Verdict
Intimidatingly large, but a great family ‘van that’s equipped to deal with the harshest winter conditions.
Pros
Big garage space; stylish upholstery; excellent build quality.
Cons
No access to garage from living quarters; lack of privacy curtain for end bed.
Living
The internal layout of the ’van is fantastic, with space for all occupants to move around without hassle. The ‘Novalife’ brown upholstery, a high-tech fibre that looks and feels like leather and is incredibly resistant to grubby fingers and spills of all types, is stylish.
The excellent ‘Reliner’ side sofa facing the twin dinette seating is an exclusive Burstner innovation: tug on the attached pulls and the seat squab slides forward, and the back rest rakes, for optimum TV-watching comfort. The armrests, too, can be raked if you want to lie down and rest your head. Great stuff!
At mealtimes, the table extension is a real fiddle to install and very heavy to lift. However, the lights around the living area – downlighters and swivel-head halogens – do provide plenty of light. The flatscreen TV, which slides out from behind its tambour-doored locker, is adjustable for viewing, and good for four or five to watch at any one time.
Kitchen
With plenty of room to move around the motorhome, the kitchen could be used by more than one person at a time. The sink is placed at an angle to the full-sized oven/grill/four-burner hob and extractor fan, with the fridge and separate freezer easily accessible behind.
Storage was extremely good in the kitchen, with a large, slide-out waste bin, although a little more food-preparation area would have been ideal. Occupants could still access the washroom from the living area without getting in the way of the cook.
Washroom
In this section the Argos comes up trumps once again: with its shower and washroom areas separated, either side of the vehicle, the space in each is optimised.
Also, the toilet door swings through 90 degrees and effectively turns the end bedroom into an en-suite.
The washroom has a bench toilet with electric flush, a good-sized corner mirror above the moulded sink and plenty of storage space for toiletries. What’s more, there’s a dedicated towel rail here, thanks to the clever Alde wet central heating system installed in this ’van.
Beds
The primary sleeping area is the rear, transverse, double bed over the garage. It has plenty of headroom, cupboard and shelf space, and sockets for a TV – however, it would have been nice to have a separate partition blind here, too, so the washroom could still be accessed by kids or guests without getting an unfortunate full view of whoever is sleeping in the rear double bed.
We found the overcab bed spacious and comfortable without being claustrophobic, but a problem arose with the overhead soundproofing and the air vent in the roof, which became noisy under windy conditions.
The dinette bed is made up by lowering the table to act as the bed base, and extending the seat benches. Once made up to full width, though, it prevents the ladder being used to access the overcab.
Storage
If there is one thing at which this Burstner truly excels it is storage space. Our only problem would be preventing ourselves from piling in loads of clobber before the payload ran out. The garage will easily take a family of bikes, and the double floor provides further space for bits and pieces.
It’s a shame, though, that the garage is not accessible from inside the ’van, rather than having to use the sliding access door – Burstner opts for a couple of broad, wooden steps up to the bed, and the bed base is fixed so you cannot raise it and reach into the garage space. So getting anything out in cold or wet weather means getting cold or wet yourself!
Technical Specifications
| Payload | 775 kg |
| MTPLM | 5000 kg |
| Shipping Length | 8.86 m |
| Width | 2.30 m |
