Meet My Truck The Lady Alexandra
Lady Alexandra took many years of dreaming, planning, designing and modelling before she finally drove out of Motorhome-World’s workshop in March 2018.
She’s an Iveco 4×4 Daily (meaning she has full offroad capabilities), she weighs 5.5 tonnes fully loaded (OK, maybe 5.8 tonnes sometimes. A girl’s gotta have what a girl’s gotta have!) and she’s designed with a tall lady traveler in mind. I hate that ‘living in a cupboard’ feeling you get in so many motorhomes, and eye-level cupboards that block the view. I wanted to hang up my clothes, not stuff them into drawers. The dogs needed cozy nooks and I needed a proper study area, not just a corner of the dining table so that you end up slopping soup on your road map. I dreamt of having access to the roof from inside for sundowners, a galley kitchen and space for six people to drink and dine without feeling they’re trapped in a lift. And above all, I wanted the beauty and sounds of nature inside my van. That meant a hinged picture window that lets the outside in – and two barn-sized doors. Watch the video and you’ll see what I mean.
How to do this? Well, that occupied my mind for a good long time and I went through many iterations on graph paper before I built a small-scale model. And I liked it!
Next, I needed to test my design at full scale and check whether I could live in a small space without feeling claustrophobic. So I built a life-size model of Alexandra on my verandah at home out of cardboard, brandering and plastic sheeting. And she worked!
Well – at least as a Wendy house!
But could she be built in South Africa by a company that would work with my dreams and designs without buckling under the engineering challenges. That was the next question.
That company is Denis Bauwer’s Motorhome World and I’m proud to have them as one of my sponsors for Storycatcher. Not only are they sticklers for excellent workmanship but they honour their deadlines and they are unfailingly polite and willing.
If you plan to hire or build a motor home you really, really should look at what they do:
Write to me at patriciaglyn@storycatcher.co.za if you want to know more.