Small panel van conversions

Derekoak said:
Well yes You must be immune to claustrophobia to do it.
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As we found out Claustrophobia can catch you out in unexpected ways, having spent many weeks away in Transporter's and Hiace's without problems never gave it a thought going up in size to a 6m Relay, but the narrow 'corridor' on the Aurora combined with a transverse bed was too much for gf, first she struggled to get to sleep, then she suffered with night terrors. :(
 
We have a Vantage Neo (based on a Fiat Ducato) it is our 3rd motorhome and the quality of the build is second to none as it the service we receive from the company. They have a range of vans, the smallest being just Under 5ft but you might find that the vans starting at 5. 45 more comfy. Here is a link to them. https://www.vantagemotorhomes.co.uk/home we run a FB group for owners and you would be hard pushed to find anyone complaining about their vans.
 
Helzie said:
Great, thanks. I'll take a look. It's good to get some more recommendations to get more choice. Do you have one?
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No but I like the look of it. I have a Ford based Murvi Pimento that is 5.5m long but hasn’t got the storage you’re looking for.
 
CavityandLacey said:
We have a Vantage Neo (based on a Fiat Ducato) it is our 3rd motorhome and the quality of the build is second to none as it the service we receive from the company. They have a range of vans, the smallest being just Under 5ft but you might find that the vans starting at 5. 45 more comfy. Here is a link to them. https://www.vantagemotorhomes.co.uk/home we run a FB group for owners and you would be hard pushed to find anyone complaining about their vans.
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Had a look and to be fair nice looking vans and appear good quality.You say a FB group where hardly anyone complains about their vans.Well at £65000 upwards for a panel van conversion on a Fiat(not Mercedes) it needs to be good.
 
We have a Hobby Vantana 55 (5.4m L, 2.06m W) it’s our second one, this one has a comfort matic gear box. We are in our 60s, just coming to the end of a 8 week trip to France and Germany. Going up to Scotland for several weeks in 2 weeks time. Not to small for us, you soon find out you can only move one at a time and you need to be pretty agile for getting in and out of bed. For something not that much bigger then a largish car, you have to make allowances, but the benefits (for us) outweighs the negative
 
Looking at all the recommendations above, and doing a bit of googling, we seem to be leaning towards the fixed transverse bed at the rear (with garage underneath), side kitchen and front lounge. Although a lot of the vans with rear lounges look very attractive, I think this layout looks like it would suit us best. I think it's got the best storage (in terms of both size and usefulness) and I really like the idea of being able to leave the bed made up.

Anyway, we should have a better idea once we hire one and see the size of everything in the flesh. Certainly looking at photos and videos, there seems to be a lot more storage in these beasts than in our current camper so I don't think we would find it to small.

Cheers everyone.
 
Two tips with the Roadscout.
The sliding reading lights above bed and dinette, these IIRC first came out on Hymers, they are a PITA, be very careful with them or they will break, esp. if you fold up the bed and/or mattress, have replaced ours with firmly fixed items.
Tambour door on washroom, on our Campscout we rarely use the 'rolled up' door, usually just use the sliding door pulled right around, this gives you the entire back (or front) to use for flannel wash and then dressing, only ever use both if having a full shower.
 
Why not build one yourself, it isn't all that hard to do and then you can build it to exactly the layout you want?

I converted a LWB Renault Master, starting off with a plan to buy an oldish van, convert it and then if we liked it we would sell it and then buy either a new or nearly new van and do another conversion........... But you know what, that was 5 years ago and we love our 'Millie' so much, she does exactly what we need of her and as this is the case, we kept her and used the spare cash on numerous other things!

For us the number one most important aspect of our design was to have as much day time space as we could possibly have as there are the 2 of us + 3 springer spaniels, furthermore, having spoken to 100's of Mo-Ho & Campervan owners, almost without exception one of their number one grouses was the lack of storage space, so I built in a massive storage shed between the back wall of the shower and the rear barn doors of the van.

Think about it @Helzie and if you fancy the idea, then pop on over to the sister site www.motorhomebuilder.com or message me and I will send you some images and whatever other information you might need.
 
Millie Master said:
Why not build one yourself, it isn't all that hard to do and then you can build it to exactly the layout you want?

I converted a LWB Renault Master, starting off with a plan to buy an oldish van, convert it and then if we liked it we would sell it and then buy either a new or nearly new van and do another conversion........... But you know what, that was 5 years ago and we love our 'Millie' so much, she does exactly what we need of her and as this is the case, we kept her and used the spare cash on numerous other things!

For us the number one most important aspect of our design was to have as much day time space as we could possibly have as there are the 2 of us + 3 springer spaniels, furthermore, having spoken to 100's of Mo-Ho & Campervan owners, almost without exception one of their number one grouses was the lack of storage space, so I built in a massive storage shed between the back wall of the shower and the rear barn doors of the van.

Think about it @Helzie and if you fancy the idea, then pop on over to the sister site www.motorhomebuilder.com or message me and I will send you some images and whatever other information you might need.
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Lovely idea and I'm full of admiration for anyone who can do this but not for us!
 
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