Hi all, thought I would pop some information on this
forum. been a member for ages but first post.
Over the last few years I had been looking for a caravan that could sleep a minimum of 6 people in comfort, take motor bikes / quads and even a waverunner on a trailer. It had to be practical, easy to clean, strong (As I do go offroad) and most importantly - light!
So, I went to Ebay (as you do) and trolled to find a van that would do the job. went to the caravan shows (Penrith / Rosehill) and appart from a couple of
well know van names there was nothing that really did everything I wanted and at 2T + tare weight, they were very heavy.
My towing capacity with my 4x4 is 2.5 tonnes. A couple of bikes and gear and I would be overloaded. Plus, its a lot of weight to tow in any event.
So I decided to design and build my own. I started the design using microsoft publisher...fidled around for a while (about a year) until I decided on the design. Then I went looking for materials. Foam core fibreglass is light, has good insulation properties but it is a nightmare to work with, is not impact resistant, and weighs in at around 8 - 12kgs per square meter. Looked at honeycomb core alluminium. Hard to work with. VERY expensive but very strong. Impact resistance is ordinary.
Being a Jayco owner, I wasnt going to even consider the frame, alluminium cladding and panel board designs> Heavy and medievil. No offence to Jayco, they make a great product.
Eventually I found a product in Germany, contacted their AU supplier, did the numbers and researched the design / manufacturing methods to use this material. Now, you are probably thinking i have experience at building. A BIG NO. I hadnt used a power tool more than 5 times in my life. I work in finance. I did study Naval Architecture for a few years back in the 80's so I could use a drafting board and understood composites..to a degree.
So..the material I ended up choosing is Polypropelene. Yep. Plastic. The whole van is plastic...give or take. The material is actually a woven 2mm thick carbon fibre style pattern either side of 26mm honeycomb core in 4mm pattern. So, all the structural stuff is 30mm and I grabbed some 17mm for the furniture / beds etc. The weight is only 4.5kg's per square meter for 30mm and 4kg's per square meter for 17mm. It is strong, light, easy to cut and work with (You can plastic weld it!), is opaque so lets light in (Good and bad) but it is 15 times more impact resistant than the next material used. I hit a piece with a sledgehammer and it only just marked the surface. The roof is one piece. From the A frame at the front to the rear of the van. No joins / seams. Each wall is one piece and wraps around at the rear to increase stregnth.
Anyway. I started this thing in September last year with legnths of Supergal steel in 150 x 75 section (4mm) and 9m x 2.5m plastic panels. It is now complete (Finished it in December), weighs in at 1.3 tonnes (Tare weight), dual axle, 4 lots of electric brakes, breakaway controller, 2 x 86 litre water tanks, cooktop and sink inside, floor to ceiling slide out pantry, 2 x Queen sized beds that fold out the sides with solid walls and roof, massive setee, 224 litre three way fridge, 4 burner gas BBQ with hood on a massive slide in the front of the van that comes out 1.8m from the van, hot water system etc etc. LED lighting outside and inside. Tonnes of storage and access hatches.
And....the van is 27 feet LOA, 21 foot body external, 2.3 wide, 2 meters internal height, has 2 x 1m by .6 m roof hatches, 3 large windows and a full caravan door. But, the caravan door is inset into the back of the van and the section it is mounted in is a larger door that you can open horizontally to allow the toys in and out. Ramp is at the rear that covers the whole door assembly which keeps the dust out. It is offroad capable, with more clearance than any current van on the market. The wheels are Sunraysiers (Standard 4x4 6 stud pattern) with light truck tyres (Had to do that to get a higher ATM rating than I would have acheived with offroad tyres). With the design, I was also able to go flat floor. No wheel arches! and yes, no chance of the wheels hitting the underside of the floor.
There is a couple of reasons I am here waffling on about all this. One reason is that I wanted to make people aware that it is not difficult to make a van at all. It is not that expensive either. There are better ways to construct vans than is really on offer at the moment from the majority of manufacturers. And...you can get the weight down. 1.3 tonnes for a VERY strong 21 foot dual axle van in my book is brilliant..and it is overbuilt to buggery.
The other thing is that it is incredibly versatile and spacious with the beds folding out the sides of the van.
The RTA actually sent an inspector to
check the van out as they advised that they dont get
home built caravans especially ones this size and with the odd tare weight and ATM. You see, the ATM on this thing is 3 tonnes! That gives me 1600 kgs of cargo capacity. The RTA inspector was surprised to say the least but left without raising a single issue with the van.
The second reason I am here typing is that I am thinking of designing some different types of vans / campers and selling complete kits. It cost me under $45K to build this van. The insurance company covered it for $80K without batting an eyelid and having just returned from the Rosehill show, I can say with absolute certainty that there was nothing there under 2 tonnes for this size of van and nothing in the toy hauler category with accomodation for 6 people. Certainly nothing with any meaningful cargo capacity and nothing that would accomodate 3 full sized bikes or a waverunner on a trailer.
That aside, using the same construction methods I used, you could build anything you wanted to and save a minimum of 30% over any other construction method / materials.
So if anyone is interested in yacking to me about any of this, please give me a shout.
No idea how to put photos on here so if you message me I will send you some photos.
Cheers
Craig