Caravan Profile: Titanium Caravans Ti22 S4

Titanium Caravans has built an enviable reputation over the years. I don’t say that lightly. The reality is, this company has swiftly become a serious player in the offroad market, with most vans in the range focussing on off-grid living. 

These off-grid vans aren’t designed to sit in holiday parks. No. They’re built to forge new trails in remote areas without you breaking a sweat, both literally and figuratively. After all, what would a true off-grid caravan be without the ability to run the AC?

Personally, I love the look of the HS1 pop-top. It mightn’t offer the same 12V grunt as the van I’m about to introduce, but with its fibreglass sandwich panel construction and smaller on-road footprint, it’s the one that would suit me.

But at this year’s Victorian Caravan & Camping Supershow, I got talking with Titanium general manager Josh Gibson. You see, he had his brand new personal caravan on display. This was a big, beautiful beast, a van you’d eye with envy as it rolled into the free camp.

TITANIUM CARAVANS: REAL-WORLD R&D

You’d be surprised to learn how many manufacturers of caravans in Australia don’t take their own vans on holidays. Anecdotally and based only on my opinion, the vans that get walloped in the outback by the people who build them are usually the ones that truly impress their owners. The team at Titanium Caravans is on the list of builders who love nothing more than to try to break the rigs they build.

This van is known as the Ti22 S4 and was a 23-footer in Titanium’s top-end S4 package, though it’s available in a range of sizes, starting from 18ft 8in. 

The S4 package gives the van all of those off-grid features intended to keep you in the bush longer. It is also available in an S1 and S3 package, each one providing a different level of features. For example, the S1 offers 120Ah of lithium power and less solar than the S4 as standard, as well as a different suspension system. Meanwhile, in the S4 package, the Ti22 is given two 300Ah lithium batteries, a 2600W inverter, and a whopping 1000W of rooftop-mounted solar. To make sure the batteries are full when you arrive at camp, the Ti22 also features a 40A DC-DC charger as well as a 60A mains charger.

When discussing a van’s off-grid capability, our thoughts usually go straight to its battery and solar ratings, but its water-carrying capacity is just as crucial. As standard, this van gets a healthy 245L worth in two poly rotomoulded tanks, plus an 85L grey tank, but Josh instead opted for three 160L tanks for a total of 480L and a 95L grey tank.

“We’re still teaching the kids to take short showers but in the meantime, we have plenty of water!” he said.

Stepping into the Titanium Caravans Ti22 S4 with Josh, the practicality of the rig was immediately apparent. The rear bathroom/kids’ room setup was particularly appealing. Beyond the main living quarters, the layout incorporated a bathroom/kids’ room, with the bunks stretching across the rear wall. Often in vans with rear bunks and bathrooms, you’ll find the bunks running north-south, with the bathroom filling out the rear-nearside corner immediately. But this layout is clever for a particular reason.

“We find a lot of families, especially with young kids, don’t want to have the bunks running adjacent to the bathroom because it makes it difficult to use the bathroom at night without waking them,” Josh said. “By putting the bathroom in front of the kids’ room and separating them with a door, we’re minimising disruption.”

The first time I saw an honest-to-God king-size bed in a caravan was inside a Titanium. And the Ti22 gets the same treatment. Positioned in the front-nearside corner, it’s surrounded by lockers, fans, a dust reduction system and more. It even has drawers with upholstered facias under the bed.

Josh called his van a ‘burger with the lot’ – an apt description. “I’ve got just about every option you can have on this van,” he said. As a result, the Tare on his personal Ti22 was about 3500kg.

“But it depends on what you’re towing your van with and where you’re going. Weights aren’t an issue for me, towing it with a big Scania truck. We’ve had customers with this layout who have gotten the weight down to about 3100kg Tare.”

EXTERNAL ACCESSORIES

Titanium Caravans owns its own fabrication company, Wolf Fabrication, which makes all external toolboxes, rear bars, trims and more. The result: a much more streamlined appearance, as though these accessories were designed to fit the van, rather than a van to fit externally-supplied accessories.

The rear bar on this beast could carry a lot of firewood, and we have to mention the attention paid to the nearside of the van. I’m talking a big-screen TV recessed within the wall and hidden behind a lid of powder coated sheet metal, a slide-out barbecue, recessed storage compartments and a great deal more.

Asked to nominate his favourite feature of his van, as a 6ft 2in bloke, Josh was quick to nominate the king-size bed. “We have kids too and of course they all want to jump into bed with us, so having that big bed is great.”

This van had a ‘gas-less cabin’. The heating is provided either by the split-system air-con or the diesel heater, while cooking is done on a portable induction cooktop, which can be taken outside and used in conjunction with the two burners on the external barbecue.

Asked if going ‘gas-less’ was something he recommended for all Titanium customers, Josh said, “For those customers who want to go offroad and they’re speccing up that battery and solar power, then opting for a gas-less cabin with an induction cooktop is a great option. The other thing is that if you go for a diesel heater, you can delete the vent in the door, which we know is a point of dust ingress.”

Speaking of dust, you’d not be surprised to learn that this van had an electric cabin pressurisation system, also made by Titanium’s company, Wolf Fabrication. “I travel on a lot of red dusty roads and it does a fantastic job.”

The Titanium Caravans Ti22 is framed in interlocking aluminium studs secured by Henrob self-piercing rivets on top of a hot-dipped-galvanised chassis. As for the suspension, it depends on which package option you buy. The S1 provides Alpha Extreme independent coil suspension, while the S3 offers Cruisemaster XT coil suspension that can be upgraded to air-bags. But the S4, the top-end offering, gets Level 3 self-levelling Cruisemaster ATX air-bag suspension as standard.

SUMMING UP

The point is, Titanium Caravans knows how to build an offroad, off-grid touring machine. It costs a pretty penny – starting from about $180K for the 18ft 6in Ti22 S4 – but it’s a pretty impressive beast, too. As always, you get what you pay for and though we haven’t touched on every feature and benefit on offer, I feel confident in saying that anyone who had the budget and the tow vehicle to suit – this van can be loaded to 4500kg – would feel confident taking it anywhere there 4WD could go.

Just be prepared to indulge impressed fellow travellers seeking a peak inside when you pull up to the camp site…

QUICK SPECS

Tare: 3500kg

ATM: 4500kg

Overall length: 6.96m

External width: 2.49m

Overall height: 3.2m

The post Caravan Profile: Titanium Caravans Ti22 S4 appeared first on GoRV.

Source: https://www.gorv.com.au/caravan-profile-titanium-caravans-ti22-s4/