Back at the start of 2018 my thoughts started to turn towards plans for increasing both the range and scope of my cycling and running endeavors and looking for ways to make getting out and about in the great outdoors easier. The big problem with using a car as a base for any outdoor activities is coming back to it, putting a wet bike in the back of the company car isn't ideal and as for trying to get changed in the front seat, well it's just about impossible, and no one wants to see a naked old man trying to get his pants on in a car park do they.
As such some sort of van seemed a logical progression, plenty of space to put the bike in the back, somewhere to sit and get changed in the dry, and space for all my treasure. Within a few days of coming to this decision and having had another cold night sleeping in the tent, I'd increased the scope of the van plan to adding a bed of some sort, which would have to be better than the cold, damp ground, right? Ahhh a camper van I hear you say, well lets have a look on Van Trader and see whats available thinks I. Ten minutes, a small heart attack and a stiff drink later and I'd decided that the camper van plan was somewhat out of my reach cost wise, everyone knows I'm tight (and they would be right) so that was that idea out of the window.
Or was it? A few weeks later and a bit of thinking time, also known as running miles, under my belt and my thoughts were still on camper vans. Whilst I couldn't afford a camper van, I could afford a panel van and by converting it myself surely it can be done at a reasonable cost? A few more weeks of thinking time, a bit of Google action later and I felt the time had come to seek the opinion of the font of all sense (Emma), who surprisingly said "that's a brilliant idea". Once I'd got back up off the floor (good ideas aren't normally my strong point) and had a bit more of a think, I'd convinced myself that this plan had legs, or better still, wheels.
And thus I found myself back on Van Trader looking for a suitable van to convert. I'd soon discounted all the Mercedes (too expensive), VW's (too expensive, and all owned by posers), Fords (I've got a Ford company car and hate it, so excluded Ford simply on the grounds of association) which only left the Renault/Vauxhall options or the Citroen/Peugot variants. Size was going to be a big issue as parking at home is very limited and ideally I needed something that could get into a car park, it needed to be a Long Wheel Base too, as the initial plan had grown a bit by this time. A bit more Googling later and the Traffic/Vivaro looked like the preferred candidate.
I quickly got lucky and managed to find a 2006 LWB Vivaro with the unusual 2.5 Litre CDTI engine and only 90,000 miles on the clock in pretty good condition as a private sale and at an acceptable price. A test drive later and a good look round plus a bit of haggling and I became the proud 3rd owner of this.
As mentioned above the scope of the project had by now grown a bit, from the initial "get a van, shove a sleeping bag in the back and get out and about" to:
Must fulfill the DVLA criteria for conversion and ultimately change of V5 to Motor Caravan status.
Must have windows, roof vent for ventilation, have cooking, storage and sleeping facilities (all of which are requirements of No 1 anyway)
Must be able to transport at least 1 bike, preferably internally for security etc.
Must be usable all year round to get the most use out of it, so some reasonable insulation was going to be needed.
Must have lights and power to recharge phones, tablets etc whilst away.
Must be completed to a good enough standard that if I didn't use it, or it wasn't as useful as I thought it would be, I could sell it on and get my money back. So there we go, the start of a plan. I had a few other jobs to finish off before I could really get stuck into this, which gave me a bit more thinking and planning time but I hoped to have a usable vehicle ready for summer 2019, which considering it was now the start of October 2018 I felt was achievable.