WildAx Pulsar

Berths: 4 Travel seats: 4 Base vehicle: Citroen Relay SWB panel van Maximum weight: 3,300kg Payload: 400kg

WildAx Motorhomes’ latest conversion aims to get four berths, plus a full kitchen and a washroom with permanently sited toilet, into a panel van (with elevating roof) that is no more than 5m in length. Does it all work?

To start with, the company has based its conversion on a short-wheelbase Citroën Relay. The spare wheel hangs at the back because the Pulsar includes winterised fresh water and waste water tanks and a 20-litre refillable LPG tank as standard.

You don’t think you are driving a car with the Relay, but then you’re not harnessing a monster either, and you do get a firm ride. The cab spec could sway your thinking: there’s a DAB radio with USB, sat-nav and Bluetooth connection, plus a passenger airbag, as standard.

The two rear travel seats both fold down on site, so that with an extra backrest cushion you can turn either one into a settee.

The two pole-mounted tables can be installed in three different positions. They sit together to make a small dining table.

The Pulsar’s offside rear kitchen includes a Thetford Triplex three-burner hob with combined oven and grill and a large amount of workspace, while the draining rack folds away underneath the sink cover. Storage is adequate, too.

Surprisingly, there is a full washroom in this compact ‘van. It’s never going to be capacious, but it does have an easier-to-clean ceramic bowl toilet and a solid GRP floor. Tip up the basin and you can have a sit down shower, too - so a mirror behind the sliding tambour door would have been a bonus.

Come bedtime, if you have opted for the £995 bed in the roof, you pull the slats forward using two hands to form a 1.98m by 1.5m bed with the help of a mattress that’s otherwise stowed in the space above the cab. Headroom when lying here is a tight squeeze.

Access to the roof is provided by a sturdy clip-on ladder, but you can’t use this if you put together the lower bed, which you do by putting the extra settee cushion in the middle, supported by a sturdy but fiddly H-frame.

This is an abridged version of the full review appearing in the July 2015 issue of Which Motorhome.

It may not drive as well as a VW, but the Pulsar has much more space. It will work best as a two-berth, without the compromised roof bed.