RV FEATURE
Fuel. It is the biggest hip-pocket burden
of all RVers, especially those who are not
stopped in one place for a significant period
of time.
Pop-tops, therefore, have long been an object
of appeal. Because they’re shorter than their
full-height cousins, pop-tops create less drag
when under tow. The decreased drag, in turn,
should lead to greater fuel economy.
We at GoRV are by no means
aerodynamicists, but this is a known scientific
principle. The real question is the degree to
which fuel economy might improve by towing
a pop-top instead of something that has
400mm of additional frontage presented to
the wind.
APPLES WITH APPLES
In order to answer this question, I searched
for two vans that were nearly identical, the
only difference being the roof. Goldstream RV
had the perfect rigs: a 1760 RV pop-top in
‘Panther’ configuration, and a 1760 RE full-
height caravan in ‘Rhino’ configuration.
Aside from the roof, the vans were of identical
physical dimensions, with different internal
layouts. The pop-top was 2.6m in overall
height, while the caravan was 3.1m.
The full-height van had a Tare of 2255kg
while the pop-top’s Tare was 2075kg – a
difference of 180kg that was due to some
additional features found in the Rhino
package and the fact it was a full-height van.
To remove weight as a variable, I filled the
pop-top’s two 80L water tanks and placed
20kg worth of weights under the bed. This
made the weights of the two vans as equal as
possible.
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