That colour scheme! Those wheels! But a used base vehicle still keeps down the price…
IT’S hard to stand out in the VW campervan market, especially for a new name without the reassurance of National Caravan Council (NCC) approval or Type Approval. Spartan Campers has only been trading for just over two years but the example of its Adventurer conversion that it supplied for review certainly caught the eye.
It’s not just the pale minty green and white duo-tone scheme but the repeating of the green on the door handles, mirrors, VW logo and wheel centres, while the side bars are in white. Those two-coloured 20in disc-style wheels are very striking, too, and should be easy to rid of the dreaded brake dust. However, if this look isn’t to your taste, then a huge range of alloys is offered, along with a wide selection of furniture colours, etc.
It’s a 67-plate Transporter here, with 67,000 miles recorded, hence the sub-£40k price tag. There are rear barn doors on this one, rather than the more desirable tailgate, but it does come with cab air-con. It’s always worth checking the spec of the base van carefully with these T6.1s because it can make a huge difference in cost and desirability.
One thing that this company aims to do differently is to carry out as much work as possible in-house, even having its own bodyshop for any repairs necessary to used vans (usually sourced for customers to their requirements) before they are converted. It has its own CNC machine for the furniture, too.
Spartan also focuses on creating campervans for working families and it’s building a community of owners. The company founders use the ’vans with their own kids, so the Adventurer is designed to be family friendly. It comes with a roof bed (in the Westdubs elevating roof) and a double passenger seat as standard, the latter fitted with an MS Craft swivel base. As ever, remember that there’s no walk-through with the three-seater cab and no rake adjustment on the cab bench seat, but it does give the camper five belted pews. Here, it’s also on a base with wheels, so it can slide out to face through the open sliding door, which could be very appealing on a summer’s day.
The M1 crash-tested back seat is from FabworX and incorporates headrests, although it’s rather short in the squab. It simply slides forward and folds flat to make the downstairs double bed. It’s quite modest in size, though, at 1.78m by 1.11m. Vanshades blinds provide blackout at night. In the roof, Spartan says there’s sufficient ro
