FarmerFrederico
Adventurer
Updated story in my last post #9.
Hi Folks,
I've posted a bit around EP with other questions as my wife and I try to figure out which vehicle to use for our family of 3, possibly 4 down the line.
My father-in-law has a FWC Granby that he would have basically gifted to us. We would love to take him up on it but we have to have a crew cab truck with a long bed for it with my mountain bike hitch rack on the back - that would make the vehicle more than 22 feet long which would have us hanging off the driveway in to the street and parking on the street isn't an option. Boo - plus campers are technically not allowed in our HOA but a guy with a sprinter is getting away with it and someone else with tacoma and FWC is also in the neighborhood - I don't want to stir the hornets nest by parking this rig out front and then have my neighbors with their campers get busted.
With that we have pretty much decided on getting a van and doing some conversion to it - we like that layout better anyway. No matter what we'd get a regular wheel base non-extended van. We live on the front range in Colorado and have decided that Colorado Camper Vans will do a pop-top for us - probably the new medium height one he has. We want to eventually do a 4x4 conversion too. Camping away from traditional campgrounds is our priority but we don't need to do any rock crawling, but we definitely want to be able to travel rather quickly on the interstate and washboard BLM roads, hit some of the tamer jeep trails, and handle the snow for winter sports travel.
If our budget is under $50K over two years should we be getting:
-a 2012-214 E350 with 5.4L V8, about 20K miles, and about $17-21k
-a 2012-2015 Chevy Express with the 6.0L V8 - about $24K
-an older E350 - I found a 2003 cargo 7.3L Diesel with 109K miles for $9,900 in pretty good shape - outside is really clean but inside needs some work - all the insulation, walls, needs windows, need to find out if engine is in good shape.
All these vans have barn doors which is what I'm after. For the 4x4 conversion I could go with Colorado Camper Van doing a coil front end on Ford only for about $12K, and Boulder Off-road could do coil front end on either chevy or ford for about $15K, and if I went for a leaf front end from UJoint I'd be just under $20K.
With that much investment in the vehicle - which would you go for?
Thanks much.
Hi Folks,
I've posted a bit around EP with other questions as my wife and I try to figure out which vehicle to use for our family of 3, possibly 4 down the line.
My father-in-law has a FWC Granby that he would have basically gifted to us. We would love to take him up on it but we have to have a crew cab truck with a long bed for it with my mountain bike hitch rack on the back - that would make the vehicle more than 22 feet long which would have us hanging off the driveway in to the street and parking on the street isn't an option. Boo - plus campers are technically not allowed in our HOA but a guy with a sprinter is getting away with it and someone else with tacoma and FWC is also in the neighborhood - I don't want to stir the hornets nest by parking this rig out front and then have my neighbors with their campers get busted.
With that we have pretty much decided on getting a van and doing some conversion to it - we like that layout better anyway. No matter what we'd get a regular wheel base non-extended van. We live on the front range in Colorado and have decided that Colorado Camper Vans will do a pop-top for us - probably the new medium height one he has. We want to eventually do a 4x4 conversion too. Camping away from traditional campgrounds is our priority but we don't need to do any rock crawling, but we definitely want to be able to travel rather quickly on the interstate and washboard BLM roads, hit some of the tamer jeep trails, and handle the snow for winter sports travel.
If our budget is under $50K over two years should we be getting:
-a 2012-214 E350 with 5.4L V8, about 20K miles, and about $17-21k
-a 2012-2015 Chevy Express with the 6.0L V8 - about $24K
-an older E350 - I found a 2003 cargo 7.3L Diesel with 109K miles for $9,900 in pretty good shape - outside is really clean but inside needs some work - all the insulation, walls, needs windows, need to find out if engine is in good shape.
All these vans have barn doors which is what I'm after. For the 4x4 conversion I could go with Colorado Camper Van doing a coil front end on Ford only for about $12K, and Boulder Off-road could do coil front end on either chevy or ford for about $15K, and if I went for a leaf front end from UJoint I'd be just under $20K.
With that much investment in the vehicle - which would you go for?
Thanks much.
Last edited:
