{"id":17842,"date":"2015-07-11T18:07:11","date_gmt":"2015-07-11T17:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=17842"},"modified":"2021-08-18T11:27:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T10:27:29","slug":"look-inside-our-hymer-b544-2001-a-class-motorhome-zagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/look-inside-our-hymer-b544-2001-a-class-motorhome-zagan\/","title":{"rendered":"Look inside: Our Hymer B544 2001 Motorhome: Zagan"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve just bought ourselves a new adventure wagon\/land yacht\/home on wheels: Zagan (or strictly speaking, \u017baga\u0144, after the town in Poland associated with The Great Escape<\/a>), our Hymer B544 motorhome. Isn’t he one hell of a magnificent, luxury beasty!?<\/p>\n

\"Hymer<\/a>

Zagan: Our 2001 Hymer B544<\/p><\/div>\n

First off, a bit of background. My wife Julie and I (Jay) quit work in 2011<\/a>, bought a 1993 Hymer B544<\/a> (named Dave after the previous owner’s cat) for \u00a310500, lifted our dog Charlie inside and drove to Dover and turned right at Calais. A year later we came back to the UK, got an MOT, said hello to friends and family, and drove to Dover again, this time turning left at Calais. Another year later our funds finally ran out and we headed back, our heads packed full of memories and our hearts still on the road.<\/p>\n

\"1993<\/a>

Dave, our previous 1993 Hymer B544<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Dave,<\/a>

Dave, our previous 1993 Hymer B544<\/p><\/div>\n

Fast forward to now (July 2015) and Dave has parted company with us, taken on by a wonderful family who continue to get joy and fun from the awesome vehicle he is. We on the other hand are the proud owners of a new luxury adventure wagon: Zagan. He’s another B544, as the previous one just suited us so well. This time he’s a 2001 model, and has a mere 49,000 miles on the clock (Dave had over 125,000 miles when we sold him).<\/p>\n

Although Dave was still going strong (and we did attempt to buy him back), we have a hope to get some more significant travels under our belts so we may well have eventually managed to break him (probably not). So last week after two months of searching<\/a> through autotrader.co.uk, ebay.co.uk, mobile.de and gumtree.co.uk, we finally bought Zagan for \u00a316800. Our budget was \u00a315000, but, ah, erm, we spent more… At the \u00a315k mark we wanted the ‘new’ Hymer B544 look with the round headlights (since superseded, but we’re no way sinking \u00a350,000 of capital when it could be earning its keep in a Vanguard ETF or some such, oh, right, best get back on subject…).<\/p>\n

We also wanted a full service history (FSH) and less than 70,000 miles on the clock. Our free-camping habit also pushes us towards having a Solar PV set-up, and gas bottles we can refill ourselves with LPG (Dave had both of these). Zagan initially came on the market as an eBay auction, starting at \u00a318k. He popped onto our radar immediately, despite being over-budget. Another couple of similar spec vans had appeared in the 2 month hunt, but were gone by the time we got to them.<\/p>\n

The price put us off, everything else looked good – FSH, 49k miles, 3 owners from new, left hand drive, solar PV with 2 leisure batteries. We’d just need to install some bits and bobs, and we’d be good to go. The van went onto the mental ‘watch’ list. The auction completed without a single bid, and the van then re-appeared, again as an auction starting at \u00a316800. Tipping point for us. These are the photos from the eBay ad:<\/p>\n\n\t\t