C liner design 2008

How the motorhome changed gear and drove up cool street
By Emma Smith of The Sunday Times

Even caravanners once derided them. But now rock stars are climbing aboard

500)modify_pic(this);" onclick="javascript:if(this.resizedpic==true)window.open('http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,329503,00.jpg','','scrollbars=1,toolbar=yes,resizable=1,menubar=yes,directories=yes,status=yes')" border="0">

Jay Kay is delighted with his new £60,000 Knaus C-Liner JULIAN HAYR

Across the Atlantic motorhomes have long enjoyed an adventurous rock’n’roll image. Giant RVs or Winnebagos (even the names sound cool) bring to mind heady summer road trips across rugged country and the unrestricted freedom of a wide-open highway.
In Britain the motorhome was traditionally about as glam as Bognor, with all the wild pioneering spirit of Mary Whitehouse. Our motorhomes were cheap, cramped and naff. Something even caravanners could look down on.

But now revamped modern vehicles are attracting a new generation of “cashmere campers” who crave the independence and flexibility of the gypsy lifestyle but with the luxury and style of a five-star designer hotel.

Sales of motorhomes have shot up by more than 50% in the past five years as these thirtysomething campers, disenchanted with package holidays and nostalgic for the traditional family breaks of their childhood, are overturning the image of cheap grin-and-bear-it hole-in-the-ground-toilet camping holidays.

Gone are the 1970s Formica worktops, floral curtains and plywood bunk beds. In their place are soft, sprawling sofas, muted lighting, tasteful, understated decor and king-size beds. There’s no more huddling round a crackly portable telly. Instead you can sit back and watch DVDs on the latest flat-screen television.

Standard Life bank surveyed 2,000 people and found that one in four would consider buying, or already own, a motorhome and only about one in five still regard motorhomes as cramped and uncomfortable.

“Motorhomes are increasingly popular among people in their thirties and early forties who want to experience the outdoor life — but in style,” says Ashley Ramsay, a Standard Life spokesman.

So what gave the motorhome its new mojo? One factor is hippie festivals such as Glastonbury that have become as much a part of “the season” as Ascot and Glyndebourne. Catering wagons at the festival sell Covent Garden soups, organic ostrich burgers and chilled Pimm’s and the discerning audiences aren’t prepared to put up with camping in a sea of mud.

Kate Moss, supermodel and trendsetter, took an Infinity motorhome to Glastonbury in 2004 and, as everything Moss touches turns to cool, it wasn’t long before aspirational young couples were championing the motorhome as their ticket to hassle-free camping.

Other celebrity converts include the actor Will Smith, musicians Lenny Kravitz and Robbie Williams, racing driver Jenson Button, foodies Jamie and Jools Oliver with their souped-up 1960s VW Camper, and Jay Kay, lead singer with Jamiroquai, who has just bought a 3 litre turbodiesel Knaus C-Liner with alloy wheels, futuristic metallic bodywork, ambient lighting and leather armchairs, worth £60,000.

“We have been very lucky,” says John de Mierre of the Motorhome Information Service (MIS), which represents the motorhome industry in Britain. “Celebrity owners have really given us an image boost and shown that motorhomes can be sexy and modern. But it’s also part of a wider trend for independent travel. People want the flexibility to create their own holidays, and with a motorhome you have a place you can call yours, but you can still go to a different place every year.”

The Camping and Caravanning Club, which has more than 400,000 members, says membership has increased by 10% year on year, thanks in part to a growing number of motorhomers.

As ever, the UK is following in the triple-axle tyre tracks of America, where RVs (recreational vehicles — Winnebago is a trademark) have expanded in size even more extravagantly than the waistlines of their middle-aged occupants.

Wealthy Americans are spending huge sums on giant driveable palaces where owners can relax on their reclining leather chairs, sip an ice-cold beer from the fully stocked minibar, watch the latest films on their built-in home cinema system and round off the evening with a dip in the Jacuzzi and a turn on their miniature dance floor.

Some cost as much as £500,000 and stretch to more than 32ft long with slide-out panels to add extra width. The $850,000 (£450,000) Terra Wind can even be driven through water and claims to be “the first amphibious luxury motorhome”.

“Upmarket camping has really taken off in the States,” says Ronnie Anderson of Anderson Mobile Estates, a Florida-based company specialising in very expensive custom-built RVs. “There are even campsites with their own shopping malls. People like the camaraderie of camping. It’s an environment where you can get to know your neighbours, even though you might not want to do that at home, well not in the States . . .”

Will Smith, star of Men in Black and Independence Day, recently bought a 75ft-long 200-ton two-storey RV worth $1.8m from Anderson’s company. It comes with its own dance floor, 65in plasma TVs and an automatic window-frosting effect that can be activated at the touch of a button when the star needs more privacy.

The firm is working on a similar model for Robert De Niro, which will include a dining room for 30 guests, 11 plasma televisions, a roll-down cinema screen and a private study. Other celebrity clients have included the rapper Ice Cube and Ben Stiller, star of Starsky & Hutch. “Nicole Richie borrowed one of our vans the other day and Mariah Carey loves them,” says Anderson. “She likes the cosiness and the comfort.”

European motorhomes remain smaller than their American counterparts, with prices starting from about £8,000 for a refurbished “splittie”, the original split-windscreen VW camper, or from £24,000 for a new coach-built motorhome. In an increasingly lucrative market, British suppliers such as Swift and Autosleeper are fighting to stay ahead of German rivals like Knaus and Hymer. Volkswagen recently launched the California (with prices starting at about £34,000), a modern alternative to the camper which lacks the charms of the original but makes up for it in mod-cons.

There are an estimated 131,000 motorhomes currently in use in the UK and annual sales have increased from about 5,000 five years ago to around 11,000.

“I think European manufacturers have now succeeded in making better-looking, sexier motorhomes, offering more comfort and space, but which are still small enough to cope with anything from narrow Cornish country lanes to winding Pennine mountain roads,” says de Mierre. “They’re no longer the poor relation.”