Towing a trailer is not the ideal way to explore the backwoods of New Zealand. But what if you found one that’s so tough and manoevrable that it follows anywhere the tow vehicle can go – at little effort? That’s the Tvan, from Australian company Track Trailers, designed on a chassis originally conceived for the Australian Army, and as tough as they come. In fact importer Brett Lysaght has never had a comeback on any of the trailers he’s sold – nor has he heard of any. We took a Tvan out to a farm at Dairy Flat north of Auckland to give it a good going-over. And our test driver was none other than Paul Sutton, well known as the safety officer on the Taupo 1000 road race, and a 4Wheeler of note. Paul normally tows a more traditional camper trailer, so he’s well experienced. However, his choice of tow vehicle was a bit OTT for the 750 kg Tvan – a modified 5.7-litre Land Cruiser 100 with LGP conversion. However, first we had to collect the Tvan and Brett from his base in Gulf Harbour, on the Whangarapoa peninsula, so we took along our brand-new long-term test Kia Sorento to fetch them. Hooking up was a lot easier than we thought it would be. The Tvan has a special coupling designed to allow the Tvan to faithfully track the tow vehicle even on rough and sloping ground, and it allows full articulation both side to side and longitudinally. Brett has this attached to a standard “removable” tow bar system, and it slipped easily in place of the normal tow ball on the Kia, with no modification. Then it was just a matter of hooking up and checking the electrics, and off we went. The Tvan is no wider than the Kia, so there were no problems with rear vision. And it’s so light on the road, despite its 750 kg all-up weight, that we hardly felt it, the Kia’s 125 kW turbo-diesel well up to the job. We met up with Paul at the petrol station in Waitoki, then followed at quite a lick as he took us to the farm. It really was a piece of cake towing the Tvan, and even when we went off the road and through a patch of quite thick mud (and cow droppings) the Kia behaved normally, despite having only ATs on the wheels. Eventually we followed Paul down to a clearing where he, friends and family, normally hang out, and there we quickly transferred the van over to his vehicle for the tow test – mainly so he could get a quick comparison with his own trailer. The changeover was simple as Paul also has a removable coupling, and we were off. We would have liked to have tried a river crossing, but this had been blocked off by the farmer. However, we tackled a few decent ascents and descents before challenging a really muddy gate which had been churned up by cattle. The Tvan faithfully followed the ‘Cruiser as if it wasn’t there – and the major thing was that the wheels never left the ground. “It was amazing,” Paul told me afterwards. “There’s absolutely no shunt at all through the tow hitch, no bump-steer – nothing. Amazing”. I had followed behind, and I can confirm that the wheels stuck faithfully to the ground, courtesy of a 250 mm suspension travel, plus the fact that the track of the Tvan faithfully matches that of the towing vehicle. Brett in fact uses a Land Cruiser 100 for his own van, but the track, nominally 1,650 mm, can be altered by using different wheel and tyre specifications. The Tvan has a solid body built onto the MC2 specification (MC2 is a military term for “mobility category 2” and is the highest rating applicable for non-powered vehicles) asymmetric link suspension chassis, and it has a lozenge shape when viewed from the side, with big privacy glass side windows. Following the combination one sees only the trailer, and it looks like a tough military vehicle from the back thanks to the strong checker plate fold-up platform. Because the Tvan has so much interior space, including on-board water tanks served by both electric and manual pumps, Track Trailer eschews carrying loads on the drawbar, and you’ll only find a spare wheel, gas bottle and battery there. The best feature of the Tvan for me is that you can just open up the back and dive inside during a thunderstorm and get straight into the comfy queen-sized bed without having to open up a tent or anything. Because it opens at the back, not the sides, you only need a space as wide as your towing vehicle, which means you could even doss down on the track if need be. The solid core of the Tvan is like a small caravan, and has enough room at the end for you to store a lot of gear, and to stand bent over to get dressed and undressed without having to climb onto the bed first.

The Tvan also comes with its own electric power, charged by either a coupling to the tow vehicle or the roof-mounted solar cells, so you just switch on the interior lights without having to fiddle about with torches. The next morning you can either fold up the whole thing and get on with your journey – that takes mere minutes – or you can set up camp properly. And even then it can be done in stages. There’s a built-in tent which is built into the big clam-shell rear door, and this just drops out and can be erected at the back of the Tvan in a few minutes, using the fold-down platform as its base, well off the ground. You can then pull out the kitchen which slides into the side of the Tvan – two burners, a sink with electric pump, plus a utensil drawer – and cook breakfast. If it’s drizzling there’s a sail you can quickly erect over the cooking area, enough to keep out light rain and the sun, or if you want to set up camp properly there’s a huge zip-in side awning which transforms the Tvan from small trailer to home-from-home. Oh, and it even comes with a toilet/shower enclosure which zips in place on one side. Everything is of extremely high quality, and Brett has chosen a high specification for the Tvans he imports from Aussie. Of course, this sort of quality and specification doesn’t come cheap, but the Tvan is probably the only way I’m going to get my missus to enjoy – I mean really enjoy – camping in the wild. And as for Paul, well he went home with his own set of brochures and a plan to subtly convince his wife that it’s time to upgrade from their current camper trailer… All Tvan models have Track MC2 suspension with 250 mm wheel travel, self-steering geometry, fully articulated AT-35 coupling, stainless steel pullout kitchen including two burner stove, wind shield, large bench and cutlery drawer, 70 litre water tank, filler and pump on guard, electric water pump to sink plus a hand pump, easy setup tent including hard floor, breakfast bar, awning and kitchen windbreak. There’s also a comfortable bed under hard roof and walls, interior load restraint, large front and rear roof vents, full length awning with wind break wall at kitchen, hard floor under tent, huge cargo space and 500 kg payload incl. tie rails to rear load space. Each Tvan also has a jig welded hot dipped galvanised chassis, off-road electric brakes and park brake, three new 15x7 wheels, tyres, studs and nuts, spare wheel mount and styled cover, effective stone deflector, five Jerry can holders, solid jockey wheel, gas bottle, mounting and regulator, on-board battery with Anderson plug connection to tow vehicle, two 12 volt power outlets, two 12 volt interior lights, three 12 volt power outlets, and a fire extinguisher and smoke alarm. There are three levels of Tvan specification; Brett imports the middle-of-the-road Canning, which comes as mentioned at $44,000. In addition our test trailer was upspecced by fitting a 240 volt safety switch, a second gas cylinder, bed length extension kit (for tall people) bed tie-down rails, an under-mattress liner, the toilet/shower ensuite, sail awning, draught skirt, special matting for the “annex”, brake controller, AGM 100 amp/hour battery and box, 230 volt electrical power supply lead, four plastic Jerry cans for water or fuel, and five plastic under-bed stowage boxes. This comes to an additional $3,403. For more details contact Brett Lysaght at (09) 424-1295 or check their web site at www.tvan.co.nz * SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions Overall length travel mode: 4,400 mm Overall width: 1,860 mm Height unladen: 2,050 mm Interior set up length: 4,800 mm Deck area under tent: 1,700 x 2,000 mm.