Grand California at the NEC

[MattBW]

@Martin @calikev and myself headed to the NEC recently to have a look at the Grand California 600, I took the chance to capture a little footage and try to get some information on the van.

It's a little rough and ready filmed with a phone and access was difficult but hopefully it will be useful to folks interested in the Grand.

 

[leightonjthomas]

@Martin @calikev and myself headed to the NEC recently to have a look at the Grand California 600, I took the chance to capture a little footage and try to get some information on the van.

It's a little rough and ready filmed with a phone and access was difficult but hopefully it will be useful to folks interested in the Grand.

Thanks for putting that together Matt- very interesting. We were really excited about the prospect of seeing it in the flesh but, considering the huge publicity at the show for the “launch”, I thought that the information available was underwhelming. It was the 680 we were particularly interested in as we didn’t like the look of the bulbous roof on the 600 or the transverse bed. As someone mentioned on another thread, parts of it felt quite claustrophobic inside compared with other vans of a similar size. For these reasons, plus the uncertainty about production, prices and spec, we are buying an Adria Twin Supreme 640 SLB. It will never compete with our Cali but life goes on.

 

[MattBW]

I have to admit I can't disagree with you there. I found it impossible to turn around in the van and wonder what it would be like to camp in. I'd like to try it out to understand how it would work. The storage is huge and you wont need anything out in the van, however the table appeared to be fixed and there was barely room between the toilet and kitchen (hmm now I say that I realise they are opposite one another. Headroom was more than enough and the feature list was nice and full. The 680 is slightly longer so may be a different proposition, I know in that the bed is slightly longer..

All the features included but how would it stack up against some the same base vehicle conversions we saw which seemed to have better layouts and use of space? I felt I have more room in my beach than this had to live and move about.

Maybe VW will lend me one to try out and I could decide for myself I wish

 

[MattBW]

I must say the van in the dark grey single colour looked very nice! I heard a lot of icecream van comments at the show from the public, which reminded me of the initial two tone Cali reception. However we all warmed to it soon after. I'm sure the same will happen here.

 

[Phase one]

Let's hope VW have thought about the plastic trim fixing and potential internal leaks!
Here is how they did the Crafter trim

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Digger]

The good news is the VW Crafter is no longer anything to do with the Merc and unlike the Sprinter is galvanised. The Crafter is now a much better base vehicle.

 

[Blue Yonder]

I must say the van in the dark grey single colour looked very nice! I heard a lot of icecream van comments at the show from the public, which reminded me of the initial two tone Cali reception. However we all warmed to it soon after. I'm sure the same will happen here.

I doubt it