Nissan NV300 – cooler boxes and falafel burgers in a custom camper

It’s got the lot

The camper’s back end has been kitted out with a combination of black leather and wood-effect units housing all of its mod cons.

There’s a fridge, gas cooker, sink, portable loo and even diesel-powered heating – which is more efficient than gas, we’ve been told.

You’ve got seating space for five, and room for four to sleep – two in the rear and another two in the popup roof. There’s a trick to sliding the seats into a bed smoothly, but it’s the type of quirk you’d likely get with any camper, or any weekend away for that matter.

And two of the front seats rotate to face the back end, turning the rear section into a bit of a lounge, or dining room when you prop the foldaway table up.

The ceiling – that’s also the base of the popup roof’s bed – raises to give more standing space by the hob and holds 27 stone when it’s used for kipping.

On the move

Although the camper’s taken on a fair bit of weight from the standard model, it’s fitted with an unmodified 1.6-litre, twin-turbo diesel and 125bhp – a decent count for a hatch, but not what you’d expect from a van fitted with this much kit.

Despite that, we were impressed. It wasn’t going to set off in a plume of tyre smoke, but it was surprisingly nippy in the lower ranges.

And you can pull an additional 400kg on top of the cabinets and appliances. Or in layman’s terms, about 150 bottles of wine and 400 of those stubby lager bottles.

No complaints from the passengers

As our designated driver, I had nothing to complain about from behind the wheel, but the same can be said of my passengers too.

All of the seats have been reupholstered with black leather and white threading, and they’re properly comfy.

The rear seats also move forward to give a bit of boot space at the back – more than enough for your 500-plus bottles of lager and wine. Or something a bit more practical, of course.

As such, it’d make a solid family motor. It might be a bit bigger than your current car, but you probably couldn’t make a bacon sarnie in the back of that.

All in all, an impressive machine

There’s no doubt you’d be getting a lot for your money with this van. Coming in just under £50k, it might seem steep at first, but if you look at it alongside a similar spec from VW or Ford, the difference could be as high as £20k.

And this model isn’t the only option – this is just one example of what Lookers Nissan Leeds can come back with.

They’ll talk through your preferences and then work with the converters in Sheffield to build a camper that suits you. We had a blast in a model that wasn’t catered to us, so we’d be even keener to try one that’s been built exclusively.

Find the model featured in this review on Auto Trader, or contact Lookers Nissan Leeds for more on the campervan conversion service.

You can also find all episodes of The Shortcut on our YouTube channel, LookersWebTV.