unique 6 wheeler highlander caravan

hi
sorry it's a spaceland van

mazcan

The link seems to take me nowhere, but was wondering if this is the same one,
Unique 6 wheeler caravan

Cheers,

Cruiser

We saw that van outside Charleville a couplle of years ago. It was then being towed by a Discovery. As it was parked in the pulloff area heading west, obviously for an overnight stop, we wondered how it would handle the narrower bituman and roadtrains the other side of Quilpie

Cheers Teza

We were camped at Wyandra (qld) in sept 09 and met the owners of this unique caravan. We all spent a few days there during the severe dust storms that covered most of the east coast. The guy who built it was a toolmaker by trade and he built the rolling chassis and SpacelanD built the shell and did the fitout to the owners design.

They were towing it with a Discovery and the drawbar load was zilch!

There is a link on a previous post and there is suggestion there that it had a turntable under the front. This is NOT so - it has 3 live axles, each suspended on leaf springs. The front axle has kingpins for steering. All three axles feature vacuum/hydraulic disc brakes. The hollow RHS chassis forms the huge vacuum reservoir for the braking system.

The owner commented that it towed better than any other caravan that they owned in the past. Reversing was much the same as a dog trailer behind a truck.

Assuming you had the appropriate licence, would there be any reason why you couldn't tow a trailer behind the caravan ?


Cheers......Lionel.

we had a few of them on the "Shire of Ashburton" for the remote road crews, they all had air brakes but we did from time to time tow them with the cruisers, mostly towed by the trucks and the graders, yes they have NO weight on the tow bar as it was a turntable, the tow bar was "light" compared to a normal van as it simply towed so you could have used a chain in effect....
Yep they towed very well but tended to snake out of line quickly and as there was no weight on the hitch you could not feel it, you used the trailer overide braking to pull them back in line a lot .....
The main drawback is that it does not put any weight on the towing unit and hence you lose any "feel" of it, you also lose and braking tracton but setting up the trailer braking right and it is fine ... also all were made "above" the tire heights so were very TOP heavy and high to get into, never rolled any in my time there
Awsome to back as you can get it in tighter spots...
Hook and un hook is good as no weight on hitch ....Had to alway find a level spot to park as could not level with legs ....
They were all made in WA, cant remember by whom....

Hi Mazcan, looking at the photos it looks similar to the vans towed by Graders doing the shire roads in the Ashburton Shire when I was in Tom Price in the 80's albeit they were only two axles. These were the contractors who maintained the shires vast road network, they normally towed a 1000 gal diesel tanker behind this and had special permits from Main Roads (I think or were operating illegally) to operate as a road train.I cannot find a picture but they were a alluminium box on a chassis, front axle being a turntable.
I have often wondered the Advantages/ disadvantages of a trailer in the style of drawbar/turntable for towing behind a 4wd as opposed to normal 6x4 trailers etc?
Cheers Rob Mac