base vehicle beginnings!

IN THE BEGINNING.......

welcome to my blog! The main aim is to document the conversion of a panel van to a campervan.

I spent the end of 2010 and all of 2011 traveling Australia in a ford courier pickup truck, such a climate is ideal for throwing some sleeping bags in the back and sleeping out, a portable gas cooker and a tent that clipped on the back was all we needed.

we then spent two months in a hired campervan from escape rentals in New Zealand, it was a small nissan van and the seats folded out into the bed and it had a small kitchen unit in the back, again perfect for outdoor climates. However in the uk and europe the weather is not so favourable!

I wanted to travel Europe in 2012 and doing it by road is certainly the way to see and experience a hell of a lot, so a camper van is exactly what i needed, but they seemed so expensive to buy, so with the help of google and some evenings doing some research i discovered it would be a viable option to built one. 

upon my return to the UK i began to discuss the project with my Dad who works for himself installing kitchens and bathrooms for a living, he is a genius with electrics and woodwork so i knew i would have a professional looking finish in the van and thankfully he was up for doing it!

THE BASE VEHICLE!

we looked at many vans mainly ford transits and vauxhall movanos, after two months in a small campervan in new zealand we worked out what we really did and didn't need, i wanted something big enough to stand up in, a good comfortable bed and with lots of room for a shower cooker etc.

I decided on a transit because parts are cheap and easy to find if things needed doing to the engine and there seemed to be a lot of old network rail vans around which as one dealer told us "have flooded the market at the moment" which brought the price of them all down due to the vast number for sale.

having something with a good engine that would be reliable was top priority as having broken down in the middle of nowhere in Australia i didn't fancy the same adventure in europe where i don't speak the language

We finally bought a 2007 ford transit van, high top, long wheel base it's a crew cab so had side windows already installed and was pretty clean compared to a lot of the vans we looked at, also it wasn't network rail but some other lease company this is how it looked the day i picked her up!