2018 Ford Transit: High-Roof, Well-Insulated, Lots of Power

Single owner, I built this van in 2018 and spent roughly $100,000 for top-of-the-line upgrades (OEM receipts available). You could camp with this van today, or put in a little work to restore it to its true potential. For the right buyer, this is the perfect chance to have an “almost ready” setup that you can customize to your exact liking.

I built this van (single-owner) in 2018, and my wife and I lived in it for ~6 months. We hate to get rid of it, but it’s not the right vehicle for our home up in the mountains, so it’s been sitting mostly unused since 2020 (garaged, at least in winter, and maintained).

There is well over $10,000 in after-market electrical systems (including a giant 7.2 kWh battery, solar panels, high-efficiency fridge, induction stove, ceiling fan, inverter, and plenty of wiring for charging phone/laptop/etc.) I designed this system to be able to go off-grid for about 3 cloudy days before needing some shore power or generator. 

The ceiling is still around 6’4” tall inside, and the bed accommodates tall people. I purchased it new from the dealer with just about every possible upgrade (nearly $49k retail price). We also added extra leaf springs to help it ride more smoothly with the extra weight of the build-out. Finally, the passenger seat has a swivel-seat upgrade, so it can be rotated 180 degrees.

The walls are extremely well insulated (there is hard foam and spray foam behind the walls, rated to somewhere around R20). It’s very easy to boondock or go off-grid, and the insulation keeps it very quiet at night. If you plan to spend time somewhere hot, you’d want to swap the fan for an AC unit (which the electrical system should already be able to handle, but would require some re-wiring). It currently has a set of winter tires on it, and comes with an extra set of wheels to make swapping easier.

Inside, it’s very cozy. We preferred the wood/natural look to that of many polished after-market vans you see out there. This makes it very easy to build on top of; you could screw new shelves/benches/bed into the walls directly (and really count on them to hold things up, since they are mounted directly into the car’s metal frame).

There are a couple small dents on the driver side. The interior floor needs some repair, and you probably would want to rebuild the cabinets / bed (they are old and a bit shaky at this point to be honest). Other than that, the van has been well maintained. It has never been in an accident (clean title) and everything runs well. We’ve driven it extremely minimally since 2020 (when we moved to Colorado), just once every few months to grab something big from Denver.