Going off-grid with the £190k 'Bentley of caravans'

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3 days ago

The information I'm sent before I collect the Bruder EXP-7 (I feel a little strange calling it a caravan, but we'll come back to that) contains some surprises.
There's no bedding or kitchenware inside, I'm told, but there is a washer-dryer.
Now, I went caravanning when I was a kid, and I can still remember the noise of the pump when we had to pedal a lever repeatedly to draw water to the tap.
People with water containers that were round barrels so they could be rolled rather than carried across the campsite were positively flash gits. But now I'm going to try a caravan with a washing machine? Swoon.
I'm sure things have moved on a bit in the conventional caravan world, but even by today's standards the Bruder EXP-7 is a bit special.
It's from an Australian company founded by two brothers – hence the Bruder logo with kangaroos as umlauts – who grew up camping and being driven around the outback, and who kind of haven't stopped.
They would go to places that would quickly leave a conventional caravan looking like it had been used in one of those novelty banger races, so what they make, it says here, are described as 'luxury off-road expedition trailers'. Sometimes companies over-egg a description, but maybe not this lot, I think, as I have a nose around the EXP-7 outside Bentley's Crewe factory.
There's no official tie-in with Bentley, by the way. The people there just thought the Bruder was quite the thing, and I think they're keen to remind people that the Bentayga is a properly accomplished tow car and off-roader.
There is a perception sometimes that luxury is about five-star hotels and restaurants you can't get into. I'm not sure that's the only case: luxury, for me, is naffing off from all of that, being in a wide open space, on your own terms, in your own time, where the office can't find you and you can't get social media fomo because there's no phone reception.