I've been wanting a small RV for a very long time and the addition of a kiddo has made me want one even more. I have owned one "RV" in my life--a Fourwheel Popup camper I had mounted on my 1994 Xtra Cab V6 truck. I didn't keep it long because storing it and taking it on and off the truck was a pain. I've been looking at small pull trailers for years now and while I found two trailers I could live with (the Winnebago Micro Minnie and the Forest River R-Pod), dealing with storing it offsite, being limited to 55 MPH while towing and the generally atrocious build quality of small trailers turned me off. I then became interested in Class B (van style) RVs for the simple fact that I could park one in my driveway and live/travel more spontaneously. YouTube and Instagram depict "van life" with lots of hot chicks doing yoga and hanging out wearing next to nothing, so there is that.

I have gone to dozens of RV shows in the past couple of years. I found one production RV that I liked--the Winnebago Travato based on the Ram Promaster chassis.


It was one of the few Class B's that had seatbelted seating for more than 2 people, however even though I think the Travato checked most of my boxes, it, like all the other American RVs I've seen, they tried to cram too much stuff in too small of space. It was also expensive at $70k, but that's $30k less than the Mercedes Sprinter RVs on the market.

What I really WANT is a European RV. As an example, here is the Volkswagen California (which, ironically, you can't buy in California or anywhere else in the U.S.):



They have seatbelted seating for four, the sliding bench seat makes a bed for two and there's sleeping for two more in the 'upstairs' tent. The one featured above also comes with a huge sausage. They have a refrigerator, sink, 2-3 burner stove, hot water shower off the back. Perfect for what I want. Of course they also have diesel engines and manual transmissions, but that's another story entirely. The closest thing you can buy here in the States was a VW Vanagon Westfalia, which they stopped making in 1991. Stop what you're doing and look online and see what those go for--a ratted-out 80s VW Westfalia will go for over $20k, often times closer to $30k.

I don't want to hang out in my RV, I want to be outside. But I want to do some long trips and have the ability to get inside when the weather turns, have a place to cook, sleep, and probably most importantly, a comfortable place to hang out and eat or play cards at a table if we get holed-up due to weather.

I realized the only way I was going to get my European RV was to build it myself. I was interested in purchasing a Ram Promaster and doing an RV build myself. After looking at them at the dealership and doing some reading online I quickly realized these Ram vans are built in typical Chrysler fashion--just totally slapped together. They saw Mercedes selling the heck out of their high roof Sprinter vans, so they built a van body, slapped the running gear from a Dodge Caravan under it, put this ridiculous low-hanging trailer axle at the rear and called it a day. I will bet anything that rear axle is also out of a PT Cruiser or something else, but I digress: