I think the bed market changed when we started in 2008; we gave it a real wake-up call thanks to our background in engineering, innovations and our high-quality standards,” claims Martin Bishop - one of the partners at Smart Beds, alongside Michael Coward. When you learn that many people will just transplant their Smart Beds across when they upgrade their vans, you have to think there might well be some substance to that statement.
Martin has a background and years of experience in fabrication, welding and CAD design, while Michael is an ex-lift engineer. In 2008 Mike bought a rock & roll bed for his T4; he wasn’t impressed and they decided they could do a much better job of building their own. At the time Mike says nobody was using gas struts on beds or powder coating them. “We went to a local breakers yard and picked up a gas strut from a Peugeot 205 tailgate and fitted that to our bed and it worked,” he remembers with a proud grin. The rest, as they say in all the best clichés, is history.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Evolution of Van
To mark 100 issues of VWBus, David takes a look back at how updating the humble ‘Box on Wheels’ has gone from concept to reality
Wild Times
Perhaps a sign of the wild times we’re in and a telling sign of how fast we’re adapting to the ‘new normal’. I decide to take a U-turn and zoom out on how things looked as that ‘new normal’ was taking hold, along with how that’s effecting our little sector
Story's Story
With The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden under our belts and barely two weeks on the road, we were heading to the ultimate van life destination; Norway…
Karmann-Go
When you own ‘The fastest motorhome in the world’,getting to the campsite on time shouldn’t be a problem
Gran Tourettesmo
This is a very cool and interesting project, but the question is,is this the ultimate eBay build?
CBBA
If there was such a thing as Cool Bus Builders Anonymous, then each meet in Leicestershire would start with the words. “Hello, my name’s Andy Stretton and I can’t stop building seriously cool buses.”
Honey I Shrunk My Bus
When Grant Gwyn walked into a VW dealership to buy a Viper green Caddy, little did he know his future was about to be very orange...
Milk Float Influence
Nicknamed Ernie, we discover this custom-created T5 pickup won’t be doing the early morning milk round any time soon
Impossible Solved
A while back we brought you a basic sketch of a proposed project, it was both wild and eminently practical. Well it’s finished now and already in service as a daily driver for a very special lad
An Alpine Summer
In the concluding instalment we pick up Richard and Jackie Pickles’ story of their eight-country Alpine summer adventure on the shore of Lake Como in Italy
