Here at Ruhne Racing we love to solve uncommon or unique problems for our customers. One such example is a recent customer with an extended family ranging from an elderly mother to young grandkids who all want to travel together on road trips.

Considering the biggest vehicle the customer had driven was a minivan, stepping up to a 144 (short) wheelbase Sprinter was going to be a big move, but with the requirement to have 9 people in seatbelts, a microwave and the power unit to run it, a walker and wheelchair plus everyone’s gear, there isn’t a lot of room! Consulting with the customer and their dealer of choice to come up with the spec for a 144 high roof van with factory glass all around, rear AC as well as factory swivels up front along with factory options like electric heated front seats, large screen on the dash among other details.

We then set about designing the layout to accommodate everyone, have room for Grandma to easily get into and out of the van, USB/ USB C power at each seat and cup holders as well. We built a custom in house upper cabinet to house the microwave and touch screen for the battery unit and after insulating the van we reinstalled the factory headliner and our custom ACM wall panels below the windows. With space being at a premium, we fabricated a custom mount for the Dometic 35L fridge between the front seats and tucked the Ecoflow 2KW all-in-one electrical system in the back corner of the van.

Now what to do about everyone’s bags and gear…….. Thinking back to time spent traveling on trains I came up with the idea of designing and fabricating some custom luggage racks to go above the seating. Simple hinged arrangement allows for the racks to be up out of the way when not used and lowered to accommodate bags and gear, a simple and effective use of space!

We then built them a custom set of our in-house side steps to help everyone in and out of the van with the proper amount of surface to step on, but we still needed a place for the walker and wheelchair. Working with @aluminess we installed their drivers side rear door ladder/ box mount and fabricated our own passenger side box mount as they do not offer one and then mounted two of our own in-house designed and built open storage boxes to them. Problem solved and we only made the van 14” longer while still keeping the van’s parking sensors working uninterrupted.

The family has a few thousand miles on the van this summer already and reports back are that everyone is really happy with the van!