Eterniti Chronicle EB-2

Ideal for two people who want something utterly different!

The Chronicle EB-2 has a body length of 4.73m and a width of 2.29m. But there’s more to it than that. The kitchen area is 2.8m wide. That’s because it’s here that the slide-out side, the hallmark of Eterniti caravans, creates the extra width in this model. It’s a concept that has crossed the Atlantic, of course. But Eterniti caravans are very British, made in the north west of England in a purpose-built factory that began production early in 2013.

Chronicle is the smaller and lighter of the two Eterniti ranges (the other is called Genesis; two models which ride on twin axles and have MTPLM figures of 1999kg). The Chronicle EB-2, though, does not need a heavyweight 4x4 to tow it. At a mere 1450kg, it’s well within range of the majority of tow vehicles.

It’s a luxuriously appointed caravan, as you’d expect in this price bracket. It comes complete with a 24-inch HD TV with DVD facility as standard. It is heated by the Alde system, which circulates hot water around the caravan in radiators and piping within the furniture. It has keyless entry, with a keypad into which you tap a code which opens the door. Its cooker is of domestic freestanding cooker design, fronted by smart brushed steel. Its furnishings are exquisitely finished – and there are several fabric schemes from which you can choose. It’s the slide-out side, though, that grabs the attention. But first, as our test begins, we investigate the shower room.

Showering

The shower room occupies the whole of the rear width. The shower is 1.4m long and 65cm wide. That’s easily as large as a shower in a house. It’s on the offside, where the shower room is at its deepest; it tapers slightly, towards the toilet area, on the nearside, where it is 78cm deep.

In the central area, where the smart white plastic washbasin sits up on top of a cabinet, and where you need floor space for dressing, there is ample depth. Beneath the glossy black top on which the basin is mounted is a double-doored cabinet and, alongside, two shelves. There’s a further shelf on the nearside wall, high above the toilet.

Above the basin-unit cabinet, a door hinges towards you, to open at a 45º angle to reveal a plastic tray. We think it’s designed for toothpaste and brushes but we also think the space would have been better used by putting a drawer in here; there is ample depth because the basin sits on top, rather than within the top, of the cabinet. There’s a panel radiator on the back wall, part of the Alde central heating system. And even the toilet deserves comment. It’s Dometic’s top-of-the range product, with a ceramic bowl, and electronic flush.

Two LED light clusters are set into a wooden false ceiling; very stylish! There’s one omission from this otherwise excellent shower room. There is no power socket within hairdryer cable stretch of the mirror. The nearest sockets are in the kitchen. Buyers of EB-2s will probably be asking for an additional socket to be fitted in the door area; that’s where you could stand to do the hair preening routine.

Storage

The wardrobe is immediately forward of the entrance door, with full hanging depth. Six top lockers surround the lounge. The two over the front windows reach 43cm into the front line of the caravan; although they are tapered slightly, following the front line, there is a lot of space here. The storage areas under the seating are accessed from the top, rather than via hinge-down doors. Raising requires very little effort. You just raise the bases slightly and the gas-filled struts take the bases up to give you enough aperture to get stuff in and out.

The nearside under-seat space is clear; the space in the offside one is partly occupied by the Alde heating unit and the battery box. The gas bottle compartment is centre-front. The door rises parallel to the bodyline, on substantial cantilever hinges. The interior of the gas bottle compartment is lined with steel. There’s enough space in here for two 6kg propane or 7kg butane cylinders.

Sleeping

At 1.95m the settees are long enough to create single beds for most heights. You make up the double by pulling the two halves of the base together, from under the upholstery. Each half of the base is supported by metal legs into which black rubber feet are screwed. Making the bed is straightforward. And for best results, you turn over the seat bases to put the knee rolls towards the walls, so you get as flat a mattress as possible. The backrests go upside down in the centre. Because the lounge is U-shaped, the bed is large, with a width of 1.72m.

Lounging

The seating is firmly supportive, with good knee rolls. The settees are amply long enough for stretch-out relaxing. But tall people should take care when standing up from a sitting position at the fore end of the lounge because the overhead lockers, which jut out from the caravan front by 43cm and come well into the seating area, can present a collision risk – as three members of the Caravan Buyer team have discovered!

Television-watching, EB-2-style, is a refined experience. The large (24-inch) unit that arrives as standard with a Chronicle, is mounted – indeed, disguised – in a cabinet within the wall that divides the kitchen from the shower room. It slides out across the shower room doorway but we discovered there is JUST enough space to open the door and go into the shower room without pushing the TV back into its housing.

Dining

Dining is different in the EB-2, compared with a traditional parallel-lounge two-berth. That’s because there is no chest of drawers at the centre front. Instead, there is a narrow seating area, which enables you to seat five around the table, although here the possibility of your head colliding with the overhead locker is even greater. Take care! The advantage of wrap-around seating, is that you get more space; the disadvantage is that there is no pull-out table for two, attached to a chest of drawers. But coffee mug accommodation is taken care of in the form of a windowsill behind the central seating area.

Kitchen

The kitchen is L-shaped, with a surface that’s 1.24m wide and 71cm deep, and also a sink section, which faces the front of the caravan, that’s 1.15m deep. The steel sink is larger than average in a tourer, at 38cm x 34cm, and has a proper, domesticstyle recessed drainer. Storage comes in the form of three drawers, each 40cm wide, and a pull-out unit containing two shelves of the ideal dimension for canned foods.

There’s also an enormous cabinet under the sink section of the kitchen. At the front of the sink is a small door which opens forwards at a 45º angle to reveal a white plastic tray identical to the one in the shower room sink unit. Here, though, it makes more sense, it’s a clever used of space because there isn’t room to put a drawer in here as the sink is behind it. We think this little space is ideal for a washing-up brush.

The EB-2’s kitchen is galley-style, with the cooker opposite. There’s a small surface area alongside it (25cm wide) and three deep shelves under this area. Three burners and a hotplate hide under a hinged black glass lid that matches the front of the fridge, which is under the wardrobe to the left of the cooker. The microwave is mounted at an angle over the offside kitchen area. The cabinet above the cooker is fitted for plates and has a rack for hanging stemmed goblets. Within this locker, and also three others over the lounge, is an LED cluster; they switch on automatically when you open the locker doors. There are two power points in the offside kitchen area and two more alongside the cooker, ideal for an electric kettle.

Towing

Preparing your Chronicle for the road involves one more task than with anything else made in Britain except another Eterniti or an Inos (Britain’s only other slide-out-side caravans). You have to withdraw the slide-out section, there’s a button by the control panel alongside the door. When you press it, you activate a 12-volt-powered motor which gently slides the slide section inwards across the caravan.

Our first test tow took us from Market Deeping (Keal Lodge Caravan Park) to Ancaster (Woodland Waters). The route takes us along some narrow lanes and through Bourne, where traffic and parked vehicles highlight the need for special awareness when towing. The wheels are 2.26m from the back of the caravan and 4.33m from the hitch (we measured it from the centre of the wheel). This tells you that the EB-2, which rides on a BPW chassis, has an exceptionally long drawbar (1.64m) – and that goes a long way to explain why we found, when we got it out on open roads and up to 50mph, that the EB-2 has exceptionally stable handling characteristics.

One for couples who like to be different and also for people who like big caravan kitchens