By Catherine Best,
August 13, 2025
Hybrid caravans come with compromises. A small footprint and lightweight design mean you can forget about a toilet and shower and inside/outside cooking, right? Not so with the DN5. This tough nugget from micro-caravan builder FSC Off Road (formerly Free Spirit Campers) packs an extraordinary amount of storage and features into a compact unit.
Think under-seat toilet and shower, slide-out inside/outside kitchen drawers and fridge, queen-size north-south bed and diesel heater. All wrapped in a robust 5.3m electric pop-top shell. Built for off-road adventures, the DN5 comes with huge power and water provisions (relative to its size) and everything a couple needs for extended off-grid stays, including not one but two kitchen sinks.
FSC origin story
It’s called the DN5 because owners Dave and Sue Timmermans think it’s the duck’s nuts (hence the name). And they’ve reason to be proud, as the caravan is the culmination of three decades of backyard innovation. Dave, a metalwork fitter and machinist, built an aluminium-topped rooftop tent for the couple and their toddler son in 1996. The design evolved into a fibreglass rooftop tent, then a trailer-mounted capsule with slide-out kitchen. But the Timmermans longed for something more.
“Around 2012 my wife and I started looking for our ideal camper, which now didn’t require room for the kids, but when we went looking for it, we found there was always a compromise,” Dave says. “I was working as a contract mechanical design draftsman; I had the skills, so I decided to design and build our own camper. Our requirement was [that we wanted a] similar weight and size to a camper trailer, with caravan features inside, like a sink, shower, seating and a toilet.”
After a five-year design and manufacturing process, with Dave assembling custom-made components in his backyard shed in regional NSW, the DN5 was born. The Timmermans set off on a six-week maiden voyage across northern Australia and the van “went like a dream”. Fellow travellers were impressed, suggesting Dave go into production making boutique campers. A loan and leap of faith later, and the Timmermans opened a full-blown manufacturing facility. Making hybrids had gone from a hobby to a business.
The DN5 difference
Tough, compact and lightweight with a little bit of lux was the Timmermans’ design brief. And they’ve delivered. From the front, the DN5 looks like an army-issue combat camper, with an aerodynamic bullnose head and chassis-mounted stone deflectors, both treated in a rubberised protective coating. Underneath, the independent airbag suspension and high ground clearance will get this pimped-out pod through the tough stuff, with a wheel-track footprint in line with most 4WDs.
The shell is made from insulated sandwich panels with a fibreglass skin, topped with a composite one-piece lid. Inside, the cabinetry is built from sheet aluminium, completing the timber-less, lightweight construction.
Manufacturing specs are important, but it’s the functional design elements that have us itching to get hitching. Too often hybrids are designed exclusively for outdoor cooking and living, which is great in perfect conditions. Less so at the end of a long day’s driving when the wind is prickly and the mozzies are biting. But rather than double up on indoor/outdoor equipment, like full-size caravans sometimes do, the DN5 has a dual access kitchen. Slide out the fridge with retractable barbecue and cooktop, pull down the kitchen hatch, and out pops a stainless-steel bench with collapsable plumbed sink and drawers that open and slide inside the van and out. Not loving the outdoor vibe? Take the induction cooktop inside and cook up a storm indoors, plucking ingredients from the fridge, accessible from the under-bed hatch, with crockery and utensils at your fingertips.
Clever design
The DN5 saves space by having a rear door entry, with a galley kitchen on one side, bench seat on the other and queen-size bed up front. Stash your gear in the bedside storage baskets (there’s also one over the kitchen sink) and charge devices from the USB port by your pillow. You can even store your thongs in the bed-end shoe rack. Three hard windows provide peep holes to the outdoors and wraparound zip-down windows in the pop top keep the space well ventilated. There’s even a diesel heater for those chilly early mornings.
Spread out on the bench seat, which has room to sleep a small child (but no table). And if you’re out bush and need a wash down, the cushions lift up to reveal a nifty composting toilet and shower with wraparound curtain. Setting up camp is easy as the electric pop-top roof raises at the push of a button. And there’s a 270-degree awning covering the nearside and rear of the van to keep things dry and shaded.
On the front exterior, there’s a storage box for gas bottles, jerry cans and firewood. Inside the nose, you’ll find a full-width tunnel boot with a spare tyre and room to stash camp chairs, fishing rods and other camping gear.
The DN5 comes with a whopping 250L of water storage (plus 50L grey water tank), 1075W of solar and up to 630Ah of lithium battery storage. That’s a monster power and water load for a 2200kg ATM van (a little heavier if you go for the gasless option).
So what’s next for FSC Off Road after the long-awaited launch of the DN5? The Timmermans are already working on the next iteration – the DN6, complete with bunk beds. Soon the whole family will be able to come along for the ride.
Specs
- Price: from $108,600
- Sleeps: 2 (plus small child)
- Construction: Timberless honeycomb fibreglass/polypropylene sandwich panel construction
- Chassis: Hot-dipped galvanised steel chassis with independent air-bag suspension and Tough Dog shocks
- Power: 1075W solar, up to 630Ah lithium batteries
- Water: Up to 250L fresh, 50L grey
- Dimensions (closed): 5300mm (L) x 1900mm (W) x 2300mm (H)
- Interior height: 2040mm
- Weight: 1340kg tare (base camper), 2200kg ATM
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