German camper van upstart Alcovia Vans has taken the well-known Ford Nugget multi-room camper van structure and tailored it for the ever-popular Fiat Ducato full-size van. It elevates the ground plan’s versatility and luxury by including an additional mattress, trimming all of it out in heat wooden and felt, slatting in adjustable separation between the 2 “rooms” on the principle ground, and including an additional obtainable seat to hold and sleep as much as six folks.
Since introducing the reconfigured gen-2 Nugget in 2000, Ford has prided itself on providing its small camper van with a signature multi-room structure that packs an L-shaped kitchen simply behind the rear bench and a eating lounge/bed room up entrance. The upstairs bed room within the roof of contemporary Nuggets provides a 3rd room. The Nugget will not be the one camper van with this ground plan, however Ford is actually probably the most vocal about advertising and marketing it, emphasizing it in just about each Nugget announcement and calling it the van’s defining characteristic.
Algovia proves that the structure is much more efficient in a full-size van than it’s within the midsize Transit Customized that underpins the Nugget. It bases its new Escape 540 on the Sevel sequence of cross-badge vans – the Fiat Ducato, Citroën Jumper, Opel Movano and Peugeot Boxer – making a uniquely environment friendly ground plan that boasts discrete areas with out sacrificing versatility or consolation.
Algovia appears enamored with the thought of multi-room ground plans normally. The Escape 540 follows its authentic camper van providing, the Evoke 600, primarily based on the bigger 600-cm (236-in) Ducato/Sevel sequence. That mannequin has a traditional full-size van camper structure with passenger-side kitchen, rear mattress and entrance dinette, nevertheless it delivers separation by housing the expandable lavatory and a full-height wardrobe straight between the bed room and dinette, full with a door for full separation.
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In downsizing to the smaller 541-cm (213-cm) Ducato, Algovia now not tries to accommodate a non-public walled-off bed room or a rest room, blowing up the Evoke ground plan and rearranging its rooms in Nugget-style. This ensures freedom of motion between frequent areas just like the kitchen and lounge space whereas nonetheless creating discrete rooms with particular person functions.
As within the Nugget, the Escape kitchen is specified by an L-shaped design to carve probably the most work area out of the load space whereas creating clear division from the dinette up entrance. Algovia additional emphasizes this cut up in a method Ford doesn’t, extending an non-obligatory wall from the kitchen counter as much as the roof behind the seating bench. As a substitute of going with a stable wall, it makes use of rotating slats that may be swiveled closed like vertical blinds if you wish to wall off the kitchen from the lounge (e.g. you do not need to see how the sausage is being made again there) however left open to extend the sensation of area and continuity.
Algovia Vans
The kitchen itself includes a heat, rustic wood-grain countertop that matches the flooring, held up by deep-blue cupboards and drawers under. Leather-based-style looped drawer pulls add to the straightforward, rustic look, whereas a big rectangular sink with flush counter-matching lid, dual-burner electrical or gasoline cooktop, and 70-L under-counter fridge care for the sensible bits. There’s even a rear-corner hideaway compartment under the counter that matches a small coffeemaker.
Additionally just like the Nugget, the eating lounge up entrance includes a three-seat bench that converts over to a double mattress at evening. This one is helped out by a desk with adjustable-height pedestal.
Algovia Vans
In contrast to the Nugget, the Escape 540 comes with airline monitor built-in into the ground subsequent to the bench, the place an non-obligatory fourth rear seat will be added. This works to broaden the entire variety of belted seats to equal the six sleeping berths. Becoming a member of the dinette mattress and obtainable pop-up roof with double mattress, an non-obligatory rear Murphy mattress shops towards the wall through the day and folds down atop the kitchen block at evening, finishing the six-sleeper configuration.
In fact, all that sleeping, seating and multi-room division does not depart area for a moist lavatory, which some patrons will undoubtedly anticipate in a van of this measurement. Maybe Alcovia ought to comply with Ford and Westfalia’s lead in shoehorning a toilet into the rear nook throughout from the kitchen. Ford (Westfalia, actually) is ready to do it inside a long-wheelbase Transit Customized that measures the same 545 cm (215 in) in size.
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Then once more, patrons can all the time carry alongside a transportable rest room for that and benefit from the sensible, stylish ground plan with out the kitchen nook rest room room. Including in a bathroom there would additionally complicate the non-obligatory Murphy mattress, which folds away across the similar space the bathroom would have to be.
Algovia launched the Escape 540 earlier this yr, and costs begin at €64,990 (approx. US$76,250).
Supply: Algovia Vans
