Stealth Intrepid Q58

THE first Stealths to appear, last year, with windows only in the sides, were regarded by the majority of caravanners as little more than an exercise in radical caravan design.

Now, though, Stealth’s designers have stepped up a gear – and have created conventional layouts within the eye-catching concept of the extreme box-shaped exterior and dramatic nosecone.

There are four layouts, in three levels of spec. Valiant’s the basic, Defiant’s the top-spec – and Intrepid is in the middle. There’s a long options list, so the idea is that you can add on kit that’s important to you. 

Top of our list would be the ATC stability control system. It’s a benefit to safety for all caravans, of course. But, with a single axle unit that registered 80kg on our gauge, without gas bottles or battery in place, stability assistance seems more important than for a caravan with a lighter nose weight. Loading and balance would be critical to a Q58 owner. 

Nose weight gauges are easy ways to make sure you’ve put enough weight under the bed to compensate for the gas, battery and whatever else you put in the front.

Our 10-mile tow from manufacturer Dunster House in Bedford to the Camping and Caravanning Club’s site at St Neot’s, showed the Q58 to be a normally responsive follower behind our Kia Sorento – but we felt aware of the caravan’s weight. On acceleration, the Q58 produced a marginally greater drain on power than when towing caravans of the same weight as the Q58 with the same 2.5-litre vehicle. 

We can only conclude that this is because the slab-shape of the front produced greater air-resistance than caravans of a more sleek, rounded shape.

 

The nosecone was where we started the test at St Neot’s. Initially we thought the shape of the apertures on each side would make putting gas bottles into here awkward because of the angle of lift. So we borrowed a cylinder from the site’s shop – and discovered that, while you have to lift at an angle, it’s not as difficult as it looks.

The layout of the Q58 is close to the conventional fixed-bed, end washroom, parallel lounge configuration. But that’s where similarity between Stealth and anything else stops.

The heating system is the Truma Combi. The unit’s under the bed so doesn’t impose itself on layout, which is a major plus-point. In extreme weather you can use it on both gas and electricity; in this mode its output is up to 4kw. But the ducting to the lounge runs outside the caravan as it goes under the kitchen, which would potentially diminish the heat in the pipe. 

Many manufacturers do this. It’s not a problem with a Truma system that incorporates a convector heater, because you can turn off the blown air system if you wish. You can’t do that with a Combi, though, because blown air is all you’ve got. Stealth’s designers tell us the double insulation will prevent any significant heat loss; we look forward to a future test in cold conditions to experience Stealth winter cosiness!

Stealths have heavily tinted windows – but the three rooflights go a long way to make up for the lack of light coming in through the sides. 

After dark, the only source of light is four spotlights plus four lights around each of the rooflights. When we excluded all daylight by closing all the blinds to simulate night-time, the lighting level was subdued. Attractive thought this is, you’d need a couple of table lamps to raise the lighting level sufficiently for preparing and cooking food. 

All the lighting is tungsten except the kitchen light which is a fluorescent strip. For £49, though, you can specify additional lighting and these are LEDs – options are key to personalising your Stealth.

Verdict:

We welcome this range because it gives caravanners an option of buying something that is so radically different. Everything about the Stealth, inside and out, is square-edged. We did find some foibles (front drawers with no catches to prevent them from sliding open on tow, for instance). But our test revealed a lot of postivites, among them the kitchen’s L-shaped shelf.

Is Stealth your style? If the answer is at first “no”, give it time, for we think that now that this manufacturer is producing proven layouts, Stealths are credible caravans for people who seek out the fresh and the different.

* This review was first published in the October 2010 issue of Go Caravan magazine.