In 1999, we bought a new pop top van - a Jayco. Dont get me started on quality control, but I know that other manufacturers dont come out very well on that front either. When I built my garage, I stuffed up - I should have made the whole shed a foot higher. The height of the garage door ruled out every make accept Jayco, Coromal and Compass, which I was told was made by Coromal anyway. I cannot guarantee the Compass manufacturer. Every other pop top van was too high. Yes - you can get little kiddie wheels to fit which lower the whole van, but that was a lot of fuss. Another option, which I would have liked was pneumatic suspension, but that was unheard of then, other than on the Citroen which I had at the time.

The Jayco van is less than 100 mm higher than my Pajero. Combined with a drawbar 200 mm shorter than standard, this combination proved to be remarkably efficient to tow. The airflow goes over the Pajero roof and doesnt swirl down between the back of the car and the van - the airflow simply raises slightly and goes over the van roof. I discovered this by accident one day when driving in heavy rain - the rear window of the car stayed totally dry, even though it was raining heavily at the time. Obviously when you stop, the rear window gets wet then This airflow feature was an accident - I ordered the shorter drawbar because of limited length in my garage - another design stuff up Looking at road spray, there is heaps of that below about 800 mm above ground, and that tends to drench the lower vent in the caravan door, but there is nothing I could do about that.