TOUGH-ABOUT

During the recent Superior All-Terrain Challenge at LandCruiser Park, everything went very quiet when Johnny ‘Trackabout’ Vezos pulled up at the start line in his 79 Series, fully blown competition truck – with his Trackabout camper trailer in tow! Johnno, who never does anything by halves, then dumped the pedal to the floor and put in a lap that would do any competitor justice.
The crowd went totally berserk with Mexican-waves and plenty of hooting and hollering as they witnessed something never seen before in the history of motorsport. This is one of the toughest off-road tracks in the country and John hit it hard. He bent the Tojo’s front diff, blew a CV joint, ripped the rock-sliders up so far he couldn’t open the door and took two teeth off the crown wheel.
His Trackabout camper trailer? It lost a bit of paint off the mudguards… and the only thing that broke was the wife’s eggs!

Make no mistake. You are looking at one tough camper trailer. Designed and developed for the hard-working rental market, Trackabouts are a favourite up the Cape where mug campers with little off-roading ability would quickly kill a lesser beast. These Trackabouts aren’t about tricky features or fancy frills, they’re just damned solid, reliable and practical campers from the axle up.
They’re good value too with prices for the Safari model kicking in at around $12K. The model we tested – by towing it on the last Bush Mechanic DVD through outback NSW, a very tough test indeed – had several upgrades and options mentioned below, but I’ll stress right now that a standard Trackabout Safari could have done all this and more!

Built on a chassis featuring both 75mmx50mm box and 50mmx50mm box, the Safari boasts a drawbar length of 1.8m that gives it superb stability and very controllable reversing. The trailer body is built from galvanised-steel panels and runs AL-KO leaf suspension, off-road brakes and axles – seven leafs and a 1500kg rating in base form, but ours had a $250 upgrade to eight leafs and a two-tonne axle with parallel bearings.

A word about AL-KO. This German firm is the leader in trailer suspension and axle components worldwide for many good reasons. Its off-road stuff is as tough as it comes, yet the popularity and parts back-up means that John can replace or repair suspension or axle components anywhere in Australia inside of two to three days. Just don’t mention the war, okay?

Trackabout’s canvas work is legendary. John reckons the only way to get the quality he wants is to control the whole operation, so for years he has run his own canvas shop and employed the sort of tradesmen who believe in their work. That means controlling every facet of their tent work from choosing the raw materials to setting the stitch rate on their machines.

You get 12oz canvas sides, 15oz canvas roof, floor and tonneau cover made from Tarpol TS (a heavy-duty, no-tear waterproof fabric). So, the result is as strong and long lasting as the folding stuff comes, yet it’s designed to minimise the amount of effort required to set up. You can do it one handed…
In fact, you will note that most of the set-up on the Trackabout is easy enough to handle one-handed. It has to be, Johnno likes a beer…
This explains why his 12V power-management system, an option fitted to this Safari, is never going to let the beer go warm. Comprising of twin 6V, deep-cycle 120A batteries wired in series (as used in golf buggies and the ultimate way to store power reliably) and fed by a 50A Anderson plug and socket from the vehicle. It only takes a few hours of driving every couple of days to maintain full operation. Add a solar panel (like this one) and you don’t even have to drive between long sessions on the, err, camping.

As a test, we charged the batteries and left the Trackabout sitting with its Engel fridge running. No solar panel, no driving, no external charging at all. It took 12 days before the voltage dropped low enough to stop the fridge! Ooh, I think I’m in love…!
You don’t have to know the sort of punishment other Trackabouts have survived to see why the trailer itself has built such a strong reputation. There’s nothing complex or radically different about the design, just sheer robust engineering using the best components in a tried and proven style. Like the canvas, Johnno has his own production facilities and tradesmen to create the trailers and ensure the quality is there, and it is.

You can’t find a weld that isn’t beautifully done, and even then the lads go to a lot of trouble to seal all the welds before the trailer is coated. However, what I really wanted to mention was the kitchen because that’s what was making my job as camp cook a damned sight easier!

It’s a beauty, okay? Hinged off the tailgate of our Safari was the optional stainless steel self-contained ‘kitchen box’ as Johnno calls them. It flips open to provide everything you need including plenty of preparation space thanks to the stainless steel shelves. It’s quick, easy, incredibly good to use and it is damned solid to boot.
The standard package includes the excellent timber Drifter kitchen box, which, from experience, I know to be a very useful unit too. Still, I’d definitely be tempted to go stainless after using this one.

The true test of a camper is where it’ll go and for how long it will keep going there. As a rule, the only camper manufacturers game enough to come and play with us here at Australian 4WD Action are the ones who build top-notch product. These guys have confidence in their trailers, and know they’ll take whatever we dish out. They understand that real-life living with a camper is a lot more likely to uncover problems than just a spin around the block and a couple of lemonades in the local park.

If you’re serious about bush camping, you better put Trackabout on your list of must-see camper trailers.

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