At a glance
Base vehicle: 2026 VW Transporter T7 SWB Colour: Magnetic Grey Conversion: Cosmic Orion Sleeps: Four Belted seats: Four, with ISOFIX on the RIB rear seats Build time: Four weeks Built for: Father-and-son karting weekends
The brief
Most people assume a campervan is for holidays. This one was commissioned for a reason that's becoming more common every year: sport.
The client's son has started go-karting at a semi-professional level. That means a race weekend nearly every weekend through the season, at circuits all over the country — and race weekends don't run to hotel hours. Practice sessions start early. Kit needs sorting the night before. There's waiting around between sessions, food to organise in the paddock, and a long drive home on Sunday evening. Doing that from a hotel twenty minutes away, every weekend, adds up fast in both money and time.
What he wanted was a van that could do three jobs:
1. Be the base at the circuit.
Somewhere to sleep on-site the night before, so they're in the paddock when the gates open rather than sat in traffic. Somewhere warm to sit between sessions, get changed, make a hot drink and a proper meal, and keep food and drinks cold through a full day. In practice, a campervan at a race weekend isn't a holiday vehicle — it's the team truck.
2. Carry the two of them safely and comfortably every week.
This is a van that will be driven to a circuit and back most weekends of the year, so the seating had to be proper belted seats, the cab had to be comfortable for long motorway runs, and the whole thing had to feel like a car to live with in the week.
3. Still be a proper four-berth family camper.
The rest of the family has to come too — and when the season's over, it's a campervan for everyone. Four berths, a pop top, a kitchen that works, and a layout that doesn't need reconfiguring every time someone else joins.
The client bought the van himself — a brand-new VW T7 in Magnetic Grey — and it came to us straight from the dealership with delivery mileage. From there we did the whole conversion, start to finish, in-house, in four weeks.
Power and warmth at the circuit
A lithium leisure battery with a CBE power management system runs the fridge, lighting, water pump and charging points, with a control panel in the kitchen to show state of charge. There's a 240V hook-up for sites that have it and 240V and 12V/USB sockets in the kitchen and at the rear of the bed unit. The leisure battery supplies the van's 12V equipment when a hook-up isn't available in the paddock.
An Autoterm diesel heater keeps the van warm on-site for early starts and overnight stays. Underneath everything is our luxury insulation, sound-deadening and carpeting package: Dodo Dead'n sound deadening in the cavities and wheel arches, Dodo Thermo liner, Thermo-Fill insulation and full carpet lining. It's what makes the difference between a van you can sleep in and a van you want to sleep in on a cold paddock morning.
A CO alarm is fitted as standard with every gas installation.
A kitchen built for race weekends
The full luxury kitchen runs down the driver's side in Slate Grey — the most popular laminate we fit right now, and the right choice for a van that's going to see muddy race boots and kit bags every weekend. The units are a lightweight high-pressure laminate with soft-close drawers and doors, an oak-effect back panel behind the worktop and a run of overhead lockers with a dimmable LED strip underneath.
The worktop has a two-burner gas hob and sink under glass lids, so it's a flat surface when they're not cooking. A Dometic NRX 50 fridge-freezer sits under the worktop for the weekend's food and drinks. Storage runs through the drawer and cupboard stack and into the units under the bed.
The floor is Altro Oak — a commercial-grade safety floor, warm-looking, easy to sweep out and wipe down. In a van that gets used at a kart track, that matters more than in one that only sees campsites.
Four berths, with space to relax
The RIB seat/bed gives two belted rear seats with ISOFIX and folds flat into a double bed. It's crash-tested, it's quick to convert, and for a father-and-son travelling most weekends it's the right system: the rear seat is a proper seat, not a bench that happens to have belts on it.
Both front seats are on swivel bases. Turned round, they face the RIB bed and the kitchen, so between sessions the van becomes a room — two people can sit, eat and get out of the weather without touching the bed.
The colour-coded pop top, painted to match the Magnetic Grey body, adds the second double, so the van sleeps four. LED reading lights, downlights and the under-locker strip give properly usable light at night, and VanShades on every window mean full blackout and full privacy in a paddock full of people from six in the morning.
A finished exterior, ready for the paddock
The client sourced his own body kit and we fitted it as part of the build. On the Magnetic Grey T7 it sharpens the whole stance without shouting. A Fiamma F45S wind-out awning on the roof gives covered space outside the sliding door: somewhere to sit, keep kit dry and eat out of the rain on a wet race day.
Design decisions
Orion rather than a bespoke build.
The brief was clear and the use case was well defined, which is exactly what the Orion package is for. A fixed, proven layout means a shorter build, a spec the workshop has built many times, and a van that's easier to look after. The only bespoke element was fitting the client's own body kit.
Gas, not induction.
For weekend use at a circuit — a pan of pasta, a fry-up, a kettle — a gas hob is simpler, faster and doesn't need an oversized battery and inverter behind it. This van will rarely be off hook-up for more than a couple of nights, so the Andromeda-style off-grid electrical system would have been cost without benefit.
RIB bed over a sliding system.
The seating has to be belted and ISOFIX because it's used every week, often with a child on board. The RIB is crash-tested, converts in seconds, and gives a proper double underneath the pop top. A sliding system adds flexibility this client didn't ask for.
Materials chosen for the paddock, not the brochure.
Slate Grey laminate hides marks, Altro Oak wipes down, VanShades black out a bright paddock morning. Everything in the van can be cleaned with a cloth after a wet weekend at the track.
Swivel seats as the living-space multiplier.
On a compact van, the single biggest gain in usable living space is turning the cab seats round. Two swivels and the RIB bed give four seats facing each other around the kitchen — a room, not a corridor.
Fitting a client-supplied kit.
We're happy to fit parts a client has sourced themselves, provided they're right for the vehicle. We checked fitment, prepped and fitted the kit as part of the build so the van left as one finished job rather than a camper that then needed a trip to a bodyshop.
The van was with us for four weeks from delivery to handover.
The full specification
Ready for the road
Four weeks after arriving straight from the dealership, this Magnetic Grey T7 left as a finished four-berth Cosmic Orion camper. A warm base at the kart track for a father and son, with room for the rest of the family when the racing season is over.