landiepete wrote:

Your comment is ill informed and frankly dangerous. Yes, nose weight is important but, contrary to e.g. US vans, severely limited.
Secondly left-right weight of a van in Europe is seldom balanced.

Your comment indicates to me you have very little experience pulling (large) caravans and as such you may consider refraining from commenting on the subject.

I towed a 23' car trailer with my Porsche 356 inside to Florida and back with my LR3 in 2016.
It got atrocious mileage (around 10 mpg) but it was comfortable around 60-65.

The Discovery 5 TDV6 diesel was a great tow vehicle - with my Escape 15 trailer (around 3500 lbs) behind it you could cruise at 70 mph and get over 20 mpg.

The latest trailer is another Eriba Puck that is 12' long and weighs around 1200 lbs loaded with camping gear. Its the same width as an old style Defender 90 and you can't even tell its back there behind the new 110.



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DSL wrote:

Saw lots and lots and lots of great looking combos in Aus last year. Not a lot pulled by LRs but managed to snap a pic of this one in Pemberton, WA.


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weapon of choice in Australia is the Tojo LC100/200/70 series typically,many of which require GVM upgrades to tow a big van. It is quite common for people to go on the road in Oz for extended periods of time from 3-18 months, the big lap being the
ultimate road trip, hence the bias towards off road vans, especially with at least a reasonable level of off grid capability,
say up to a week at a time.. Heading off on our big lap once we have ordered and taken delivery of our Zone Base RV.. I am
sure the the P400 should pull 3-3.2T with no drama, well except for the fuel consumption

Edited: Cruisemaster have done a few videos with the new Defender, even picking it up when they were looking to replace
their Landcruiser . Apparently he has history with Land Rover, his grandfather Arthur was the Chief Engineer on the Series 1,
and his father manufactured panels for Disco's back in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lknta5TTc...MABz1RKeAr yet another pommie bar steward down under

MY20 110 P400 SE Defender
MY10 3.0 RR Sport

Exactly a year ago we were in Tassie starting to plan our big lap 2nd trip in Aus. We were going to get a 6 month visa, rent a 4WD from Hertz for 6 months and do a figure of 8 real road trip. Sadly SWMBO’s illness has put paid to that plan, never mind COVID, but hope to get back to Aus some time to pick up where we left off last year. After Japan. Top of our “must get back to” list is Japan as had fantastic travelling there in 2019.

Let me know when you are planning to travel once the world opens, happy to coordinate some trips
and off road days with fellow landie owners yet another pommie bar steward down under

MY20 110 P400 SE Defender
MY10 3.0 RR Sport

Will do. We were due to “see” Sydney when the world started closing down and had to cut and run. We had even splashed out on room at the InterCont overlooking the Opera House, had to cancel that. We flew back to Perth to fly home but stopped for extra day in Hunter Valley, luckily we did or we’d have been on the same plane as the Ruby Princess passengers heading to Perth. Was a bit of a stressful time.

I was going in the opposite direction, I was in the UK for Feb due to my mother being diagnosed with a terminal illness,
then early March had to rush back to 🇦🇺 to avoid being locked out . Ruby princess a complete NSW govt cluster if there
ever was one yet another pommie bar steward down under

MY20 110 P400 SE Defender
MY10 3.0 RR Sport

zilch wrote:

Edited: Cruisemaster have done a few videos with the new Defender, even picking it up when they were looking to replace
their Landcruiser . Apparently he has history with Land Rover, his grandfather Arthur was the Chief Engineer on the Series 1,
and his father manufactured panels for Disco's back in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lknta5TTc...MABz1RKeAr

engineering must be in the blood, Arthurs son Chris and grandson Andrew Goddard are
both MD’s at cruisemaster yet another pommie bar steward down under

MY20 110 P400 SE Defender
MY10 3.0 RR Sport

landiepete wrote:

The issue with these things is not the weight, but the very large frontal surface causing air resistance (and thus required work) to exponentionalrise rise with speed.

Your comment reminded me of seeing this:

The KABE Royal Tower

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https://rvdaily.com.au/the-kabe-royal-towe...k-caravan/

^ Looks like a Top Gear joke creation!

Good thread this as I own RRS SDV8 but am thinking the Defender as my next vehicle. Also have just ordered a Zone 20.5 base model after a factory visit.

Aim to have the Zone by October and head for the flats !

Good info here so this reply should keep me in the loop.

zilch wrote:

The Offroad Zone RV (used) typically comes in around 2.5- 2.8T TARE, so that has likely been loaded up to the gills if it is at
3.3T. Ordering a Zone base off road for our lap of Australian they are generally one of the lighter Off Road Caravans by
length compared to many of their competitors, mainly due to composite construction. Lucky we ordered the 5+2 Defender
(have to listen to the wife more often ) it has a higher payload allowance on the rear axle, 1900KG rather than 1800KG..

They were not clear if they were using their airbag suspension, if so, i am assuming you can drop the hitch height by setting
the van at a lower ride for on road..

Quote:

In the vid he stated that the car had airbag suspension, and they added an adjustable hitch to get correct tow ball height.

interested in whether the Zone had the cruisemaster air suspension or standard coils.. on the off chance if you fit the
air, you may be able to run at a lower on-road height.. Off road not to fussed as i can jack the Defender up a bit
on the off road setting to meet the hitch.. Good luck with your new Zone , only about to place an order in the next
week or so.. yet another pommie bar steward down under

MY20 110 P400 SE Defender
MY10 3.0 RR Sport

My Zone has the airbag, I got the limited edition with lots of options. I did place an order in 2020 but cancelled due to COVID.

So perhaps we will meet on the road. I am in the Gong so same side of Australia as you.

Enjoy the defender, I am waiting for the new diesel, and most likely won't consider for a year or two.