Auto Campers Leisure Van Hi-Line campervan

Price from: £32,835 Berths: 2 Travel seats: 5

Auto Campers' new Ford Transit Tourneo Custom-based Leisure Van will be sold in three formats, all with the same interior layout, but with different roof options

Apart from the subtle Auto Campers badging, the Leisure Van could easily be mistaken for a high-end MPV, which, in many ways, it still is.

All Leisure Vans come with five belted seats as standard. The passenger area alone will swallow a week’s shopping before you even start to take advantage of the kitchen corridor. The latter is easily loaded through huge barn-type doors.

The Tourneo’s dash layout is modern and user-friendly. The Tourneo uses Ford’s 2.2-litre Duratorq diesel engine and the Leisure Van can be had with the full range of power outputs. The 100PS unit is fitted as standard, but this Hi-Line test vehicle has the middle-of-the-range 125PS (123bhp) output (a £2,040 option).

Inside, the Leisure Van is divided into two separate areas. Up front, with driver and passenger seats turned to face the rear seats, there’s a clearly defined lounge and dining area. For camping, the third rear passenger seat, nearest to the sliding door, can be kept in place, but access fore and aft is restricted, so it is probably best left at home. Behind the rear seats, kitchen units run down both sides of a central corridor.

There’s a completely different feel in here to the traditional side kitchen and bench seat layout that proliferates in VW-sized van conversions. The layout is actually much closer to the T5-based HymerCar Cape Town (or the Fiat-based Sydney) that’s been dividing opinion since its launch last year.

The Leisure Van’s high-top roof is mainly taken up by lockers, two per side and one at the front. Storage is very important in a campervan, but this abundance of lockers means that the maximum interior height of just 1.77m (5ft 9½in) is only available in a strip 0.85m wide down the length of the ’van.

For two people, the Leisure Van’s lounge is a good size. Standard Ford fabric colours are more workaday than holiday, though, and the whole area just looks too drab.

Storage is excellent, with deep pull-out storage bins in place of traditional cupboards. There’s enough capacity here to keep a couple in food for a week or more and a 45-litre, 12V compressor-type fridge to keep things cool. At the other end of the offside kitchen unit there’s a dedicated locker for a Dometic 972 portable chemical loo (the toilet itself is a £102 option).

A two-burner hob is the extent of the on-board cooking equipment, so buyers will need to break out the barbecue if they want a bit of culinary variety. The Leisure Van’s kitchen does actually lend itself to outdoor dining – with the rear doors open, the fridge, cupboards and worktop space are within easy reach. There’s even a flip-up worktop on the end of the offside kitchen unit, and door-mounted storage containers could have been designed to hold a bag of charcoal.

There’s no leaving the washing up until morning in the Leisure Van, the worktop must be clear and the glass lid on the hob and sink closed down before the bed can be made. Both rear seats are folded down to reveal bed boards on their backs. The mattress pile is lifted off and a large bed board folds out from the offside and rests on the edge of the opposite worktop. On top of all this, a large fold-out mattress covers the bulk of the bed boards, with an infill sitting on top of the hob and sink cover.

Making the bed itself takes five minutes, but you can easily add another 10 to that just to tidy the lounge and kitchen enough to break out the bed boards. The bed is comfortable, and a generous 1.64m (5ft 4½in) wide for two thirds of the 1.98m (6ft 6in) length, tapering down to a still comfortable, although less generous 1.18m (3ft 10½in) wide at the very end.

Auto Campers certainly has form in the day van arena. On the previous-generation full-sized Transit it produced a range of great conversions, one of which (called the Day Van, strangely enough), we tested back in our February 2012 issue. That vehicle featured a range of innovative touches like a one-piece polypropylene storage and kitchen unit, a diesel-powered ceramic hob and a fridge that could be used inside or outside. The Day Van also featured a bog-standard RIB bench seat that became a double bed without having to rearrange the interior.

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A remarkably good day van that works equally well as an everyday car