Stealth Evo 6 XHR - 594

The name might be a bit of a mouthful, but before you go reaching for your German-made Enigma code cracker, the Evo 6 is much easier to decipher.

- Godfrey Castle

The H in the new Stealth XHR’s name stands for hybrid, possibly the first time this word is being used among caravan manufacturers in South Africa, and this certainly sets the mind racing.

If you have a thought process such as mine, you may have to cross your fingers and hope to be forgiven for illogical thinking… For we know ‘hybrid’ in the case of motor vehicles relates to a combination of fossil fuel and electricity for engine power, but in a caravan? Does hybrid mean it’s got a battery-powered drive system on the wheels, beds that make themselves, or an ingenious way to connect to the towcar by itself?

What is a hybrid caravan?

Well, it is simple really. It is neither a conventional caravan or a gravel-roader, and not even an off-roader for that matter. Rather it is an in-between conventional and gravel-roader caravan, one that can forgo the billiard table smoothness of compacted tarmacs and swop all this for a road surface that is, perhaps, half-decent and un-tarred.

And in order to do this, the XHR 594 featured here has been upgraded and strengthened in vital areas. We must therefore deduce that the next step in the development of Stealth models will surely be that of a pucker gravel-roader.

But, in comparison, the new XHR model stands some 11cm higher than the conventional XR model (which has 14” wheel rims), it now has 15” alloy rims fitted with fat 215/80R15 Goodyear All Terrain tyres. These have stronger Kevlar sidewalls, capable of withstanding lower inflation pressures, and the heat build-up that is generated when riding on underinflated tyres.

Softer tyres equals less vibration into the caravan and, for the suspension, less heating of the rubber inserts in the Al-Ko suspension – let’s not forget the milk turning to butter in the fridge of caravans with increased vibration, and less forgiving suspension.