the cab seats. A drop-in panel then fills the empty section at the rear of this rail.

A pull-out section under the single nearside seat forms the other side of the double bed. After cushion juggling, the finished bed is very firm and secure.

In its daytime set-up, the front seating provides space for four to sit comfortably, using the settee, single seat and swivelled passenger cab seat. The driver’s seat also swivels, and it is needed to make up the bed, but it’s too close to the settee to provide any legroom for daytime use.

Behind the seating is an impressive kitchen area, with sink and compressor fridge in a unit on the offside, facing a larger unit on the nearside.

This comes as standard with a two-burner hob and grill, but our test ’van is fitted with the optional – rare in a VW – oven. There’s a fair amount of storage space, plus a large cutlery drawer.

A mains socket is inset flat into the worktop here (as well as a 12V socket), making this a great place to plug in a kettle or toaster, but take care not to splash water into the horizontal electric socket. Naturally space is quite tight in this galley, but the arrangement works well, with the fridge at a comfortable height. There’s no room for a draining board, so one of you will have to linger with the tea towel, while the other washes up!

Speaking of washing up, the Royale comes with a cold water system as standard, with underfloor insulated fresh and waste water tanks. For hot water, a Webasto diesel-powered system is available for an extra £999 and this also provides blown-air heating (Webasto heating without hot water costs £899).

You’d probably only choose the hot water option if you were also taking up the extra-cost option of a shower and washbasin in the rear washroom compartment.

Our test vehicle is only fitted with the standard cassette toilet, but high-top Royales are also available with an inset shower tray and flip-up washbasin.

We saw one of these full-washroom examples being built in the factory and it’s a neat design, which puts the Royale head-to-head with the (pricier) Auto-Sleeper Topaz.

A wardrobe in the washroom is of a fair size for a campervan and the electrical control boxes are mounted on its rear wall, for easy access – providing you don’t pack too many clothes.

The leisure battery is mounted in a box at the foot of the wardrobe, while there’s space for a small 2.72kg gas cylinder in a metal storage box under the single seat at the front of the ’van. Bearing in mind you’ll only be using this gas for cooking (since the fridge is electric only and the optional heating would be diesel-powered), the lack of gas capacity shouldn’t be a problem, though there’s no space for a spare cylinder.

There’s plenty of scope to upgrade your Royale, with both free-standing and wind-out awnings available, plus interior options such as a flatscreen TV and aerial package. You can also add a fold-down roof bed to increase sleeping capacity, in both the high-top and elevating roof versions.

The T5 base vehicle is to ‘motorhome specification’, meaning that VW supply it to Danbury with colour-coded bumpers and features such as electric cab windows and door mirrors as standard, making for a luxurious driving environment.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-drive VW van conversion that manages to squeeze in most of the features of a larger coachbuilt, such as a separate washroom, then the Royale is worth considering.

Build-quality is good and the front seating area stands out as being both versatile and solidly constructed.

With a good-to-drive VW T5 with the convenience of a high-top roof and a rear washroom, the Danbury Royale is a capable vehicle. But it’s only a two-berth and has three travel seats.