It is with an extremely heavy heart that we are releasing this wild stallion to a new family. She has been mine and my partner Ruby’s passion project that has kept us both sane through lockdown, but apparently we were not supposed to be her forever home.

Ruby has just been offered an incredible position in Lake Como, Italy and sadly it just makes keeping her infeasible for us. She is a a giant hunk of character, with cute up the wazoo and all the comforts of home to keep you safe on the road. From the crazy rainforest wallpaper, to the magical pink toilet, every part of this build was all about the personal touches, and you will find little bits of us running through this entire conversion. For what is effectively a very small space it feels open and spacious throughout. The flooring is a very easy to clean, thick vinyl roll that means that muddy boots after long hikes won’t spoil the cleanliness. Bessie is fully insulated and has a complete vapour barrier meaning she stays warm, cosy and dry. We will also be giving the paintwork inside some touchups before selling, so any interested parties are encouraged to request new and exciting colours!

Knowing very little about mechanics when we started this project we were extremely fortunate to buy a van that has been taken care of so well, the turbo makes even the steepest of hills effortless despite having a full payload in back. She runs smooth until about 70 when you start to feel a slight shake, starts clean every time, no knocks, whistles or screeches to speak of, tyres are still in very decent condition and the pressure was checked last week. She’ll still do 550-600 miles on a full tank of diesel.

Kitchen
We are both seriously passionate cooks, so we wanted this camper to have all of the amenities of a regular household kitchen.
* Solid Oak worktop (recycled)
* Two hob Gas burner (one Wok Burner 3.4kw, 1 rapid fire burner 1.8kw) w/ Cast Iron supports, & flame failure device built in
* Thetford Spinflo Duplex LPG oven (1.6kw)w/ grill (makes the best toast!)
* Under counter lighting
* Overhead storage
* 2 taps, one for general use, one filtered drinking water (van comes with 2 years worth of filters).
* Shurflo water pump (pumps 10.5l/min)
* Push fit plumbing system
* Pull out larder with 3 large shelves
* Dry food storage draw
* Pan Storage
* Extra utensils draw which fits all of our cutlery, cooking bits & was custom built to fit a standing NutriBullet.
* 40l 12v coolbox which is just right for the two of us.

Living Area
Two large bench seats with under storage. For one of our “on the road jobs” we were going to put in the the ability to change it into a sofa/bed that can be assembled when required. We had the 3 cushions made so it remains an option for the next owner.
Pull out table made from recycled pallet wood.
2 overhead lights on dimmers with the heat outlet right next to your legs for those cold nights. Lets not also forget the 8 bottle rack for those late night tipples to toast a gorgeous sunset view.

Bedroom
Standard double Mattress.
As you can see the bed goes width ways and includes “bump outs” at either end so that tall freaks like Nick can sleep straight at night (He’s 6”3). When the mattress came it ended up being a bit taller than expected so has made the bump outs a bit inaccessible, but we have now got a custom made Gel Foam mattress that is the perfect height. We will leave it to any possible buyers to choose which one would suit their needs best and we will take care of the other.
Overhead wardrobe with 2 sides and 2 shelves per side. This perfectly suits the amount of clothes we needed for all weathers as a couple and it’s nice to each have your own side.
The bed is reinforced with steel beams, I’ve jumped up and down on it to test and it’s as solid as they come.

Bathroom
Content warning: pees & poos! We all know that this is pretty high up on most up peoples concerns, “Well what if I need the bathroom?”. While we didn’t go all out and build a wet room we have an on-site compost toilet, that slides invisibly back under the bench seat, a very simple yet very effective solution. this thing has converted me in so many ways, there’s a separator which keeps the solids and liquids apart, which all but eliminates the odour (I didn’t know that’s what did it either), and we have a jar of sawdust which we just put over the top until we find somewhere to bury it. I’m really sorry to be this crass but it’s so effective that we once forgot that one was in there for 3 days without even the faintest hint of a smell.

Garage
This is where the nervous system lives, all of the electric, water and gas systems are here, whilst leaving tons of room for whatever you could want to bring along. We’ve currently got our camping table, two bucket chairs, BBQ, yoga mats, tool bags, screws/bolts/fixings box, AA European driving kit (to make you road legal in Europe), and you could still get a lot more in there.

Mechanical Inventory
Sadly when we bought her there was not a service history included, the guy we bought it from says he didn’t get one either, but obviously we’ve included receipts for all the work/services/new parts we’ve bought.
As stated previously we had her MOT’d & serviced last month, and she got a very clean bill of health, we also went ahead and bought new Starter & Aux batteries.
We hope that you have fallen as in love with Bessie reading this as we did building her, please if you have any questions or queries, or would like to arrange a viewing do not hesitate to get in contact.

* 3x110ah AGM Batteries
* 345w Q Hanwha Solar Panel
* MPPT Photonic Universe Solar Charge Controller
* 2000w Krieger Inverter
* Battery Monitor
* Split Charge Relay system off of the starter battery
* 2 double 240v sockets which run off the inverter
* Reversing camera
* 12v USB & cigarette charging port
* Additional Rear & side door deadlocks, both professionally installed
* 2x25L Fresh water tanks in the garage, 1x10L grey water tank.
* 6KG Gasit Refillable LPG System, w/ external fill point, 37mbar regulator, copper pipe distribution & 2 safety dropout vents in the event of a leak, one underneath the bottle itself and one under the kitchen.
* Diesel parking heater installed with its own diesel tank (this thing is AMAZING!!!), comes with remote control for those mornings where getting out of bed isn’t an option until it’s safe and warm.
* Charging point installed into the side of the van for a mains hookup, but we hadn’t gotten around to purchasing the actual charger unit, meaning it’s an easy addition down the line.
* 5 LED spotlights (4 of those on dimmers) dotted through the van so there’s no dark spots.
* Dometic Heiki Skylight w/ bug & blackout screen
* 2 extractor fans (1 above the kitchen, 1 above the bed)
* Bedside lamps for both sides with those all important integrated USB charger points
* Van Pimps tinted window on the side sliding door, can be opened

Please note we are open to offers on the price