Auto-Sleeper Nuevo ES

The Nuevo ES has extra seats for rear passengers compared with the standard model – but in a new format for 2013 – while all Nuevos gain a few extra inches of length

Launched in 2003, the Auto-Sleeper Nuevo has been a big seller ever since. This compact motorhome, well under the important six-metre mark, offers traditional Auto-Sleeper luxury, with traditional layouts at realistic cost – though prices have risen in recent years. Until now, the layout for these ES (Extra Seats) models incorporated two individual forward-facing travel seats, either side of a central aisle, but increased safety requirements have forced a re-design for 2013.

ON THE ROAD
Nuevo’s great advantage on the road is its compactness, being shorter than Peugeot/Fiat long-wheelbase panel vans. Coupled with excellent visibility, this inspires great confidence on winding lanes and when manoeuvring. The engine is powerful, if rather gruff, and quite low-geared – pulling with ease from 1,250rpm (equating to 25mph in fourth), so at 70mph in top it’s turning over at 2,500rpm. There was some noise from the kitchen, and the crockery racking, but, generally, the conversion was acceptably quiet.

LOUNGE AND DINE
A pair of travel seats forms a half-dinette on the offside – this, plus the nearside settee and cab seats, provides (tight) accommodation for six. The half-dinette seat unit is quite narrow, so these seats would be more suitable for children. In practice, mother (or grandma) would probably occupy the outer seat, with the small person alongside the window (the best position for a child seat), whilst an older small person could enjoy the cab passenger seat alongside driver dad (or grandpa).

The seat backs are quite upright and unshaped – necessarily, given they’re to be converted into a bed. Making a comfortable, practical, safe-for-travel, half-dinette/travel seat is always devilishly difficult. If it also has to make a satisfactorily flat bed, it’s almost impossible, as so many compromises are required.

The two-berth Nuevo EK (with side settees and no rear travel seats) offers a more comfortable lounge, therefore, but that’s not an option if you ever want to carry any more than one passenger. And while the EK has several rivals, the ES is a unique offering.

SLEEPING
Bed-making in a two-berth Nuevo EK is simplicity itself, making either twin longitudinal singles or a big transverse double in seconds. In this four-berth ES, it ain’t quite so easy…
Certainly, the overcab doesn’t pose many problems. It’s quite high, reached by a lightweight, six-rung alloy ladder, Two children (over six years-old, according to the warning notice) could sleep here and there’s a safety net to keep the little darlings caged, but it wouldn’t accommodate more than one adult in comfort.

With children upstairs, the adults will sleep on singles because, with the transverse double constructed, there’s no room for the ladder. The nearside single makes simply from the settee – just pull out the alloy bed frame and seat cushion and match it up to the fully-rotated cab seat. The offside single is more complicated, made by bending the ‘knee’ of the wall-mounted table and clipping it to a lower rail, then pulling the travel seat base forward to meet it. The seat cushion (with slight knee-roll) is reversed and the backrest cushion sits on the tabletop. An extra cushion (which normally lives in the overcab) bridges the gap to the swivelled driver’s seat.

Making the transverse double bed involves (because of the knee-rolls), turning the settee base cushion over and round, placing it by the wall; the backrest cushion occupies the middle of the bed, where your hips lie, (and being made of softer foam, makes the bed squishy, just where that’s not needed). Compared with half-dinette beds offered by some manufacturers, which can be like trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep on a ‘solid wave jigsaw’, you could argue they’re an excellent example of their type.

KITCHEN
The Nuevo ES has a well-equipped kitchen:

• a Thetford Caprice Mk3 cooker, the hob having three auto-ignition gas burners and one, lower, electric hotplate, separate grill, oven and pan cupboard
• a cooker hood sited too far forward, interfering with the chef slaving at the cooker
• a stainless-steel sink with glass lid and exterior mixer tap - no integral drainer, but a small plastic removable one instead, along with an even smaller metal draining rack which attaches to the raised lid. When laden, the weight pulls the lid down. Future models will probably revert to an integral draining board.
• ample storage
• 96-litre Thetford SES fridge under a generous worktop, plus large pull-out surface.
• open-fronted cubby containing four glasses
• Daewoo microwave

Quibbles? If the microwave were raised two inches and the posh glasses re-located, their cubby could house a small TV – at present, using the space in front
of them for other items might result in smashed, not cut, glass! However, the extending work surface was very useful. All told, despite our niggles, this is a proper kitchen, which knocks spots off many competitors.

WASHROOM
The Nuevo’s washroom shows clever use of limited space, with a Thetford swivel-bowl toilet opposite the door and, adjacent, on the swing-wall, the handbasin. There’s a wooden cabinet above the toilet, and another (in plastic, with mirrored-doors) above the basin. The swing-wall forms (with the addition of a translucent door panel) a reasonably sized shower cubicle.

In a small motorhome this is a pretty good washroom. Probably not suitable for frequent showers, because the Whale water filler system, feeding the underslung  tank, is inordinately slow – an unbelievable 40 minutes with the tap full on! Order your Nuevo with a conventional filler otherwise.

The Nuevo will continue to sell strongly in its latest incarnation – it’s a well-sorted, luxurious, compact motorhome (more compact than its key rivals) with more interior space than panel van conversions of a similar length. If you need the extra travel seats or berths, you may find the inevitable compromises acceptable – there are no direct competitors. Otherwise, for couples who never, ever carry rear passengers, there’s always the slightly less expensive, more conventional, Nuevo EK.