"A culmination of art, music, home education, the temptation of muddy festivals and a desire to have freedom and family time away from home created a sudden family desire for a camper van.
We have owned ‘Ruby’, our 12 seater 110 for ten years now and have travelled all over Europe painting and exploring with the family in her, but she was always a standard 110 and the desire grew in the family to explore camper vans.
It quickly dawned on us that we already owned the perfect camper van base vehicle and stopped looking at VW vans and started to refocus on our trusty 110.
After much research and thinking we decided that having an official Dormobile conversion would be perfect, creating a 12 seater, 4 berth go anywhere art studio and bed and breakfast vehicle !
Dormobile in Romsey handled the entire bespoke conversion with real style and attention to detail. It was a brilliant experience.
‘Ruby’ now has a Dormobile pop up roof with two built in full sized bunks, one of these is sited higher than usual to make sure an adult will fit comfortably. A leisure battery and split charger has been fitted under the passenger seat. Interior LED lighting is fitted and iPhone charging points for each bed and the rear and front passengers. Under seat Webasto heating has been installed with thermostatic control. The heating is simply wonderful as it keeps us warm and dry all year round. When we camped in August the night time temperature in Dorset was only 12c !
A fabulous Dormobile table stores beautifully on the rear door. The table is the first one like this Dormobile have designed as our Landy has a rear wash wipe so space was limited. Dormobile cunningly cut it in half to fit and it attaches to a neat pole that inserts in the floor.
Dormobile also revamped our landy with a new windscreen, seals, repaired the gutters and resprayed where necessary. They fitted Dormobile curtain track all round and we made the spotted lime curtains for her. They also fitted a special bar to the back so we can still take a full sized canoe on the roof that fits on the special Dormobile Brown Church Roof Rack and floats over the pop up roof.
The next task was to upgrade the three rear seats as the original Land Rover seats didn’t have high backs which we needed so that we could fit a full sized double bed futon as a day sofa and bed. Exmoor trim’s seats did the job really well and the team at Exmoor Trim helped with the planning and thought process for the bed. When the seats fold down on themselves it creates the perfect platform for the futon sofa which vastly increases the interior space of the vehicle and that in turn makes a rock n roll bed for two. Specially cut ply wood is stowed under the rear bench seat cushions and that comes out to make a platform for the futon to sit on. The space underneath is vast and takes all the bags and belongings during the night.
If you have a 110 12 seater and fancy a camper van we think you already have the perfect base vehicle, ours has been much admired and we are having a huge amount of fun as a family in her on our arty trips away. Digory our standard wire haired Dachsund loves it too ! And 'Ruby' is official the 1000 Dormobile in the Dormobile UK club too !”
John and Jo.
COSTS
Average 2001 Land Rover Defender 12 seat 110 (This was the last year they built them) £10,000
Dormobile lifting roof with bunks and conversion works between £4500 and £6000
Total cost for a nearly 'new' campervan £15000 which is a bargain really compared to other vehicles !
