The Best-Designed Caravan For Sale In Britain Is Actually French?!
It turns out, 2023 would be the year that I’d really start to find my feet with YouTube and learn how to make the most of my platform. One amazing opportunity that came my way was the chance to borrow a brand-new La Mancelle Liberty 440PC from Marquis Caravans and take it away for a weekend with thanks to the Caravan And Motorhome Club. I’m my own worst critic when it comes to my YouTube content, but even I sat back and watched the final edit of this review and felt a huge sense of achievement.
The problem is this: British caravanners love to ask for change, but are pretty much universally unwilling to embrace change when it’s offered. The British caravan industry runs at a staggeringly glacial pace, and sometimes something comes on the market which is so good, that it deserves to be seen by a wider audience to highlight why the product is so good. Enter the La Mancelle Liberty 440PC.
These quirky caravans first launched in France in 2016, and have quickly garnered a reputation on the Continent for being a high-quality futuristic design, with enough conventionality about the interior to remain appealing. In fact, the La Mancelle Liberty range has found success in Germany and the Netherlands, something which is historically very difficult for a French caravan manufacturer to do.
It was at the NEC Caravan and Motorhome Show in October 2022 that I had the fortune of meeting La Mancelle’s general director Olivier Raynaud-Verrier. He was exactly what you’d expect of a French businessman: He was calm and cool, unshakeably assured of his product and soon became animated when it came to explaining his passion project - the La Mancelle Liberty. Olivier explained that he was a life-long caravanner, inheriting the passion (and the company) from his farther who founded La Mancelle caravans in 1960. Olivier had huge involvement in the development of the Liberty range, experimenting with a pioneering construction technique that uses polyester bonding to create a water-resistant structure. When asked what kind of water ingress warranty he would put on this construction technique, he thrust his business card at me and said “if it ever leaks, give me a call”.
I was already a fan of the Liberty range for its bonkers looks alone. In the same way that we love French cars for their quirkiness and charm, the Liberty had that allure to me. What I hadn’t really bothered to do was look in more detail at the caravan in question, and what I found really surprised me…
I’ll start with the most impressive thing about the Mancelle - the quality. It is exquisite! Olivier believed that he could build a premium level caravan with a futuristic design. Usually, premium level caravans focus on kit at the expense of quality and generally play it safe with styling, Mancelle managed to break the mould here. There’s something deeply impressive about the way in which the cupboards align perfectly. Something very satisfying about how substantial the doors, drawers and worktops feel. And the fake wood panels, something that caravans are usually criticised for, are such high quality that they have a real tangible wood grain to them!
On a premium level caravan, you usually trade higher quality for weight gain. I don’t know if it’s witchcraft or something lost in translation, but the Liberty 440PC weighs just 1367kgs empty. And as of September 2023, the La Mancelle range is National Caravan Council (NCC) approved in Great Britain, so those figures are verified. NCC approval is virtually impossible for non-British manufacturers to attain. To this day, only Adria caravans from Slovenia, Hobby caravans from Germany and now La Mancelle are NCC approved.
Even the exterior of the Liberty exudes quality. Love them or hate them, the wooden side panel graphics are produced from a UV-resistant material, guaranteeing longevity and maintaining the appearance of the caravan going forward. Every conceivable high quality option is selected from the heavy duty corner steadies (which uniquely attach to the chassis, NOT the caravan floor like pretty much every other caravan on the market at the moment) to the Al-Ko Delta axle which promises to give the La Mancelle the road-handling characteristics of a trailer on proper coil-spring suspension. No British caravan comes fitted with this premium spec Delta axle. This is one of the best-towing modern caravans on the market. The combination of the more substantial chassis and the incredible aerodynamics afforded us a hassle-free towing experience and an extra 5mpg based on a similarly sized and weighted conventional white box.
You’ll find evidence of practical design throughout the exterior too. The gas BBQ point is fitted at waist-height. Why do manufacturers insist on fitting these points so low down on the bodywork so that you have to stoop and bend over to connect your gas BBQ on site? Ditto the external 240v point and 12v socket, all placed at a sensible working height on the Liberty 440. It sounds silly to comment on it, but you NEVER see this kind of thoughtful design on caravans. Another completely mundane but important design detail of note is the waste water drainage point that funnels neatly to one large household outlet, reducing the chance of a blockage. How refreshing to not have to connect up multiple pipes to silly low-quality waste water outlets with flimsy flap covers which are the industry standard.
As conventional as the layout is on paper, the front end lounge with its restaurant style booth design is truly unique and makes the caravan feel special. Of course the French would place the emphasis on socialising and eating in the caravan. You’ll find a truly enormous table which is fully adjustable in all directions and crucially, no TV!
The fixed bed is also unique for having a perfectly square mattress and an industry-leading 6ft 7in length on the bed. I cannot emphasise how comfortable the bed is. All three nights in the Mancelle I slept all the way through. Another impressive little detail is how you can adjust the heating and standard-spec air conditioning from a remote by the bed.
Ultimately, there’s always a compromise with a caravan, and for the Liberty 440PC, it’s the washroom. I’m very quick to point out here that the body shell is only 4.4m long, so this is actually a comparatively small caravan. It’s a combined shower and toilet, but even then, care has been taken to screen the toilet from the shower when in use and there’s a heater outlet in the washroom to help dry it out.
Another compromise is the kitchen. In France, the Liberty range has one of the best design features I’ve ever seen in a caravan - a fridge in a drawer. For the UK spec, they’ve had to add a tall Thetford compressor fridge to suit the UK market’s demand to be able to use the caravan off-grid. Another regrettable UK alteration is the addition of a full oven and hob, which Brits seem to insist on and then enjoy telling anyone who’ll listen on an internet forum that they never use the oven. The French had the last laugh, publishing an article in their Le Monde Du Plein Air magazine about the UK spec alteration to the Mancelle so that the Brits can have a Sunday Roast on the move. I was happy to see provision for a microwave in the top cupboard, but crucially, it wasn’t fitted. It’s about time that this kind of kit was optional on British caravans too.
It’s not all bad news in the kitchen. The compressor fridge is another industry-leading fitting, which allows the fridge to be run from the leisure battery, cutting down on mains electric usage on site and eliminating the need to use gas to run the fridge off-grid. The kitchen has lots of storage, especially when used with the tall larder cupboard opposite. There’s even a rack on the wall to place your washing up liquid and sponge to increase usable worktop space.
The devastating news for me was that I would have to give this caravan back. I reached the pinnacle of modern caravans with a British-built Vanmaster Applause 520, which was the last word in caravan design at the time. So impressive in its build quality and attention to detail, that I couldn’t find something that would truly replace it that I was willing to pay a wedge of cash every month to enjoy owning. That was at least, until I found the La Mancelle Liberty 440PC…
So the best I can do is to sing its praises, and I’ll gladly sing them loudly. This caravan is worth every penny of its £37,995 price tag. Buy in confidence that you’re getting a caravan that the Brits are going to be trying to catch up with for the next 20 years.
Marquis Leisure are the official dealership for La Mancelle caravans in the UK. Find out more about this model and the others in the range HERE.