scottishpinz
Adventurer
After a lot of deliberation and a massive trip round Scandinavia (Denmark, Iceland, Faroe, Norway, Sweden and Finland) I decided to sell my Pinzgauer camper. It sold quickly and left me ready for a new project.
Analysis of the trips that I had carried out in the Pinzgauer showed I needed the off-road ability of the truck 0% of the time! Sure there was a 1% of the time it was nice to have and about 0.0001% of the Scandinavian trip where we would have had to go by another route, but the fact was clear, it was unnecessary to have such an off-road orientated vehicle. There was though a lot of the time I wished for something a bit faster, quieter and more economical.
A while back I had identified the Volkswagen T5 4Motion as a similarly sized platform to the Pinzgauer to build an expedition vehicle. With Haldex based four wheel drive and torquey diesel engines these vans are widely used by emergency services and utilities companies. With the launch of the T6 prices became more affordable on the out-going T5 and I was able to purchase a low milage, almost new, demonstrator.
The van is a 140PS short wheelbase Kombi which means it has a second row of seats behind the driver and passenger and windows in the middle panel and slide door.
There are so many different configurations of these vans and it was hard to know which would work best. In the end a feww key requirements were laid down and the rest was down to price and availability. So out of barn doors or tailgate this has the later, the upfront choice of twin or single passenger seat we have the single. This has the advantage of being able to pass into the back of the van easily. There is a single slide door on the left (pavement side here in UK as it is a right hand drive van) which enable permanent fixings on the wall to the right. There is of course no bulkhead behind the driver, a glazed tailgate with wash-wipe and floor already lined with a heavy duty rubber mat.
Analysis of the trips that I had carried out in the Pinzgauer showed I needed the off-road ability of the truck 0% of the time! Sure there was a 1% of the time it was nice to have and about 0.0001% of the Scandinavian trip where we would have had to go by another route, but the fact was clear, it was unnecessary to have such an off-road orientated vehicle. There was though a lot of the time I wished for something a bit faster, quieter and more economical.
A while back I had identified the Volkswagen T5 4Motion as a similarly sized platform to the Pinzgauer to build an expedition vehicle. With Haldex based four wheel drive and torquey diesel engines these vans are widely used by emergency services and utilities companies. With the launch of the T6 prices became more affordable on the out-going T5 and I was able to purchase a low milage, almost new, demonstrator.
The van is a 140PS short wheelbase Kombi which means it has a second row of seats behind the driver and passenger and windows in the middle panel and slide door.
There are so many different configurations of these vans and it was hard to know which would work best. In the end a feww key requirements were laid down and the rest was down to price and availability. So out of barn doors or tailgate this has the later, the upfront choice of twin or single passenger seat we have the single. This has the advantage of being able to pass into the back of the van easily. There is a single slide door on the left (pavement side here in UK as it is a right hand drive van) which enable permanent fixings on the wall to the right. There is of course no bulkhead behind the driver, a glazed tailgate with wash-wipe and floor already lined with a heavy duty rubber mat.
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