What Motorhome
What Motorhome is a British monthly magazine for motorhome buyers, published by Warners Group Publications from Bourne in Lincolnshire. Previously titled Which Motorhome, it has offered expert advice for motorhome buyers since 1986. Its road test programme covers all types of motorhome — from the tiniest campervan to the largest A-class — and it prides itself on bringing readers the latest models first, from two-page first looks to market-leading in-depth touring tests. Its signature Ultimate Showdown feature compares rival models back to back and picks a winner. Alongside new vehicles, the magazine covers the used market, publishes Deals on Wheels pages with bargains from dealer forecourts across the country, and carries motorhome news and insurance advice. It is produced by the same team responsible for MMM, the United Kingdom's best-selling motorhome magazine, and Campervan magazine.
Origins: expert advice since 1986
The magazine traces its history to 1986, when it began offering expert advice to motorhome buyers under its original title, Which Motorhome. It later became What Motorhome, keeping the interrogative promise of the original name: this is a magazine whose purpose is to answer the buyer's question. Four decades of continuous publication make it one of the longest-established buying guides in the British leisure vehicle market, a market in which a mistaken purchase can cost a buyer dearly and in which impartial, experienced testing has lasting value.
The continuity is carried by its test archive as much as by its title. A buying guide that has assessed motorhomes since the 1980s can place each new model in context — which layouts have endured, which manufacturers have form, and how the market's expectations of equipment, payload and price have moved. That institutional memory is the magazine's authority.
The publisher: Warners Group
What Motorhome is published by Warners Group Publications, based in Bourne, Lincolnshire, a specialist publisher and printer with more than thirty magazine titles across consumer and business markets, with particular strength in outdoor leisure and hobbies. Warners publishes the United Kingdom's best-selling motorhome magazine, MMM, and launched Campervan magazine in 2014 for the growing vanlife audience. The group's motorhome titles are supported by the Out & About Live website and by shows in the outdoor leisure market, giving its buying guides a close connection to the dealers, manufacturers and readers they serve.
Within that portfolio, the titles divide the market by reader need: MMM serves owners with travel, technical help and community; Campervan serves campervan owners and dreamers; and What Motorhome serves the buyer at the moment of research and decision. Warners' own description of its expert team says the same people produce all three, so the testers who assess new vehicles for What Motorhome also write for owners in the sister titles — continuity that deepens the buying advice.
The road test programme
Testing is the magazine's core activity. Its programme includes all types of motorhome, from the tiniest campervan to the largest A-class, and it aims to bring readers the latest models first. Coverage runs from two-page first sight reports on newly launched vehicles to in-depth touring tests in which motorhomes are lived with on the road — the market-leading format in which layout, beds, washroom, kitchen, storage, driving manners and equipment are assessed as a buyer would experience them over a tour.
The emphasis on real touring matters because motorhomes reveal their virtues and faults in use: whether a bed is long enough, whether the payload survives a family's luggage, whether the washroom works for a fortnight's tour. The magazine's testers are specialists who test across the whole market each season, from the new-model launches unveiled by European manufacturers each summer to the British-built vehicles shown at the national shows, building the comparative knowledge on which its verdicts rest.
The Ultimate Showdown
The magazine's best-known device is the Ultimate Showdown, a feature which compares rival models back to back and picks a winner. Group comparisons on that scale are a serious undertaking: the magazine records that it has compared a dozen Volkswagen campers and as many as fifteen high-top campers in past showdowns. Such features answer the question buyers actually ask — not whether a motorhome is good in isolation, but which of several similar models deserves their money.
Group tests also impose discipline on the market coverage: manufacturers know their vehicles will be measured against direct rivals on specification, layout and value. For readers, the showdowns are the magazine at its most characteristic — comparative, decisive and practical, compressing a crowded segment of the market into a verdict they can act on.
Layouts, beds and the buyer's priorities
The magazine's coverage follows the questions that dominate buying decisions. A 2018 issue, for example, took the bed as one of the most important elements when buying a new motorhome, examining the rise of island beds — beds with access to both sides, as similar to a double bed at home as a motorhome allows, many with head-ends that slide up for reading in comfort. Other issues have explored innovations such as drop-down beds, rear lounges that convert into bedrooms, C-shaped lounges arriving from German design, and the squeezing of coachbuilt facilities into Volkswagen-sized pop-top campervans.
That focus reflects the economics of the vehicle: a motorhome offers a living space of at most about eight metres by two, and what designers fit into that footprint decides whether a couple or a family can tour in comfort. Layout — where the beds, lounge, kitchen and washroom sit — is therefore the first decision a buyer makes, and the magazine organises much of its advice by layout and budget, allowing readers to shortlist vehicles that sleep, seat and store as they need before comparing prices.
The used market and Deals on Wheels
Alongside new vehicles, What Motorhome looks at vans on the used market, recognising that many buyers enter motorhoming second-hand. Its Deals on Wheels pages bring readers the best bargains from dealer forecourts up and down the country, and its buying advice extends to the practicalities surrounding a purchase, including motorhome insurance — the magazine has carried guidance on subjects such as insurance for the over-seventies and the case for trying before buying through rental.
The annual Buying Your Perfect Motorhome guide produced by the same publishing stable extends this mission into a comprehensive reference, guiding buyers through choosing the right layout and checking payload, with guides to pre-owned vans across price bands, the best new-season models, features on hiring and specialist insurance, a database of new vans on the market and a dealer directory. The magazine's monthly coverage and the annual guide together cover the buying journey from first research to signed order.
News, launches and the seasons of the market
New-model news is a staple: key launches from European and British manufacturers are reported as they happen, including entrants new to the United Kingdom market and manufacturers moving into new segments. The late summer, when Europe's makers unveil the hard work of their development departments, is described by the magazine as the most exciting time of its year, and its round-ups of new-season models help buyers time their purchases — a new model year can change specification, layout and price across a whole range.
The magazine's positioning across the price spectrum is deliberate: a single issue can span a campervan at a very reasonable price and a luxury A-class costing well into six figures, because its readership includes first-time buyers and experienced owners trading up alike. Its editors have cautioned against declaring winners across such different classes — comparing vehicles at opposite ends of the market is, in their phrase, not so much apples and oranges as raspberries and roast beef — while still identifying the must-see models in each class.
Digital editions and the sample issue
What Motorhome is published in print and digital editions, the digital version readable on computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone and proving especially popular with readers touring in their motorhomes, who can carry the magazine without carrying paper. Digital subscriptions are cheaper than print and offer flexibility, and the publisher has promoted the format with a free fifty-page digital sample issue packed with reviews and advice — from a camper-cum-car conversion to a large coachbuilt with drop-down bunk beds, a range overview and advice on buying an A-class, insurance and rental tips for newcomers.
The magazine also feeds the wider Warners digital presence: Out & About Live carries buying advice, essential guides to manufacturers' ranges and show previews under the same editorial roof, and the team's videos promote What Motorhome alongside its sister titles. For a buying guide, digital searchability has obvious value: a reader considering a specific model can find its test and verdict at the moment of decision.
Place in the motorhome market
What Motorhome is an essential read, in its publisher's description, for motorhome enthusiasts and especially those about to change their van or enter motorhoming or campervan ownership for the first time. Its role in the market is that of the independent assessor: in a sector where vehicles are sold through dealer networks and glossy manufacturer literature, a magazine that has tested vehicles since 1986, compares rivals head to head and reports the used market as seriously as the new, gives buyers evidence to set against salesmanship.
From its Bourne base, as part of Britain's largest motorhome publishing group, the magazine continues the work it began as Which Motorhome: getting under the skin of new motorhomes like no other publication, and helping its readers choose the right one.
