Carado has done an excellent job of seamlessly blending the body and cab. Although the entry door is on the
driver’s side, in practice you quickly adapt and it soon becomes a non-issue.
A
decade or so ago there was generally a
separation between motorhomes built
for the rental market and those for the
retail market. One obvious difference in the
generally-larger rental motorhomes was that
most were six berth and usually without a fixed
bed, unless you counted the over-cab Luton.
That often made them difficult to on sell in the
retail market, post rental service.
In NZ, Wilderness Motorhomes changed
that modus operandi some years back by
introducing Bürstner (and later Carado)
motorhomes to its rental fleet. These were
motorhomes built for the retail market and
the move brought a double benefit: Rental
customers got a better class of motorhome
while Wilderness found them easier to sell via
its retail arm, Smart RV.
I mention all that because my review
motorhome – a brand new Carado T348 – was
in stock when I took the review photos, but
as I write the last one is rolling out the door.
However, all is not lost! There are a number
of T348s in the Wilderness rental fleet, where
they go under the name of Ranger 4. So you
can actually try a fully equipped one out for a
few days or a few weeks and in a year or two’s
time grab one at a great price when it becomes
available from the rental fleet!Like Bürstner, Carado is part of the giant Erwin
Hymer Group from Germany. Carado a more
budget priced range, but there are various
similarities between the products from both
manufacturers. Like for instance the base
vehicle – a Fiat Ducato Multijet 130 wide-
track cab-chassis with a GVM of 3495 kg
(thus sneaking under the magic 3500 kg WOF
limit). Not that weight is a problem, given the
impressive payload of 765 kg.Generally Speaking
T
erminology is always interesting to me,
at least the terms used by overseas
manufacturers. For instance, the CaradoTested | 43