Vanmaster Darwin 450

The 2012 Vanmaster Darwin is an extraordinary caravan. If you thought a Vanmaster was out of your price range, look what £23,950 buys... And you get a water ingress warranty for the life of the caravan!

Vanmaster caravans are hand-crafted and individually made. They’ve always been associated with high prices and high weights. Until
now. With the 2012 model year came a Vanmaster that’s much less than the £29,000-£35,500 price tags of the other models in this manufacturer’s range. The Darwin 450 is £23,950. And its 1420kg MPTLM puts it firmly in mid-range in terms of tow cars.
The Darwin is Vanmaster’s first foray into the under-£25,000 price bracket. And it’s the lightest Vanmaster ever produced. Weight has been saved by careful selection of materials. One example is the Columbian pine used for the bed-settee construction of this two-berth model; chosen for its combination of light weight and strength.
While the lightweight Vanmaster might be comparable with mass-produced caravans in term of weight and price, there are ways in which it is unique. Chief among them is that Vanmasters have a warranty against water ingress that lasts the lifetime of the caravan. There are awning lights on both sides of the caravan. A DAB radio is standard, as is the tilt-activated Sargent alarm system.
Among other differences is the Darwin’s roof. It’s lined with a felt fabric that enhances insulation – both in terms of its ability to stay cool and also retain the heat produced by the Alde system.
Alde heating, Darwin-style, extends below the floor. A valve inside a cabinet in the shower room enables you to control the under-floor heating’s temperature separately to the temperature you set for the rest of the Alde system. It works like this: metal plates are set into the floor. They have apertures through which metal piping goes. When the pipes are heated by the water circulating in the Alde system, these warm the metal plates, so the whole of the floor becomes warm.
Darwins also have Wi-Fi – it’s an extra, at £295 but, when you consider that means you don’t have to pay Wi-Fi charges on campsites, this option is worth considering. A wireless router is installed in a head-height locker. You just log on to www.vanmaster.net.
There are interesting details everywhere you look in this caravan. There’s a light in the oven – and another at floor level, and a third in the wardrobe, which you’ll find within the shower room that runs the full width of the rear.
 

Showering

You’d expect showering arrangements to be luxurious in a Vanmaster and the Darwin lives up to that. The shower room is spacious, there’s an Alde radiator here – and the under-floor heating warms the floor here, too – imagine stepping out of the shower onto a warm carpet!
The shower is circular and in the offside corner. Alongside the shower is a cabinet containing two drawers and a cupboard. Two shelves are above this cabinet, making a sort of mini dressing table. Another cupboard is under the sink – it’s in here that you’ll find the valve to control the under-floor heating.  Three deep head-height lockers run across the back, bridging the full width from the shower to the offside wall. A mirror is over the loo – and it’s here that we found something which cost the shower room a mark. In order to get close to the mirror to shave or put on make-up, you have to stand astride the loo. We can see the reasoning here – the position of the window prevents a mirror from being placed near to the washbasin. But a shaving mirror mounted on a pantograph expanding mount, of the type seen in Bailey Unicorn models, would have got around the problem nicely.
The wardrobe gives you full hanging space and a deep shelf above it. There’s an extractor fan in the roof of the shower room – a feature that we really like. The chances of steaming up a shower room are not great when the caravan is Alde heated – but this extractor prevents it altogether.
 

Sleeping

The Darwin has a traditional two-berth layout. Unless you’re of short stature, the settees won’t be long enough to use as single beds; the double bed base pulls out from under the seating on both sides.
Backrests and bases combine to create your mattress. This bed arrangement is one which we see in diminishing numbers as the tide of fixed beds, both doubles and twins, sweeps relentlessly though caravan manufacture. But there are still people who prefer this classic layout and Vanmaster is catering exquisitely for those people.
Vanmaster gives you a small light mounted at floor level alongside the door that leads into the shower room. It’s the last light you’d turn off before you go to sleep – and it’s there to illuminate just the floor to enable you to see your route to the loo without turning top lights on. But we think there’s a far more useful function for this bright LED cluster. If you leave it switched on when you go out, when you return after dark your first footstep into the caravan is illuminated before you switch on any of the other lights.
 

Storage

Storage is brilliant in the shower room, as detailed already. It’s brilliant in the dresser, too, where there’s a cabinet for your television, with a door that folds in its centre, so that you can hinge it back alongside the television. A mounting bracket and aerial and power points are inside the cabinet. Under the dresser surface, two large drawers and a double-doored cabinet create huge storage possibilities.
Head-height lockers line all three sides of the lounge, as you’d expect. Taken together, the Darwin’s storage arrangements are well designed and generous.
 

Kitchen

The Darwin’s kitchen isn’t enormous but it’s just big enough for the needs of two – and there are lots of refinements to notice. The oven has a light; you switch it on with a rocker switch alongside the electronic ignition switch. The microwave is hidden in a cabinet. The cover for the stainless steel circular sink is hand-crafted; one side matches the cream marble-effect kitchen surface, the other is made of wood matching the cabinetry that’s one of this caravan’s best visual features.
Considering you can use the covered sink as part of the total area, we think the surface is sufficient to make meals for two. The hob has four burners; if you’d rather have a mains hob and three burners, that’s an option.
The cabinet between the fridge and the oven has two drawers and a cupboard. The drawers are made of wood, set on runners that slide out to the whole depth of the drawers, making access to the entire area inside really easy.
This is a great kitchen in many ways. But it lost marks on visual appeal. The panel at the front of the fridge is wood-effect. It’s much lighter than the real ash wood used everywhere else in the caravan, and it stands out prominently as a result. Does it matter to you? Probably not. But then Caravan Buyer’s reviews have to consider everything.
 

Lounging

There’s ample seating space for
two or four, even though these are not the longest settees you’ll find
in caravans.
Hidden under the upholstery is a feature designed to enhance your comfort. The ends of the settees nearest the front windows have ratcheted hinges, so that the upholstery next to the central front chest of drawers rises to support your back when you recline with your feet up.
 

Dining

You can pull the top of the front chest of drawers forward to create a table for breakfast and quick meals. Or you can get out the four-seater table from its clever hide-away. That’s a double-doored cabinet alongside the entrance door. The table secures here with plastic turn-locks. Its position, flat against the back wall of the cabinet, makes it easy to access. We think this method of storing a table is even easier than the plastic runners in slim cabinet we usually find in kitchen cabinets or alongside wardrobes in end shower rooms. It’s another feature that Vanmaster does differently – and brilliantly.
 
 

Towing

The AL-KO ATC anti-snaking device comes as standard. With a weight of only 1420kg fully loaded, the Darwin is well specified, in theory, for good road manners – but how does it actually behave on the road? We had six miles, from Vanmaster’s factory on the outskirts of Wigan to a five-pitch site (Stoney Leach Nurseries Caravan Club CL), to find out. It’s a journey of twisting, narrow lanes and enough open road to get the feel of the Darwin’s characteristics. The Darwin is a comparatively lightweight caravan – and that’s how it feels on the road – as responsive as you’d expect, well balanced and short enough to be an easy tow.
 

Vanmasters are bespoke caravans, hand-crafted and high in specification. Yet not all models are high in price. The smallest in the range offers amazing value for its price-tag