00:01I want to be able to do everything inside sometimes you're in a city
00:04sometimes who knows where you're gonna be the weather might be terrible welcome
00:09back to the show today I have Zach with Cascade Campers back on he's gonna give
00:13us a full tour inside and out of this Ram Promaster City couples camper I think it
00:18has everything you need so join us for the tour hey Patrick good to be back as
00:25I'm passing through New Jersey here this is actually one of my customers vans
00:28Justin with Vander he runs these as a rental this is what we really this is
00:32what we got started with we built over 400 of these vans and the thing that's
00:37really special with this one is it's small enough to be your everyday driver so
00:41not everybody can afford a camper van and a car and this can be both it gets
00:47almost 30 miles to the gallon you can park it anywhere it drives like a car but
00:51it's also a camper van so we'll go for a little walk around and I the thing I
00:56will tell you there is I came from a Volkswagen bus background and so the the
01:00idea of a camper van that you could drive to work every day that is what it's all
01:04about for me anyway so here Justin's got a cargo box for a little extra storage and
01:11otherwise there's not a lot you can see on the outside sort of intentional there is a
01:15hundred watt solar panel on the roof that we glue down open this up and show
01:20you what we got going on so yeah garbage can here we've got the refrigerator we've
01:32got a roof vent so this pops on and you can turn that on so there is insulation
01:40but not a ton it's behind all the wood paneling this is to be able to keep the
01:46cost down that's how we did that but it also gives you the ability to magnet
01:50things and and do all of that and we've got curtains these also magnet in place
01:58you hear a little click and then you're like no one of the things that we do
02:02with the curtains is it's gray on the back so when those are closed you can't
02:09tell so inside here you've got it's all Baltic birch just like just like our new
02:17van as well super super solid it's gonna hold up for a long time we've got folks
02:22that have lived in these for years and all the cabinetry still holds up so we've
02:28got cubbies down here for lots of storage we've got a sink here you know
02:35obviously the important things lighting we've got red lights here too so this is
02:40one of those things I found I really like red lights at night it's really just
02:44calm on your eyes it makes it easier to fall asleep curtain across the front here
02:49this you can just and this slides across again one of the things that for me the
02:58ability to stealth camp is really important and you close that up you close those
03:03curtains nobody knows you're in here and here we've got five gallon water tank and
03:14you can pop that thing out and be able to take it up and fill it up at the
03:17grocery store water throwing stations 400 watt inverter 12 volt ports USB port butane
03:25stove here so it's just a little spot to be able to store it but you can pop this guy
03:29out sit on the counter be able to cook pop it right back in and we've got more
03:37curtains on this window here so if you offer a van with windows and then we got
03:44all the storage bins under here so all kinds of and this rega hexa floor that we use it's a
04:00Baltic birch core with a really it's an impregnated it's super super durable we've
04:07used that for years and holds up really really well and then Justin's got a fan in here this
04:13thing works great and we've got these little guys here to be able to store
04:19more stuff and yeah and then here this is and we'll toss the bedding up there and
04:30let me show you how this bed works so you can sleep on it just like this if you
04:33want but you can also fold it out and so you pull this little knob here so it's the same
04:45width as a
04:46Volkswagen bus bed so two people can fit in here but it's pretty snug if you've ever stayed in a
04:53Volkswagen bus but it does work but for one person super super comfortable and super heavy duty vinyl
05:03marine grade vinyl and that ends up working working out really well because it's sometimes
05:07it's additional counter space because you only have so much space and it's holds up extremely
05:12well and then to fold it back up just grab that grab this and slide back there's a little more
05:19storage
05:19back in there too and this just slides right back into place pops right back just like that
05:26that is great for I guess a couple that camps together occasionally absolutely maybe because a
05:34little bit of solo yeah and another one wants to meet up for the trip two people could stay in
05:40here
05:40for a week easily absolutely absolutely a lot of people who've got these they were long time tent
05:45campers and so then this is like this major upgrade and getting some this size I think in some
05:51cases you could stay in a tent site yeah oh always like it's in like honestly I don't even ever
05:57stay
05:57in a site like I stay wherever and this is the ram promaster city which they don't make this version
06:03anymore they have a new one coming out they have a new one coming out but it's significantly bigger
06:07it's big it's yeah it's bigger than the 118 wheelbase promasters that we build now wow and then
06:13this has another sliding door on that side yeah another sliding door is there any extra storage you get
06:18there's a little more storage and it makes it really it makes it handy to the thing that is
06:24handy there is you know let's say somebody on that side of the bed needs to pee in the middle
06:28of
06:28the night you can hop out that way um and somebody else can hop out this way so um yeah
06:36it's kind of
06:36funny because they come with a sliding door it's like what do you do with a sliding door on the
06:39second side of the van but it is a handy thing and it's got basic refrigeration yeah freezer this is
06:46um this is just a refrigerator um you can configure it to be a fridge or a freezer so it's
06:52temperature
06:52controlled so i some of my customers they just set it to be a freezer all the time i usually
06:56just set
06:56it to be a fridge and the battery system that's on board on this is what are we working with
07:02uh it's
07:02a 75 amp hour agm battery um that's under the fridge down here okay and um and then the 100
07:09watt solar
07:10panel up on the roof so it's pretty small from a power perspective but we designed this thing in
07:182018 so that was back when lithium batteries were not cost effective it was like taboo almost yeah
07:24oh yeah and it's and it was one of those things i could have put a lithium battery in but
07:28i would
07:28have had to charge a thousand dollars more for the van and it was like that didn't make sense
07:31and i see a little table here i guess they could use that as dining here in the middle yeah
07:36you could
07:36use that for dining you could use that if you're you know out camping um if you're a tent camper
07:40you're doing mostly stuff outside so i guess the person that would get something like this is used
07:44to that yeah they're used to that but one of the other things and to me is always really important
07:48in any camper van is i want to be able to do everything inside if i because sometimes you're in
07:53a city sometimes you know who knows where you're going to be the weather might be terrible
07:58and you know you don't want to not be able to make coffee in the morning
08:02true when it's pouring down rain that's when you need it that much more
08:06and i see there's cab area insulated blinds up there in a little cubby
08:10yeah yeah out the front yeah to black out the front um and that's that's definitely more if
08:15you're in a campground and and uh yeah and one of the nice things too is whatever extra stuff you
08:19can just like toss it up on the front seats so you built over 400 of these yep you've now
08:23moved
08:23on to the larger ram promaster yeah building this we don't build this one anymore so we stopped
08:29building this one a little over a year ago okay um because the chassis went away yeah because the
08:34chassis went away and and the other was if we're gonna like go all in to design this new one
08:39it was
08:40a year of design designing that new one and we couldn't be building this one and have the time to
08:46design that new one yeah and you folks are gonna see or you already have seen the other version of
08:51van i'll make sure that's linked as a related video so you can check that one out but it's
08:56pretty cool i appreciate the opportunity to at least showcase it so people could see what you
09:01built 400 there's 400 of these out on the road yeah it's i i sometimes think about what does the
09:07parking lot look like full of 400 vans and it just kind of blows my own mind you know back
09:11in
09:11the early days of me starting my youtube channel i remember when i hit a thousand subscribers i was
09:16like that's that's so small it's nothing and then you think about like if you had a thousand people
09:21together and put them in a room right a lot it's a lot of people now i'm getting close to
09:26two million
09:26subscribers and i can't even imagine how many people that is yeah i just can't wrap my head around it
09:31yeah all the different countries and everything it's fun to think about it's fun to you know you
09:34do something cool and interesting and and back when you stopped building this what was the price
09:40for a conversion like this uh i think when we finished it was just under 10 it was like 9
09:46900
09:47for this conversion pretty much came with everything you see here yeah it started off at six and we
09:52we did our best to keep it as low as we could but um but the last ones had an
09:57uh they did have a
09:58lithium battery they did have uh the newer cfx um fridge the cfx3 uh so there were a few updates
10:07but
10:07overall the design was generally the same but also when you look at this and we're used to working
10:12with the small van so when we went when we moved up to the 118 you know that was a
10:17huge amount of
10:18space where most everybody is thinking a big van and they're like how do i function in a small space
10:22where we came from this so going into the 118 we had all kinds of space to play with and
10:27i think it
10:29did a wonderful job i think it's built well this thing is renting out i think that he rents it
10:33out
10:34like every week oh yeah no these things and they hold up really really well it's uh it's not all
10:39beat up and there's no wood chipping or delaminating it's not particle board no no this is yeah all
10:45baltic birch this is it's it's the there's no lightweight plywood here there is nothing about this
10:50is lightweight but it doesn't need to be it's uh you know i think the whole camper interior weighs
10:56400 pounds um which is so well within so you're not driving around a heavy van that feels heavy
11:01no no and it's so there's no heat no air conditioning yeah no heat no air conditioning
11:06you got your roof vent and a fan and a fan yeah cool but that's all you know you keep
11:11it simple
11:11yeah well awesome appreciate the opportunity i'll put links in the description so our viewers can click
11:17over to your website and social medias this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures
11:21youtube channel i'll see you soon
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