cobblecrazy
Adventurer
I figured I'd put my 2 cents worth in on this one.
My background is with Volkswagen campers, and, accordingly, I found the SMB very interesting. I visited the factory in Fresno, and I got to crawl around a few on the showroom floor for a few hours. A walk through the factory with Alan Feld and needless to say I was more than interested.
We did a fair amount of research on any site we could find that even mentioned a SMB. On one occasion I "staked out" (a term my wife used) a SMB at a local REI until the owners came out and we talked about their van, both good and bad. I too went to BadgerTrek.com and read each entry. One thing which was not mentioned in one other post here is they said although they had some issues they did not regret their decision to purchase the van, and some of their issues were because they were living in the van full time. I noticed some of the things they mentioned had already been addressed by SMB, and, yes, SMB also cruises the websites to see what people are saying.
A full sized 4X4 w/a cabover camper was ruled out because we do use our van as a daily driver (5,000 miles in the first 3 months), and it was really no cheaper than the SMB. We sold our popup cabover and Tundra, saved some money, and paid for the van. We did not go out of control on the spec sheet, but we got what we wanted. I will say that during the build we did see some used for sale, but most went fairly quick (anything under 30,000 miles went within days). We even kept an eye on the SMB website to see if someone backed out on a design and color we could live with, but that did not happen.
We have gotten an average of 16 to 17 mpg on highway trips fully loaded, and not much less around town; however, most of the time I commute to work on 2 wheels. As a side note, our Tundra/Camper got about 12 fully loaded on the highway, and within 1 to 2 mpg of that in the city.
We have had the SMB in almost every type of weather, several type of terrain (no I'm not skilled enough to try the rockcrawling), and I have no regrets on our decision. I can compare the interior build quality with travel trailers, cabovers (fixed and popup), boats w/cabins, and I have yet to see a failure. We could have gone with a custom truck camper w/custom handbuilt cabinets and the works, but I was missing the other $100,000 to $150,000 in my bank account.
I go back to the time when I was working on my 1970 VW camper and looking at all the upgrades I could think of. I was going through some of the upgrades with a VW guy I respected, and he said this was fine, '...but in the end its still going to be a VW, you won't make a ton of money, so whatever you do is for the love of driving a van...' I did research on the SMB, and I knew I was buying a Ford van with what I wanted inside - no fantasy (well maybe some) and no regrets.
My background is with Volkswagen campers, and, accordingly, I found the SMB very interesting. I visited the factory in Fresno, and I got to crawl around a few on the showroom floor for a few hours. A walk through the factory with Alan Feld and needless to say I was more than interested.
We did a fair amount of research on any site we could find that even mentioned a SMB. On one occasion I "staked out" (a term my wife used) a SMB at a local REI until the owners came out and we talked about their van, both good and bad. I too went to BadgerTrek.com and read each entry. One thing which was not mentioned in one other post here is they said although they had some issues they did not regret their decision to purchase the van, and some of their issues were because they were living in the van full time. I noticed some of the things they mentioned had already been addressed by SMB, and, yes, SMB also cruises the websites to see what people are saying.
A full sized 4X4 w/a cabover camper was ruled out because we do use our van as a daily driver (5,000 miles in the first 3 months), and it was really no cheaper than the SMB. We sold our popup cabover and Tundra, saved some money, and paid for the van. We did not go out of control on the spec sheet, but we got what we wanted. I will say that during the build we did see some used for sale, but most went fairly quick (anything under 30,000 miles went within days). We even kept an eye on the SMB website to see if someone backed out on a design and color we could live with, but that did not happen.
We have gotten an average of 16 to 17 mpg on highway trips fully loaded, and not much less around town; however, most of the time I commute to work on 2 wheels. As a side note, our Tundra/Camper got about 12 fully loaded on the highway, and within 1 to 2 mpg of that in the city.
We have had the SMB in almost every type of weather, several type of terrain (no I'm not skilled enough to try the rockcrawling), and I have no regrets on our decision. I can compare the interior build quality with travel trailers, cabovers (fixed and popup), boats w/cabins, and I have yet to see a failure. We could have gone with a custom truck camper w/custom handbuilt cabinets and the works, but I was missing the other $100,000 to $150,000 in my bank account.
I go back to the time when I was working on my 1970 VW camper and looking at all the upgrades I could think of. I was going through some of the upgrades with a VW guy I respected, and he said this was fine, '...but in the end its still going to be a VW, you won't make a ton of money, so whatever you do is for the love of driving a van...' I did research on the SMB, and I knew I was buying a Ford van with what I wanted inside - no fantasy (well maybe some) and no regrets.
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