Conversions

It is absolutely imperative that you pick the right style and model for your needs, it's all very well deciding to go for a VW T4 and then what? , With an absolutely bewildering array of manufacturers of both kits and finished vans there is an awful lot to choose from, as we have just recently gone through this very process, what I intend to do here is take you through the bewildering task that is buying a suitable VW T4 for your personal needs.

What you have to do first and foremost is decide what your maximum budget can and will be and stick to it, in our case it wasn't all that difficult as ours was being purchased as a present so we had a maximum of £10k, which you might think is a lot of money and indeed it usually would be however when setting out to purchase a good quality, low mileage VW T4 it sadly isn't all that much and in retrospect when you consider that a Bilbos conversion on a current T5 model will set you back around £30k in today’s money then our £10k wasn't really all that much of a budget although much appreciated all the same.

You next have to decide exactly what you are going to use the van for, are you say a surfer, or do you go mountain climbing or like us do you want to use your T4 as your only form of transport for daily tasks as well as taking you touring and on holidays for the foreseeable future as we did, as each van is different and should be looked for in this manner, then how many of you are there 1-2-3-4 etc, as there is absolutely no point in purchasing a beautiful 2 berth if you have 2 kids really is there, these vans look cavernous inside that is of course up and until you load them with all your gear, then the size soon shrinks somewhat, beleive me we have had to fit a roof box in order to cope with demands on space internally.

Lastly but by no means least are you going to purchase a manufacturers model or are you going to self build your own version if so from a kit or entirely to your own design and specs, after all the internals of many of these vans is only made out of thin ply type wood, which any competent diyer should be able to master into suitable shapes to form furniture from, some important consideration should be given however to the bed unit as it requires to be of good design etc to play it's part in the overall design of the entire van. 

Rock and Roll beds come in many shapes and sizes, but basically they all form the same structure of being a seating arrangement when in the upright position, allowing for seating two facing forwards when driving and two facing rearwards when stopped, using the tailgate as weather protection when camping or picnicking as in the white van picture, in the sleeping position, obtainable by simply in most cases pulling the base of the seating arrangement forward towards the front of the van to form a comfortable double bed sleeping arrangement taking a mere few seconds to achieve unlike a caravan or similar where cushions have to be rearranged in quite often complex ways.

The frames of said r/r beds are of solid steel and commonly fitted to the original seat mounting points in the rear of your T4, whereby meaning the original seatbelt mounts can also be utilised in some case to enable 1 x three point belt and 1x lap belt if the interior is of common design incorporating full units down drivers side, in some cases depending on the design or if the rear most largest cupboard is removed or altered to a smaller one a second full 3 point belt is able to be fitted, as an alternative some seat makers choose to mount the belts to the frame of the bed which is equally as strong and legal to do, it depends entirely on the manufacturers designs for them which way around it would be, at the end of the day so long as belts are in actual fact fitted it shouldn't really matter which way they are done, as shortly it will become law in the Uk to have seatbelts fitted to the rear of all seated occupants in campervans.

   

Above is a common starter upholstered rock and roll bed/seat this particular example showing 2 x 3 point belts and one middle lap belt as in many cars, it is of a standard cloth covering the choices are as endless as the colours for outside your bus, it's really down to personal choice, from vinyl’s through all sorts of cloths to leather and everything in between, remembering of course that with the vehicle this is being fitted to primarily going to be used as a camper, the best choices are of ones covered in a material that is hardwearing, looks good, and is easily washable as it will suffer from adverse spillages and wear due to it's use.

 

The rock and roll bed is a well established tried and tested unit now having been about in one form or another since the early 50's and is synonymous with campervans and VW campervans in particular, they are the only real choice if you require to retain seating in the rear for passengers as well as keeping the maximum storage space available for use, there is ample storage beneath the bed for your porta potty, bedding and to the rear all your tools, barby and loads of other stuff besides. 

The rest of your interior can be either self built or indeed purchased in kit form ready made to suit the exact contours of your van to a tee, the most common way of doing this is to run a row of cupboards down one side in Uk derived vans usually down the drivers side from to rear, with access at the rear to the larger cupboard from the tailgate area, after that there is a choice of where the rest of the cupboards go, with the only real limitations being, allowing space for the door to open with the rock and roll bed in it's fully out position, more often than not the cupboard directly behind the drivers seat is used to store some type of fridge in and quite often for this reason is left without a door on to allow sufficient cooling when a three way fridge is installed, although having said that more and more now the trend seems to be to go for the smaller 12v fridge boxes which allow for a matching door on the front which keeps the entire row of units uniform.

The vast array of colours and designs would if you looked at them all boggle your brain I would presume the best advice here is to go for something out of the norm, as everyone and their dog ahs the more usual cheery and pine effect units, as these are commonly used in this type of design, not that there is anything wrong with these it is just they are so common, your T4 should be different to the run of the mill available commercially and show some of your personality, in its design, these vans will grow on you and quickly become part of your family.

 

Many owners nowadays are shying away from the mass market kits that are being offered and resorting to self building their interiors, which if you are a semi competent diyer should present few issues, there are out there many adaptations on the same themes some plain cool, and some plain crazy but all works of art in their own right, I personally have seen many really zany interiors some of which you seriously would require sunglasses to look at for anymore than a few minutes whilst others are beyond cool, offering a real luxurious surroundings to sleep and entertain in.