Keith Gooden
In today’s episode of the Motorhome Matt podcast…
Matt Sims
We discover RP Motorhomes and take a closer look at one of their new models.
Keith Gooden
In the news, a rogue business owner and engineer from Scunthorpe have been jailed after a gas cylinder exploded in a campervan, leaving a customer with burns.
Matt Sims
And we answer your questions on SIM cards, navigation apps and cab air con.
Keith Gooden
Welcome to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
Industry insights and expert advice for the world of motorhomes, caravans and campervans, and it’s brought to you by www.thatleisureshop.com and sponsored by Ripe.
Matt Sims
Now, please do remember to follow on your favourite podcast app and click subscribe on YouTube, sponsored by www.arobascreative.co.uk.
Campervan dealer charged after van explodes
Keith Gooden
Now, the BBC have been reporting that Grimsby Crown Court have heard that Carl Smith, the owner of Ivy Lane Campers, employed Nigel Crellin to carry out an inspection in the aftermath of an incident in August 2023. What happened then, Matt?
Matt Sims
A campervan exploded due to a gas leak, which I believe allegedly had been checked for gas compliance, and a load of paper was backdated to make it look like the motorhome had been gas safety tested.
Keith Gooden
Well, that’s pretty serious stuff, isn’t it? What happened to them, then?
Matt Sims
So they were convicted at the Crown Court and jailed for this awful event. My advice is always get your motorhome checked professionally by some kind of Approved Workshop Scheme. I mean, how would you know if these guys were approved? If they’re part of the Approved Workshop Scheme, they’re going to be inspected every year. And that gives you some assurity that they are of a professional and capable standard, which these guys obviously weren’t.
Keith Gooden
By all means, take as much as you’re happy to as read. Oh, they looked fine to me, and they talked a good game and all the rest of it – check, check, check. Don’t go by what you think. Go by what you know. So be warned about this one.
Product of the week
Keith Gooden
Our product feature of the week is a coffee bracket. What’s a coffee bracket?
Matt Sims
At That Leisure Shop, we are really, actually, genuinely excited about this. We all drink coffee in our motorhomes, don’t we? We love it. I’m a big coffee fan. And there’s been a coffee bracket designed specifically for the Nespresso Essenza coffee machine.
Keith Gooden
Why that one?
Matt Sims
Because it’s small. They’re very narrow. And trying to get the bracket that lifts it off the worktop so you can screw it to the wall above your sink or on the side of the wardrobe or side the fridge – they’ve been really hard to get hold of. And there was a company in Germany selling them, and they kept going out of stock. Guess what? We’ve had them made.
Keith Gooden
Oh, have you? Because they’re not cheap.
Matt Sims
They’re here. Well, they’re £109.99.
Keith Gooden
That’s what you’re charging.
Matt Sims
We’re retailing them for that. Get 10% off with the code MOTORHOMEMATT.
Keith Gooden
What’s everybody else charging for them?
Matt Sims
Well, you can buy an original manufacturer one for £330, which is a lot of money for a coffee bracket.
Keith Gooden
I need a cup of coffee. Look at that. So this is the bit here that you attach to what? You don’t want to make holes in your motorhome, do you?
Matt Sims
They come with the screws, little screws. Now, you may want to use longer screws, or if you’ve got the wood depth to do it, you may want to double sided tape it to the water as well. That’s entirely up to you. We fitted ours in our motorhome with the little screws, and because the weight is down – I’m banging it on the desk – because the weight pulls down, it holds perfectly.
There’s a velcro strap that you fix the coffee machine in with so you can travel with it in situ, so it’s nice and secure. And just mount this bracket so that you can open the lid of the coffee machine and get your coffee pod in it. This is designed specifically for the Nespresso Essenza coffee machine.
Keith Gooden
And you use that in motorhoming and caravanning because it’s compact.
Matt Sims
Because it’s small, yeah, and there may be other coffee machines that will fit in it. I don’t know. That’s the only one that we’ve used. Yeah, compact and great tasting coffee. And suddenly, this fixes your coffee machine in situ. We run ours off an inverter as well as the ring main. So if it’s hooked up, we run on the mains, but we have a socket it plugs into as well, next to the bracket, which means it runs on the lithium battery.
Keith Gooden
Now, you didn’t answer my question – what do you screw it to? Because you don’t want to be making holes in your motorhome.
Matt Sims
Well, you have to make four holes in the motorhome.
Keith Gooden
So what, in the wall?
Matt Sims
Yeah. So we’ve screwed ours to the wardrobe wall next to the kitchen. But of course, you can use this bracket anywhere. Put it in a shepherd’s hut, put it in any small kitchen space. It’s ideal, but we have designed it specifically for use in a motorhome.
Keith Gooden
Fantastic. And how much are they, again?
Matt Sims
£109.99.
Keith Gooden
Where can you get them?
Matt Sims
www.thatleisureshop.com.
Who is Marcus Leach?
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
And it’s brought to you with That Leisure Shop and sponsored by Ripe. For the main part of the podcast this week, we’re going to be joined by RP Motorhomes, who you talked to at the NEC show. Who are they?
Matt Sims
They’re a long-established campervan converter, family-run and owned, and they are renowned for their innovation, creating very cool campervans. And they kind of had a tie-up with Marcus Leach.
Keith Gooden
Who?
Matt Sims
Exactly!
Keith Gooden
Sorry, Marcus.
Matt Sims
I spoke to a lot of people and said, “I’m interviewing Marcus Leach later.” Now, Marcus is always on stage talking about his travels. And lot of people said, well, Marcus, what’s he actually famous for?
So I started by asking Marcus to tell us a little bit more about what he is famous for. I’m here with the tallest man at the show, Marcus Leach. Now, I should get a t-shirt that says, “Who is Marcus Leach, anyway?” Because I’ve been telling people I’m coming to interview you, and they say, “Who?” So tell us, what is it you’re actually famous for?
Marcus Leach
So I am an award-winning travel writer with a passion for travel and exploration, but more than that, to inspire other people to travel and see the world expand their own horizons by sharing stories of our own family adventures and my own personal adventures, both within the motorhome and the van industry, but also on two wheels on my bike.
Matt Sims
And you’re a big cyclist as well, aren’t you?
Marcus Leach
I am. Yes, it’s something of a passion of mine. I was once described by a cycling magazine saying, “Marcus Leach spends more time on his bike than you do on your sofa.” So that probably gives you an idea of how many miles I do each year.
Matt Sims
Wow, that’s impressive. And how many miles have you done in a motorhome? Have you any idea?
Marcus Leach
In the last three years, I think it’s about 42,000. I’ve spent three years living full time in a motorhome, travelling the world with my wife and children. I think it’s 34 countries, four continents.
Matt Sims
Wow. So you’ve got a lot to talk about. Hence you’re on stage regularly at these shows.
Marcus Leach
That’s one of the places I come and share stories of inspiration, to really showcase locations to people to say, look, there’s a big, wide world out there. You know, dare to be different. Go somewhere new and have a great time in the process.
Matt Sims
You are an inspiration. That is true. Now, we’re here on the RP Leisure Group stand, and you’re in your RP Adventures t-shirt. What a phenomenal camper this is behind us. What’s your affiliation? How did you get involved with RP?
Marcus Leach
So it’s an interesting story, actually. I first discovered RP through my mum, because Mum, four or five years ago, was buying one alongside my dad. Unfortunately, dad wasn’t well, couldn’t come up and see. So Mum said, “Will you come up with me to see the vehicles?” And I said, “Of course, love to.”
I met Steve and Jaye, the owners. And it kind of developed from there, really. Then when mum went to pick up a vehicle, I went with her and started doing a little bit of travel with her. Because unfortunately, after just one trip, Dad sadly passed.
And mum didn’t really know whether she would continue or not with the vehicle, but thankfully she has, and through that relationship with Steve and Jaye and them, knowing how I love to travel and inspire others, they asked me, would I help start to curate some bespoke small group adventure tours for them, which is the RP adventure side of things.
So we take people to destinations they might not otherwise go to on their own, and give them an experience. So they take their vans to places where they’re made to go and adventure, but also coming back to that expanding horizons, to open their eyes to some amazing destinations, but also have that group travel, that small group travel, shared experiences with like minded people and help them create memories that hopefully will last a lifetime.
Matt Sims
Now, tell us a bit about this amazing Rebel behind us. It’s award winning. It’s won best all road camper under six and a half meters. Tell us about some of the features on it, because I’m impressed.
Marcus Leach
It’s unbelievable. It’s an incredible vehicle. It’s the Rebel Raid. It’s the ultimate off road, off grid, luxury motorhome for those who really want to go and explore and see the world. And there’s some features that take it from being sort of a great vehicle to a really fantastic vehicle.
The first is the RP Smart Assist, which is the fully integrated iPad control panel, where not only can you have that sort of remote control over your vehicle, controlling your heating, lighting, turning on the hot water when you’re coming back from a walk to have your shower, but more importantly, to make sure that your vehicle is always at full health.
So if there’s any issues with battery levels, things like that, not only do you as an owner get that, but it also feeds back to RP, and they can help control things for you so that your vehicle remains in full health. That’s one of the real selling points.
And then if we look outside of the vehicle, you’ve got a water filtration system, whereby it’s a triple filter system with an almost 200 liter capacity tank, so it filters the water three times before it’s ever got towards you drinking it. So you can sort of put a hose into a river, and it’ll pull the water out, and you know it’s going to be absolutely safe drinking.
And then on the front you’ve got the second alternator, which draws five kilowatts of energy so you don’t need to plug into a Shoreline, so you really can get all the energy you need to run all of the appliances, everything you’ve got in your motorhome without ever really needing to plug in.
Matt Sims
Marcus, tell me a bit more about the climate control as well, because this is really quite different to everyone else in the market.
Marcus Leach
So we’ve moved away from having sort of the traditional air conditioning unit on the top, and we’re using a traditional car air conditioning unit that can be re-gassed, and that’s something that RP will do for people when they come in for their habitation checks.
And it just means that we’ve got a real state-of-the-art climate control air conditioning unit in there, so that you’ve always got the optimum temperature. And if you’re a pet owner, you can link that to the Smart Assist, whereby it will automatically kick in over a certain temperature.
So if you’re in the shops getting some food and your dogs are in the van, you know you don’t need to worry about that. So with those four main features, this really does elevate this vehicle to a real off grid lifestyle vehicle.
Matt Sims
It is quite amazing. Thank you for sharing more about it. Marcus, how can people follow you and your adventures?
Marcus Leach
The main way to follow me is on Instagram. It’s @marcusleachglobal. But I also write for a host of different magazines and newspapers, so you can just search my name and lots of things come up.
Matt Sims
You’re just all over the internet. Tell me, what is your next trip? What’s the next plan?
Marcus Leach
So the next trip, as a family, we’re off to Austria for a month over Easter, then we’ve got our summer holidays, and then we’ve got the big trip to Morocco in October with eight vans of owners from RP.
Matt Sims
Enjoy it. Have fun. Thank you so much.
The ultimate off-grid camper from RP Motorhomes
Matt Sims
Right, I want to bring Jaye into this, the owner of RP. So tell me a bit then about this second alternator, because I’m intrigued by it. You spec them from new, is that right?
Jaye Young
Yeah. So all the vehicles, because we’re a manufacturer and we’re type approved, we’ve got British type approval, standard certification, we order the vans brand new from Mercedes. So we have a special order code that allows us to add the second alternator. So it’s a power take off unit, off the engine, and then we connect that to a five kilowatt power generator via the alternator/
Matt Sims
Which then in turn runs the entire habitation.
Jaye Young
It runs the habitation. But it just means that you can have a really large amount of power into your habitation batteries. So you can do a big cook using an air fryer and the induction hub and a microwave and really not drain your leisure battery, because you’re using your power generator while your engine’s on idle.
So you’ve got to have the engine idling, but it also allows you to run the power generator when you’re cruising as well. So if you’re moving from one site to another, you can use your power generator to put up to 190 amps an hour into your leisure batteries.
Matt Sims
Love it.
Jaye Young
You can be completely recharged in two hours.
Matt Sims
Now, tell me about the payload on this. So this is 4.1 tonnes.
Jaye Young
So as it stands at the moment, with full water and the people in it, you’ve got approximately 500 kilograms of payload, but you can add onto that.
Matt Sims
More than that, though you calculate the payload with a full tank of water. So nearly 200 liters, 184 liters.
Jaye Young
- So there’s 84 liters on board, in the fresh water tank. Yeah, there’s an additional 100 liters underslung, but that is trace heated as well. So all good in all climates. And then you’ve got another 10 liters in your Truma boiler as well.
Matt Sims
So you calculate the kerb weight with that full.
Jaye Young
Yes.
Matt Sims
Nobody else is doing that, I don’t think. And you’ve got half a tonne of payload on top of that.
Jaye Young
And we use a hybrid system of all the cabinetry in the van. So we use the lightweight plywood, like a lot of our competitors do, but we have an additional profile that is a super lightweight. It’s insulative, but hardly weighs anything.
Matt Sims
I met some of your customers just now, and they are a passionate bunch.
Jaye Young
They are. They’re great. I adore our customers, which is one of the reasons why we wanted to bring Marcus into the fold, because it allows the customers to go and use the vans in the way that we always intended them to do, and to go and see places that they wouldn’t necessarily have the confidence to do on their own. But as a group of like minded people, they can go and do that and have the adventures and live the experience.
Matt Sims
I have got a question, though, for you, Jaye, because you were in corporate finance fraud 11 years ago, is that right? How did you get into this?
Jaye Young
I followed my husband’s passion for this. And also, we as a family couldn’t find anything that worked for us. So we have two children, and we wanted something that had a garage and a nice, comfortable way of living in the van. So we made all the stereotypical mistakes. We bought a great, big, huge vehicle that had a garage in the back.
But then every time we pulled up on a campsite, we blocked everybody’s light and we sunk it, and it was horrible. So we just built it ourselves. And because Steve, my husband, has got a background in house renovations, he could use all the skill set that he’s got, you know, and cross over into the motorhome industry.
And we’ve had lots of learning along the way. What you see now is not how we started, but that’s evolution, isn’t it? And everything that we’ve put in the vans, we have tested them with a variety of ages of our children as the children have grown up. We’ve tested it with that.
Matt Sims
Your passion and attention to detail is very evident in the van, I’d say. And congratulations on the award win. Very well done. Where can people find out more about RP?
Jaye Young
So you can find us on our website, which is www.rpmotorhomes.com. All the links are on there so you can send an email and you can contact me directly or call us in the office. Again, the number’s on the website.
Matt Sims
That was Marcus Leach, travel writer and adventure cyclist. Now you know! And Jaye Young, Director at RP Motorhomes.
Audience Q&A
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt, podcast with me, Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And me, Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
It is brought to you by www.thatleisureshop.com and sponsored by Ripe.
Matt Sims
Now, don’t forget – you can get 15% off your insurance premium by using the code Motorhome Matt over the phone, or simply click the link in the description.
Keith Gooden
It’s time for our Q and A, where you ask the questions. And he, Motorhome Matt, is the expert who gives you the answer. If he doesn’t know, he will ask somebody who does. First of all, Brian Firman got in touch.
Brian Firman
Hi, Matt. Just bought the Pathway 4G. I’m just wondering what kind of SIM it needs. Is it a data sim? Thank you.
Keith Gooden
Quick and easy one for you, Matt. What sort of SIM? Phone or data?
Matt Sims
Any! So you can put a data SIM in that has phone and text credits on it, or you can just put a data SIM into it. That’s one of the beauties of the Pathway 4G – any nano SIM. So that’s the smaller SIM size. Usually you just push the middle of it out and get it to the right size, pop it in, wait about a minute, and it just starts working.
Keith Gooden
There you go, Brian, short and sweet. James in Staines is getting an Itineo PS700 motorhome. “What is the best iPhone navigation app for UK and Europe for a motorhome?”
Matt Sims
Well, there are several out there. I always recommend using a standalone sat nav rather than your phone, only because running the navigation on your phone absolutely drains your battery really fast, so you need it plugged into the cab while you’re driving. I do use an app on my phone.
It’s called CoPilot, and I love using the app Waze. The difference between the two is with CoPilot, you can put the dimensions and weight of the motorhome into it. With Waze, you can’t at the moment. I believe there is an update coming on Waze at some point where you will be able to, which would be brilliant.
But it does, as I say, kill the battery. We use the Avtex Garmin Tourer 3. So it’s got Garmin satellite navigation software on. And the other great feature with kit like that is it’s got loads of databases of campsites on as well, so you can actually navigate straight to the campsite!
Keith Gooden
Daniel Law is in Andover. He says, “Looking for our first van to see if we like it. Budget is £15,000 to £20,000 pounds, so 2005 to 2012 plate-ish. Many do not seem to have air con in the cab like a car does. If I installed habitation air con professionally in the roof, would that work while I was driving? I believe you switch over from leisure battery to the starter battery when on the road.”
Matt Sims
Well, the challenge here is that air con on your roof, like the Truma unit, takes a lot of power. It has to run on mains, so 240 volt is going to absolutely crucify a leisure battery, and so running it on a battery just isn’t practical. AC was quite rare in the cab of vehicles of this age. It was more commonplace on cars, but less so in vans.
Hence, you’re finding a lot of motorhomes don’t have it. In fact, it was an option, and many people didn’t order it, or dealers didn’t order it when they speced the van. I spent 15 minutes Googling this to see if I could find a company that I could give a shout to that might fit cab air con retrospectively, and I only found Google hits from 10 years ago.
So whether it’s still a thing, you’d have to Google a bit longer. I, as I say, spent a little time trying to research it for you. There are companies that will retrofit cab air con. It’s going to be four figures, I would say. But if you’re going to the equator, you’re heading south, then I’d definitely consider cab air con. And certainly habitation air con is a must have when it gets really hot, but you need to be hooked up for that to work.
Keith Gooden
Is it not worth checking under the bonnet when you’re buying? If it isn’t fitted, just go and have a compressor fitted under the bonnet. You reckon four figures for that?
Matt Sims
It could be. It used to be, and that was 10 years ago, and we had it retro fitted a number of times. Just look for the AC button on the dashboard. And if it’s blanked off, or there’s no retro fitted aftermarket button, then it probably hasn’t got it. But, yeah, it is just a compressor. But it isn’t just a compressor, if you know what I mean!
Keith Gooden
Yeah, somebody’s got to install it, balance it…
Matt Sims
Drill your dashboard, mount it, and wire it in and so on. And it’s belt driven usually as well. So yeah, it’s not a straightforward install, and I assume there are still people out there fitting it. As I say, I only found hits from 10 years ago for companies that seem to now be defunct.
Ask Matt
Keith Gooden
Thanks, Daniel. Hope that’s been of some help. If they want to ask a question, what should people do?
Matt Sims
We would love it if you did. Thank you. It’s mhmp.info/askmatt. You can record it. Please tell us where in the world you are, or you can fill out the form and we’ll read it for you.
Keith Gooden
If you’re looking for trusted brands and services, then make sure that you visit the Motorhome Matt Approved directory. It’s at mhmp.info/approved.
Matt Sims
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