GORV - Digital Magazine Issue #8 | Page 8

DREAM MACHINE THE DREAMSEEKER F-14 TOM CAT: A HIGH-END TOY HAULER. | WORDS AND IMAGES: MAX TAYLOR A caravan is a home away from home. But what if that home on wheels also has a garage? That’s the idea behind toy haulers, caravans with two distinct zones, with space for dirt bikes, a quad bike… or, in our case, even a Harley Davidson. Aussie Adventure Caravans Group, which owns Dreamseeker Caravans, has embarked on a mission to overhaul the Dreamseeker range. The F-14 Tom Cat is the second van in that effort, available in three variants: the standard F-14, the mid-range F-14 XT, and the range-topping F-14 Tom Cat, which we are reviewing here. 8 gorv.com.au WEIGHTS AND MEASURES It is not a diminutive caravan. The F-14 Tom Cat weighs 3250kg Tare and its ATM is a whopping 4500kg. That’s 1250kg of payload capacity. Factoring in, say, 300-400kg for your dirt bike(s) or other ‘toys’, 190L of fresh water, 95L of grey water (assuming you’ve refilled your fresh tanks before setting off from camp), and 18kg worth of gas, there is still more than 500kg of available payload. In other words, there’s plenty to work with. However, the maths only work if you’ve got the right tow vehicle, including one with a substantial towball maximum. The F-14 Tom Cat’s main bed runs east-west in the front of the van, with enough space at the foot of the bed and the cabinetry to allow you to really stretch out. This same cabinetry at the foot of the bed contains a flatscreen TV and I liked how the top lockers, on the nearside, were angled to match the raked profile of the front of the van. Between the bed and the offside combo bathroom is a small but functional vanity unit. Often, a van with a combo bathroom will either have a) no vanity at all, or b)