After two and a half months of campervan living it only seemed right to do a comparison.
For 45 days we had a love affair with Lucy, our Jucy. Her Green and Purple exterior was a bit loud upon first glance, but we soon realized it was the ticket to an exclusive club of other green and purple vehicles on the road. The benefit of the club was simple, an excited wave and maybe even a headlight flash from nearly all other Jucy drivers we passed.
Lucy.
Our time with the Wicked Witch of the West was a bit shorter, with only 30 days on her four squishy tires. We learned she was full of quirks from the first moments we laid eyes on her, and her sassy and somewhat vulgar graffiti have brought joy to many people who have asked us if it was okay to photograph her.
The Wicked Witch of the West.
Our time in the Jucy and Wicked vans took place in New Zealand and Australia, where both companies have a large presence. Although we have extensive “research” after at least a month in each vehicle, our expertise is only in one specific vehicle for each company; the Jucy Cabana, and a van that we think is the Iconic 3-seater from Wicked. For full disclosure, we received the van we ordered through Jucy, but were given a different van than the one we had selected through Wicked. After dozens of attempts at contacting Wicked, we still haven’t received the refund we were promised.
Nuts and Bolts
The core functionality of the van skews in favor of Lucy with the cruise control and usability of the storage space putting her in the lead. While it was a relief to have the turning radius and acceleration of the Wicked after 45 days of Lucy’s sluggish ways, they weren’t enough to make up for the lack of cruise control – especially when driving Australia’s longest, straightest, flattest road.
The start of Australia’s longest straight road. Although, we were convinced all of Australia’s roads could be lumped into this category.
Bells and Whistles
The Wicked Witch of the West catches up in the entertainment category, notably for the USB port which allowed us to plug our phones directly into the speaker system to hear whichever podcast or jam we were feeling at that particular time. This stands in stark comparison to Lucy where we had to utilize a portable speaker to create a barely-satisfactory listening environment.
Kit and Caboodle
After catching up a bit in the entertainment category, our Wicked van takes a truly horrible beating in the “Kit and Caboodle” heat. While our Lucy was fully loaded with everything we could ever want and need, the Wicked vehicle was as barren as most of the desert landscape we drove through in Australia. We cobbled together most of our supplies to approximate pillows, sheets, and kitchenware, but were truly missing the real thing for most of the 30 day rental period.
Zzzzz’s
When your car is your home (not a sentence I thought I would ever be writing…), it’s important to take into account your ability to get quality shut-eye when you park for the night. While the bed in Lucy was about as comfortable as you could ever hope for, the gym mats stretched over a plywood foundation in the Wicked fell flat (namely, because they were gym mats… spread over plywood…).
Check out that plywood. Don’t worry we made sure the G Rated side was facing up. And those three red things piled up on the right? Those are the sticky and far from soft mats that were supposed to provide cushion from the plywood.
Miscellaneous
In the final, “potpourri”, section of our review, Jucy once again takes the lead though not without a valiant effort out of the Wicked Witch of the West in the profanity department (seriously, there was more genitalia drawn on the inside of the van than you could find in Anthony Wiener’s camera roll). While window openings and ease of setting up may seem like small factors, the former takes great precedent in 43 degree heat with no air conditioning (oh sorry, that’s 109 degrees fahrenheit) and the latter means a lot more when you have to do it every single day.
Overall, when it comes to having a good experience road tripping throughout Australia or New Zealand, we can’t recommend Jucy Camper Vans enough. Their vehicles and equipment are of high quality and the service is head and shoulders (and elbows, knees, and feet) above Wicked.
