Wow, if the first picture you saw was the bathroom you'd never for one minute think the van itself was relatively small.......gorgeous. Also like the wrap around awning rail. Um........let's check the old bank account.

I had a good look round a Future at Lechlade some years ago in the company of Mark. He said that the curved front was causing water ingress problems and didn't think there was enough will to sort it out at Hymer.

Some good information here on the future
http://www.capper-online.de/html/eriba_future_caravan.htm

Hi, Thank you for the lovely comments on our van 'Erica'. We first saw an Eriba some 7 years ago at an Eriba dealer I think somewhere in Gloucester? believe it is no longer. We were literally driving pass and did a double take as never seen them before. We went and had a look around and at the time were very interested in the Troll but were way out of our budget (we are divers and underwater photographers and that takes up a lot of well earned cash).
Over the months we talked about it and decided to start the 'Erica' fund for the day we retired and were no longer diving ...... wrong!! We decided whatever we bought must a) have a loo and b) have a dinette so we don't have to make up the bed all the time.

The internet became our downfall...many nights spent looking up Eriba caravans for sale and dreaming. We decided first we needed to build a new garage as ours was post war, fabricated and after a wet day there was more water inside than out!. So planning was got with the proviso the door width and height would be large enough to store the van when we got it. The garage was duly built last September. The looking became more in earnest even though we had not retired/stopped diving or had enough money, we carried on...oh well little things. To date we still did not know a Future existed.

In February, 7 days before we were off to Indonesia on a once in a lifetime dive holiday, I was trawling through Gumtree and there was a Future 430T??!!. Never seen or heard of it but was quite smitten with the colour and shape. Called to Keith to come and have a look at what I had just found on the internet. At first he was not sure but then started doing some research and we found out it had a larger payload of 360kgs. They had only been built for approximately 2 years 2002 and 2003. Production stopped due to the vans costing 2000 euros more to take into account the further engineering needed in the design. Made in one piece etc etc.The one we were looking at also had a double bike rack on the tow hitch which was a plus for us. We really felt this was the one. On the spur of the moment we phoned the person up and explained we only had 6 days to purchase it and could we come up in 3 days time! That's when we realised we didn't even have a tow hitch on our car!!. We got that sorted in the next 2 days (even though they fitted the wrong electric hook-up, but didn't know until we got there!)

We duly drove 200 miles to have a look at it but was a bit disappointed on first inspection. The van needed a lot of TLC... green mould around the edges, finish was very dull and rough. There was also some odd small repairs needed and window catches that were broken. It had also had no service etc for 6 years. We offered what we thought was reasonable as the van needed to go to AL to have the service and work done etc. Cut a story short... we were shown the door without any negotiations!! so came home empty handed and thought we would start the search again on our return.

When we returned at end March, I checked to see if the van was still for sale and it was. We thought we would leave it and carried on looking for another one. We had seen one for sale in Germany at what we were willing to pay, but was a tad worried about towing a caravan on the right hand side of road for the first time. At end of April, I checked again and low and behold the caravan was still for sale at the price we offered in the first place!!. I called him up and arranged again to go there and as they say.... the rest is history.

We have since had all the work done on it and Keith spent many hours cleaning and polishing it. We went to a yacht chandlers and they told us what to do as it is fibreglass and we are very pleased with the results. AL had the van for a couple of days (its the first Future they have seen) and with luck everything was in good working order. Our front window does have 10 hinges on it but you can see it has never leaked as this we were told was a problem. We are hoping to have a mover put on next year but AL have told us due to the van being lower to the ground there maybe a problem.. so will have to wait and see on that.

We did our first trip to Devizes and stayed at The Three Magpies as we felt 2 hour journey would be enough for the first time. When we towed the van home for the first time after buying it, it took us 8 hours!!. Anyway next week will be our next trip away - 5 days near Bridport. We are really enjoying ourselves with the van and can't wait now to do a long trip abroad. As for retiring... I think that's gonna have to wait now we have another hobby!!

Sorry its been a bit long winded telling our story, Regards Chris...who's just finished work at midnight!