Having got the faff of our Christmas/New Year trip to the UK out the way, I was finally able to make a start on turning the car into a lean, mean camping machine. After lots of humming and harring we finally settled on the plan of sleeping in the car, as opposed to on top of it in a roof tent. Whilst many people seem to go for the roof tent option, we rejected this in the end for a few reasons:
- We both think we’ll feel more secure in the car with our belongings, than on top of the car
- Sleeping in the car will give us much more flexibility when it comes to stealth camping
- Not having a roof tent will be a huge weight saving
- Not having a roof tent will save us money (around £1000?)
And so it was decided!
After spending many hours researching on various forums (expeditionportal, ih8mud, hubb) and even more time mulling things over in my head, an image slowly coalesced of how the interior was going to be transformed. First I would remove the rear seats; next I would build a raised platform on which we’d sleep and that contained storage underneath in the form of 2 large drawers plus various cubby holes. Not exactly a groundbreaking concept, but fairly ambitious given our resources – no tools and only a small apartment to work in!
Removing the seats was straightforward – 8 bolts to undo and they were out! I was surprised to find that the two halves totalled 40kg – quite heavy. Having removed 40kg, I’m aiming to make my platform weigh about the same – we shall see how that goes. With the seats out I was then able to have a good look at the resulting floor plan – lots of ‘levels’ to work around but, luckily, not too many bulges to worry about (other than the wheel arches.)
