Núr The Van

Ramin is from a family where road trips were actively encouraged – especially with VW buses. Unfortunately a Kombi or any T* VW is simply too small with three or more fairly large dogs to be used as a campervan. But after watching quite a few van tours on YouTube and reading through what Finnish legislation requires from vehicles that are registered as campers / RVs we figured out that a full length and height VW Crafter, MB Sprinter, or Ford Transit would be suitable. After searching online for a few weeks there was a seller of a 2007 Jumbo Transit in the next town from us who wanted to take our old Passat as a trade-in. So in December 2018 we found ourselves the owners of a panel van. You can see the van before any conversion work in our video of picking up the Christmas Tree.

Núr: Light in Farsi. Luka in latin is light. The connection should be obvious :)

The next month or so was spent measuring the van and playing around with various layouts in Sketchup to be able to see the design in 3D. We knew our basic requirements:

  • Fullfill Finnish rules for campervans
  • Full length bed (rules require 180cm long, but Ramin’s 185…)
  • Safe space for the dogs to travel in
  • Lots of floor space because that’s where the dogs are when we are parked
  • A bulkhead between the living area and cab to enable better protection from heat/cold

In January 2019 we tore out all of the existing insides and did some cleanup and repainting. And then Ramin cut a hole in the roof for the fan. And from there our conversion project started. Unfortunately life interfered and due to various circumstances we were only able to really start the conversion process once temperatures were high enough for us to work on it in our yard. But basically spring and all of summer were spent doing construction on the van and doing a couple of small weekend test trips to shake everything down. Finally in the end of August we packed up our stuff, threw the dogs in Núr and headed south to test drive the campervan by driving around the Baltic Sea.

Stay tuned for our series of posts on various design decisions, the build process, remodels, and the adventures we’ve been on with Núr.