Despite the photo on the left, I really have a 7yo Avan Rhys hard top which is very comfortable, tows well and - except for the fact that we would love a shower & toilet - is great for our current needs. But I have recently seen an Elddis (English van totally redesigned for Australian conditions) that uses a more advanced laminated panel construction which has a 10 year warranty on the shell against any ingress of water or dust. The walls, roof and floor joints are all bonded by a special process similar to aircraft which (they claim) means every mm of every joint is fully bonded. I have even seen a photo of one with about 8 men dancing on the roof. This process is claimed to make their vans much stronger and lighter.  I have also been told that there are NO Aussie manufacturers capable of using this process but apparently Swift has matched the shell warranty.

I don't know, but if what they claim is true and this is the future of RV construction, how long is it going to take for our major manufacturers (and at what cost?) to stop building aluminium cladded, timber framed vans as they have for the last 60 or 70 years? We are probably at least 2 years away from upgrading but am interested to keep on top of what sort of vans are going to be available then. Just on that subject, there is another company called Zone RV (Sunshine coast) who look like they use a similar process making a range of Ikea style flat pack custom vans that you can build (I think you need more than an allen key) or they will supply built to any stage up to drive away. I would be very interested hearing from anyone with information on this topic.