New (to Aust) Camper Trailer coming soon..............

G'day Ron, I'm with you on this one. All hype & no substance in the
supplied info. Even the spare wheel is an option. That sort of of $$$
would get you a near new Outback Jayco wind up or any of the thousands of good quality used campers on the market.
cheers....oldbaz.

I can't see how the A'van version is all hype & no substance, it hasn't been released or even advertised yet. They're still doing R&D on it. I just saw them & asked questions. Nobody tried to sell me one, or talked it up. In fact, I was told "we're driving it over as rough roads as we can find to see what falls off, so we can work out what needs fixing before we put it on the market"

Wind up Jayco, a good quality camper??? Mate, have you had a look at one of those lately? I have, I was at Jayco just before I was at A'van & I wouldn't go near one. And that's coming from someone who owns a Chinese Camper Trailer!

I guess we can only wait & see what the guys at A'Van come up with!

"end up making you tear your hair out when it comes to British design."

And then you say: "Perhaps the only good thing that could come from the Pommy attack on the camper market is that some of the local manufacturers could get one or two clever ideas from the Pommy stuff, and incorporate them into their designs."

Make yer mind up Ron N, either Pommy stuff is a load of crap or it isn't.
Methinks you have a problem.
Happy camping.
AlanH.

Allan, lets put it this way. 90% of British designs are infuriating designs, or crap materials, designed for U.K. and European conditions and markets - but every now and then, there's a flash of brilliance in a couple of ideas, that are really worth having.

I've rarely seen any plastic in British items that can stand our sun for more than a year or two - they design stuff to keep rain out, not dust - they design stuff to fit down narrow Pommy lanes - they usually manage to construct most components so cheaply they're guaranteed to fall apart once the pressure is on - and if British-built stuff was so fabulous, then Austin Champs, Leyland, Foden and AEC trucks, Humber, Wolseley, Morris and Austin cars would all be regarded with reverence - rather than being remembered as "also-rans" in the market place.

....as opposed to Australian products that are in demand worldwide.....oh, wait, there was a "Hills Hoist", I believe but it never caught on .


LOL

Steve - The Hills Hoist was a practical product for the time, for Australian conditions, and Hills made tens of millions of dollars out of them. I don't know that Hills ever pursued any export market for them, apart from NZ.

You really should study up on the amount of Australian inventions and products that are in worldwide use. We are world leaders in inventing useful, and world-changing items, and you wouldn't go a day without utilising at least one of them.
The Atomic Absorption Spectrometer is one of the worlds leading scientific devices, and the patent still earns Australia substantial sums each year in royalty payments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_inventions

"we are world leaders......" - LOL. You can't be serious.

Paul McCartney probably earns more in royalties

"The only climatic/road conditions that compare to ours, are in Sth Africa."

A myth perpetuated by the media is how tough our roads are & our climate is compared to anyone else's & its readily accepted by those with a narrow life experience.

You need to travel more Ron! Almost every continent has rough roads & harsh climates! If you aren't able to travel, watch a few episodes of "Dangerous Roads" on the TV. It'll soon enlighten you about rough roads & harsh climates in other parts of the world.

;=)

Well I for one am really happy to be reading this using a data connection invented by Aussies and now earning CSIRO great royalties after it was stolen by many companies around the world. Yes good old WI-FI .

.......talking of "infuriating and crap" stuff that doesn't work properly.....

Steve, you're making it pretty obvious that you're a Pom or a Kiwi and you're suffering from a green tinge as regards Australians and their leading position in many areas, that include medicine, technology, inventions, and even education.
Australians have been awarded 14 Nobel Laureates for exceptional and outstanding work in many fields - and the majority of those Nobel awards were in medicine, physics and chemistry.
Per capita, we have the highest number of Nobel laureates awarded, of any country in the world.

Australian inventions

We built complex and high-tech equipment here during WW2, such as optical glass, twin-engine aircraft, and ships - when we had previously never built any of those 3 items - and both the Americans and the British did not believe we could build them.

The Americans were gobsmacked to find we built a completely new field gun from drawing board to finished produced in 7 mths. The Americans insisted it would take 18 mths ("History of Holden" by Norm Darwin).

The fact that you have problems with devices that don't work properly is more about corporate bean counters interfering with designs, to construct them more cheaply, or using cheap Chinese components, and thus making them unreliable or poor quality.

Paul McCartney makes around US$16M a year after tax (he had to give his ex-wife US$66M, which was half of his income for 4 yrs).

I couldn't tell you McCartneys gross income, it's obviously quite a bit more - but I can reliably assure you - what the Australian Govt gets paid in royalties - from literary and artistic works, computer programs, databases, broadcasts, films, sound recordings, plant bleeding rights (varieties), medical devices, scientific intruments, trade marks and designs - would make Paul McCartney look like a street beggar.

There's a 242 page "Intellectual Property Manual" online, for the guidance of Australian Govt agencies and inventors, to ensure that everyone, including the Govt, receives their rightful entitlement.

These Australian Govt royalties and payments are also one of the reasons Australians enjoy one of the worlds highest living standards, and I trust you appreciate that.

I see you've had a busy morning Ron (where's the "rolleyes smiley?) and glad to learn the Australian Govt is wealthier than Paul McCartney.

Must've taken a fair bit of research, that, mate. Can't believe you are so offended and taken this so seriously after you were the one who started criticising other nations who have made a far greater contribution to mankind.

Not that it should matter but I am Australian and have both, albeit distant NZ and British connections (have worked there) and perhaps see things a little more objectively than some cringeworthy ideas to the contrary would suggest.

I usually enjoy your posts mate and rather than get involved in a silly squabble will leave the last word for you.

cheers
Steve

You're a crack up Steve, yeah WI-FI is so bleep e it is only the world standard....

Ron - bloody well said, another " it can't be done moment " we uniquely lead the world in is the Over The Horizon Radar array, a scarily effective piece of strategic infrastructure.

Off road tracks....green lanes they are called, are getting quite rare in the UK. I like Land Rovers, you know the motto, "returning oil to the ground for 60 years", and the LR guys in the UK are very jealous of our large amount of off roading opportunities. If they find one that is a few miles long they think it's heaven. Either that or they pay to use someones property. For that reason, I reckon the trailers would be pretty much geared for highway work in their original form. Pom caravans are very small and light compared to ours.

"Looks like just the thing I need to get me out of the house and into the West Beach Caravan Park with the grandkids for a play weekend."

I live in the north east suburbs & my neighbors take their camper trailer to West Beach. Not my cup of tea, but everyone is different! I knew a family who lived in Pennington who did the same thing.

"The video is a joke. Tow it behind a little Landrover 90 - then boast about how big his family is....yeah right! Lost credibility big time. We're not idiots. Towing it behind a mini was appropriate."

I don't suppose that you considered they were trying to demonstrate that you don't need a big car to tow it?

"But it opens a different way - similar to a Jayco without the benefit of a solid roof - a true $20K tent on wheels. Sorry, but to me it offers no more than the simple on-road flip over campers that have become so cheap now."

Ah, there you go! It offers an alternative to the flip over Chinese CT's! (which, by the way have steadily crept up to the $20K mark, just Google forward folding folding camper in Adelaide) Which was why I posted it in the 1st place!

I have no idea what A'Van will come up with when the R&D is complete, but hopefully it will at least be an alternative to what is currently available. As I said, everyone is different & has different needs. No way I'd tow a Jayco, a 5th Wheeler, a massive caravan, or drive a motor home; none suit me, but they all suit someone else's needs!