Luxury living

If you spend weeks on the road competing, you need somewhere comfortable and practical to sleep and spend your downtime. Stephanie Bateman takes a peep through the keyhole of some of the most salubrious lorries on the market

- Stephanie Bateman

TODAY’S lorries take the saying “a home from home” to another level. Some of the living areas in modern trucks are more akin to a luxury yacht than your average home, and they can cost significantly more, too.

The mod cons and luxuries you can expect in a lorry nowadays reflect the fact that many riders spend long periods away from home.

“With the advancement in lighter yet strong build materials, more and more clients want larger living accommodation,” says Tom Janion, managing director of Equi-Trek. “This has been made easier with pop-out sides, which quickly make the living space much bigger.”

Indeed, pop-out sides and pop-up roofs have become highly desirable.

“Slide-out sides first appeared on lorries in 2000, and since then, we can now have up to five slide-outs as well as pop-up roofs,” says

Charles Oakley, director of Oakley Horseboxes. “We do one to the seating area, one to the kitchen area and one to the wardrobe in the hallway as well as the shower area to give you a bigger square footage.

“We have also just sent one lorry to a customer with a pop-out bedroom behind the bathroom which has a double bunk that becomes a sofa in the day and doubles up as a games room for the kids.”

Pop-out sides aren’t just the preserve of the larger lorries.

“In smaller HGV trucks we offer a ‘fix pop’, which is a fibreglass extension on the pop-up roof to give more head height,” says Jayne Whittaker, of Whittaker Coachbuilders. “This is nicer for a family so they can sleep four easily without making the seating area into a bed.”