It’s rare for any caravan manufacturer to raise its head too far above the parapet when it comes to styling. ABI had a couple of goes with its novel and colourful rear-door Adventurer and even more outré Eivissa (essentially an export-model Marauder with lurid squiggles writ large down the sides) back in the late 1990s; neither broke any sales records. 

Avondale’s porthole-windowed Bianco fared little better, with more than one cynical onlooker at the time heard to wonder why the company had nailed a lavatory seat to the side of one of its caravans. And let’s be honest: that same cynic could be forgiven for pointing to the inconvenient fact that neither company makes touring caravans any more.

Full marks for bravery to Adria, then, for choosing to celebrate its 50th birthday with what must surely rank as the most in-your-face production caravan ever sold in the UK. Based on the standard Altea Forth, the 4four Go Signature’s capacity for mix ’n’ match colours inside and out clearly takes its personalisation inspiration from the likes of the Mini and Vauxhall Adam. 

It certainly looks striking, but does this distinctive van work?

You can make your Signature as discreet or as downright lurid as you like, and it’s probably fair to say that our test example falls firmly into the latter category. 

At its most shy and retiring, the caravan can be specified with silver slimline vertical panels front and rear, and plain white sidewalls enlivened by subtle graphics. 

For a dash of colour, opt for the full-width front/rear cladding finished in one of four main colour schemes: blue, yellow, green and silver. To really get traditionalists spluttering into their cocoa, you can choose one of six sidewall designs. Ours is the ‘Kaleidoscope’ option, but others include ‘Décor’ (a monotone print), ‘Style’ (a toned-down diamond pattern), ‘Casual’ (multi-coloured squares), ‘Dots’ and ‘Stripes’.

Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder, but we think that some of the 29 combinations work rather better than others. Fortunately, Adria seems to agree and has taken another leaf from car manufacturers’ books by providing an online ‘configurator’. This allows you to preview all the colour and print combinations on-screen before finally committing yourself and dazzling others on your caravan holidays.

Colours and cladding aside, the rest of the Signature is as per the standard model, and that’s actually very good news – the ice-white quad front running lights, panoramic rooflight and elegant overall styling combine to create a whole that’s surprisingly good-looking.

Our original plan was to tow the little Adria with our long-term Ford C-Max, to see whether a three-cylinder, sub-1000cc car can really tow a full-size caravan. Unfortunately, the weight tolerances were too tight, so we used another of our long-term test tugs instead: the Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TDI. With a kerbweight of 1678kg, 175bhp and four-wheel drive, the Tiguan barely noticed the unladen (1100kg) Adria, and probably wouldn’t have done so even at its MTPLM of 1300kg. It is an 85% match for cars with kerbweights of 1529kg, so a wide variety of cars can tow this tourer safely. 

We found the 4four’s super-long A-frame instigated a little pitching at speed, especially on rough surfaces, but otherwise it proved to be a superbly stable caravan when towed.