Elddis Avanté 574

The 2012 Elddis Avanté 574 brings twin beds to this mid-priced range. It’s a layout similar to Crusader Shamal, at £4350 less

Suddenly people want caravans with single beds, and new models are popping up everywhere. We welcome this addition to the Avanté range for 2012 because the caravan does something Elddis does very well in its top ranges, and in a lower price range. For 2012 Elddis gave stunning new shapes and designs to its Xplore, Buccaneer, and Crusader ranges, and our gut feeling tells us that we can expect more innovation at Avanté and Odyssey level for 2013. That said, there is nothing wrong with the existing Avanté style, except for tightness in terms of kitchen space in some models.
 

Showering

A strength of this type of twin-bed layout is that it allows you to have a full-width shower room, which you can get to easily via a clear aisle down the centre of the caravan between the beds.
    The Avanté 574’s shower room is respectable for its price range; though it’s smaller and understandably less luxurious than its big brothers the Odyssey 650, the Crusader Shamal and Supercyclone.
   The shower is fully lined and has domestic-style fittings, but it’s very close to the sink and this compromises the width of the doorway, making it feel quite narrow. There’s good provision for hanging towels, and two shallow areas of shelving.
    The shower room has a massive mirror, bright and practical, although there’s no full-length mirror in the caravan, which some potential buyers will miss, and it’s not particularly practical for drying hair; you’d have to stand at the foot of the bed with the shower room door open to see what you were doing.
 

Sleeping

The single beds are high, comfortable and great not just for sleeping at night but also for lounging by day. Each has its own reading light and there’s a TV bracket at the foot of one bed. This is technically a four-berth, but it’s unashamedly designed for use by a couple; the bed arrangement that makes up in the lounge is designed to work as a transverse double, not two singles, because the seating isn’t full length.
 

Storage

All these caravans with single beds benefit from two huge cavities underneath the mattresses, and we think this storage is much more practical than the cavern under a double bed. In the Avanté 574’s case there’s not much in the way of equipment or panelling to restrict that space; just a small amount of tubing for the blown air heating.
One bed has a hatch to the outside too. The overhead lockers are respectable, though less deep than those you’ll find in 2012’s more rounded profiles such as Crusader. The wardrobe is ample for two people – even though doesn’t have the multiple rails that Elddis has put in its more costly ranges for 2012.

 
Dining

Comfortable seating with curved corners to the armrests make this a practical area; we’d opt for the U-shaped seating instead of the front cabinet, at an added cost of £149, and the practical Aquaclean fabric option at £249. This is stain resistant and is also the plainest and, in our opinion, most attractive Avanté fabric this year.
 

Lounging

It’s comfortable, and there’s a TV bracket exactly where you need it, on the wall by the caravan door. Just one power point here, though, so watching DVDs (if your DVD player is separate from your television) could be a bit of a challenge – the nearest power point for this is over the corridor in the kitchen.
 

Kitchen

Some of Avanté’s kitchens seem tight on space this year when compared with Elddis Xplore range. Xplore layouts have incorporated Whale underfloor heating and freed up cupboard space. Only one Avanté model has that layout advantage to date. There’s a row of three drawers and a cupboard, plus a large plate locker and a 115-litre fridge and we think this kitchen is perfectly adequate for a couple. Workspace is about 30cm next to the sink, plus a toughened glass cover to the four-burner hob. One thing we like is the contrasting locker doors and microwave mount in this year’s Avantés. We think they look a lot smarter and the microwaves are a much neater fit than in some other caravans.
 

Towing

There’s very little to report here – Avantés are good as gold. They are on BPW chassis so you will notice slightly different handbrakes and hitch head stabilisers to caravans which are on AL-KO chassis. We strongly recommend upgrading to have iDC stability control, at £549. It corrects early signs of snaking by applying the caravan’s brakes.

The 2012 Elddis Avante 574 represents good value in a layout that is rising in popularity