London Double Decker

Project: To convert an ex-London Transport double-decker bus into a motorhome for 2 families and a disabled child with complex medical needs.

This ambitious project started with the purchase of a 1985 MCW metrobus. You don’t just walk down to the local car dealership and pick one of these babies up. After much Google-ing, one was located in southern England. Steve flew to Stansted airport to pick it up and drove it nine hours home.

The camper construction includes an upper deck bathroom, four bunks, a fully equipped kitchen, computer workstation, and inverters and generators for all the electrical needs.

Stephen Stewart’s travel beginnings go back to an 18-month stint in the late ’60s as a mission hospital mechanic in South Africa. For his return trip home to the UK, he did what any normal person would have done: he got his hands on a Land Rover, drove north to Kenya, shipped the vehicle to India and cut a trail through the central mountains in Afghanistan.

In 2000, Stephen bought his 1980 Unimog U1300L and spent about a year camperizing it. He then proceeded to take it to China and Tibet, northern Europe and Iceland, Siberia and Mongolia, and Central and South America.

This is the sickest camper I’ve ever seen. It’s no wonder the Japanese are world leaders in auto engineering. Over two years, three highschool mates built a freakin’ two-story house on a truck, complete with shoji(Japanese traditional screen) andtatami mat.

The best part is, none of them are carpenters or engineers, giving the rest of us some hope.

Between 2000 and 2002, they traveled over 25,500 kms around Japan in the “house-mobile”. You gotta see it to believe it.

By the early 1900s the rich were taking to this gypsy lifestyle for holidays.

His books attracted other gentry to this novel way of spending leisure time and as the early 20th Century loomed the caravan movement was slowly growing. Several books were written by various users of these horse drawn caravans, with advice given on where to go and what to look out for with regard to terrain and inns en-route.

History of the Campervan: From Humble Box Van to Luxury Motorhome

The humble beginnings of the campervan go back as far as the 1920s with the first homemade attempts to adapt touring caravans into motorhomes (with very strange results!). But it wasn’t until 1947 that the campervan we know and love today was first conceived, purely out of necessity, starting the vehicle on a long road of adaptations and improvements that resulted in modern, luxury motorhomes. Here’s a quick potted history of the campervan.

In 1947, the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsberg, Germany needed to transport parts around the building, so the quick-thinking engineers built platforms on to the chassis of the iconic Beetle car, creating the very first prototype of a camper van! A Dutch businessman, Ben Pon, was so excited by the potential of this idea that he drew up plans for a box van. Only two years later the ‘Type 2 Transporter’ was revealed at the Geneva Motor Show. Volkswagen went on to develop 90 variations of the Type 2 up until 1954, from ice cream vans to fire trucks. In 1957, production began in earnest and by the early 1960s adaptations had been made to make it family-friendly, with seats, windows and cookers. The word started to spread around the world: in 1963 America had ordered 150,000 campervans, and the vehicle became a favourite of the footloose hippy generation. By 1975, Volkswagen’s Hanover factory in Germany had produced four million campervans and today the Type 2 has become a sought-after collector’s item, fetching up to £20,000!

The modern day motorhome has been so refined that it has gone from being a goods transporter and weekend camper to a spacious and luxurious option for longer holidays.  With turbo diesel engines; power steering and air conditioning; fantastic onboard cooking, shower and toilet facilities; stylish interior design and space to comfortably sleep up to six people; the original designers of the camper would barely recognise this beautiful, modern and powerful vehicle as a campervan at all!

Before auction: 

Type 2 comes from an unknown year with uncertain mileage and nothing about condition other than what's visible. Expected price: $8,000 to $12,000. 

After auction: 

Dharma Van: $47,500 

Our guess is that this little motorhome isn't speeding up any steep mountain passes -- talk about underpowered! This photo, snapped in Arizona, was passed along to us with no comment. From what we could learn (not much!), there were only a handful of these produced -- probably less than a dozen. If you know anything about this little RV, please leave a comment and help us expand our knowledge.