Lunar Clubman SI
Image
Key Features
Model Year
2010
Product Class
Single Axle
Price from (£)
£18285
Berths
4
Full Review
THE Clubman SI has found a lot of fans over the last few years for its high spec in a short, lightweight body.
Now, though, it gets a bedroom transformation that, we believe, is set to take its popularity to new heights.
The 2011 SI’s bed runs transversely, from the offside – and there’s enough space to walk alongside the foot of the bed to the washroom. The bed base is a lightweight aluminium frame constructed to a new design.
When you start to raise it, only a little effort, with one hand is needed; robust gas-filled struts take the weight. But this is no ordinary fixed bed. Half of the base is cut away, so that the foot end stands on two legs.
The other half is of more conventional caravan bed construction, giving you a storage area, with access from an exterior locker as well as from inside. You lose half the storage area compared with a full fixed bed – but we believe you won’t miss it.
That’s because the SI has ample storage opportunities elsewhere. The SI has plenty of equipment. Extractor fan (the new, clear sort which doesn’t keep out daylight), loads of LED lights set in pencil-slim steel strips, speakers in the bedroom… There’s exquisite embroidery on small bolster cushions which seem to draw together the entire colour scheme in fine detail.
At upwards of £18,000 you expect this sort of quality and it’s all here.
There are many more practical factors to bear in mind in the SI. Chief among them is the convenience of having a full end washroom and fixed bed on a single axle in less than 1500kg.
Importantly, because the bed is set transversely, it makes less of an intrusion on the living area than would a longitudinal bed. So there’s a more open aspect to the central area. And the pleated room divider disappears into a channel just behind the kitchen, neat and tidily.
Last year Lunar was the first manufacturer in Britain to put the Alde water-based central heating system into single-axle models; this year it’s in more models. The benefit to the layout of having no heater unit creates, in the SI, space for a large cupboard in the dresser by the door.
That means that, in total, kitchen storage space is transformed from very ordinary (there is only a slim cupboard in the kitchen itself) to very large, if you count the dresser cupboard as part of the kitchen.
The washroom has a sliding door – a great way of saving space. The shower is square, in the nearside corner. There’s plenty of shelving and cupboard space – and a heated rail for drying your towels; that’s an added benefit of the 24-hour programmable Alde central heating system.
So far so great, we’d say. Only one thing left to report to you: the SI’s towing manners. Our journey to Little Orchard Caravan Park. half an hour from the Lunar factory, took us along some winding lanes and a stretch of M6 – ample variety in which to prove the balance and stability of the SI.
Our test took place over two windy days, and these were conditions which you would expect to work the ATC trailer stability system quite hard.
You don’t know, of course, when it’s activating. All you know is that when heavy lorries overtake you or you overtake them, the SI stays straight as a plumb line and the driver stays cool and unworried.
Verdict:
Important kit like the ATC stability aid, and equipment that enhances your caravanning convenience, like 24-hour programmable central heating, are reasons in themselves o choose a particular caravan.
When you also find a transverse bed that gives you extra living space, and you still get a proper end washroom, you know you’ve found a special caravan.
And Lunar’s invention of the cutaway bed base is a real star, in reducing weight without impinging too much on your storage space.
* This review was first published in the November 2010 issue of Go Caravan magazine.
Now, though, it gets a bedroom transformation that, we believe, is set to take its popularity to new heights.
The 2011 SI’s bed runs transversely, from the offside – and there’s enough space to walk alongside the foot of the bed to the washroom. The bed base is a lightweight aluminium frame constructed to a new design.
When you start to raise it, only a little effort, with one hand is needed; robust gas-filled struts take the weight. But this is no ordinary fixed bed. Half of the base is cut away, so that the foot end stands on two legs.
The other half is of more conventional caravan bed construction, giving you a storage area, with access from an exterior locker as well as from inside. You lose half the storage area compared with a full fixed bed – but we believe you won’t miss it.
That’s because the SI has ample storage opportunities elsewhere. The SI has plenty of equipment. Extractor fan (the new, clear sort which doesn’t keep out daylight), loads of LED lights set in pencil-slim steel strips, speakers in the bedroom… There’s exquisite embroidery on small bolster cushions which seem to draw together the entire colour scheme in fine detail.
At upwards of £18,000 you expect this sort of quality and it’s all here.
 |
 |
There are many more practical factors to bear in mind in the SI. Chief among them is the convenience of having a full end washroom and fixed bed on a single axle in less than 1500kg.
Importantly, because the bed is set transversely, it makes less of an intrusion on the living area than would a longitudinal bed. So there’s a more open aspect to the central area. And the pleated room divider disappears into a channel just behind the kitchen, neat and tidily.
Last year Lunar was the first manufacturer in Britain to put the Alde water-based central heating system into single-axle models; this year it’s in more models. The benefit to the layout of having no heater unit creates, in the SI, space for a large cupboard in the dresser by the door.
That means that, in total, kitchen storage space is transformed from very ordinary (there is only a slim cupboard in the kitchen itself) to very large, if you count the dresser cupboard as part of the kitchen.
The washroom has a sliding door – a great way of saving space. The shower is square, in the nearside corner. There’s plenty of shelving and cupboard space – and a heated rail for drying your towels; that’s an added benefit of the 24-hour programmable Alde central heating system.
So far so great, we’d say. Only one thing left to report to you: the SI’s towing manners. Our journey to Little Orchard Caravan Park. half an hour from the Lunar factory, took us along some winding lanes and a stretch of M6 – ample variety in which to prove the balance and stability of the SI.
Our test took place over two windy days, and these were conditions which you would expect to work the ATC trailer stability system quite hard.
You don’t know, of course, when it’s activating. All you know is that when heavy lorries overtake you or you overtake them, the SI stays straight as a plumb line and the driver stays cool and unworried.
Verdict:
Important kit like the ATC stability aid, and equipment that enhances your caravanning convenience, like 24-hour programmable central heating, are reasons in themselves o choose a particular caravan.
When you also find a transverse bed that gives you extra living space, and you still get a proper end washroom, you know you’ve found a special caravan.
And Lunar’s invention of the cutaway bed base is a real star, in reducing weight without impinging too much on your storage space.
* This review was first published in the November 2010 issue of Go Caravan magazine.
