Retro Rental

If you were a conversion business contemplating building a Camper to hire out, you might play it safe and keep things simple. Dan Parker at DUB Buses, however, isn’t your average company boss…

- Mark Walker

With dozens of successful builds under his belt, as well as more than one Van featured in this ’ere mag, safe and simple really wasn’t an option for Dan when it came to a new hire venture. Nor was a quick tart up of an existing conversion, as you’ll discover as you read on.

Although Dan has enjoyed great success with DUB Buses of late (search Facebook if you want to find out more), due in no small part to his hard work ethic and out-of-the box thinking, he isn’t one of those people who modify one Van and then immediately think they’re a business.

He managed the bodyshop at Wheel Magic for a few years prior to branching out on his own, and kept a good relationship going with his former employer. So much so, the two companies have now decided to merge together and form a third company, Mounts Bay Campers, and this is the first hire vehicle on its fleet.

With the brief of purpose building a hire Van on the table, the guys wanted to put something together that was pretty much idiot-proof (my words, not Dan’s), but didn’t want to bang out something that looked about as interesting as a local council planning department employee.

Colour chart

So the first thing Dan looked at was the colour. Although a lot of people are two toning Vans again these days, it’s often some kind of generic colour that gets blown on the lower half.

This clearly wasn’t good enough for Dan. Not only did he search old Volkswagen colour chips to come up with the L511 Birch Green hue (or Birkengrün if you’re an inhabitant of the Fatherland), but he also took all the doors off and did the job properly, painting the door shuts and inside surfaces to match.