After closing my company, I finally had the chance I was always waiting for!
Building my own camper van

Background:
working for www.unicat.com for several years gave me a lot of inspiration to one day get my own. Although, while living in Germany, I already owned a Unimog 1961 Nercedes Benz Unimog 404 VLF Steven Brand Of Los Angeles California Photo I never managed to outfit it....

Anyhow, this time, had a perfect platform and didn't want to let it slip again!

The goal was:
To keep the conversion as cheap as possible
To make it NOT look like a camper from the outside! (stealth camping)
To make it eco friendly, non-toxic
Designed so that two bicycles/ surf boards can be transported inside
Low center of gravity
And we wanted a HUGE bed!

I started out with putting in sub floor to have something to fasten the cabinets and floor onto.
Next was a single cabinet, made of 3/4 purebond ply, bamboo doors and a Kirei top. Hettich soft close hinges.
2 benches (77" long) with storage inside
Table top that can be lowered with a quick release base to become a sleeping platform at night. To set up the bed, there are two more pieces of ply available.
The floor is FSC certified solid bamboo T/G

There are no fancy coolers, fridges,stoves or other gadgets that would take up extra room, could break down or eat up electricity.

To cook, I attached a fold out shelf that can be reached from in and outside the van. We are using our Trangia alcohol stove.

Stuff still to do:
A sunroof
The upholstery (will get picked up installed in a couple of days)
A lock to create a "save" space in the cabinet and also to prevent it from opening while driving.
A awning. Already have the aluminum track fastened to the roof. It's just a matter of getting the tarp and poles rigged up.

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Took the van out for a trip up Island. At night it was close to freezing and very damp. I expected quite a bit of condensation inside but there was none!

Anyhow, here are some pics of the camping set up.

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Bike transport:

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That looks very cool! How many man hours do you have in the construction so far?

Thanks!
Maybe 6 days... It was an hour or two here and there...

It's a fairly easy construction, but those stupid curved walls made it very difficult to work faster!

The upholstery!

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Looks great, Andreas!

__________________
Water separates the people of the world; wine unites them.

"If you have good manners and are well spoken, you can be welcome anywhere." -Mom, 1959

Very nice Andreas.

Back in the day when 1 out of 3 cars on the road were VW's there were bazillions (plus or minus a couple ) of the old style vans around. Today it is "rare" to see any VW's in my neck of the woods.
If I remember correctly my brand new beetle (loaded, with a sun-roof) was $1,845. It cost about $3.60 to fill an empty gas tank (again, as my memory goes).

OMG, you must be at LEAST 150 years old

I was Adolph's road tester for the original "People's Car"