Rosi is a 5.4 meter long 2020 Citroën Jumper with 165 PS and a Dangel 4×4 all wheel drive. I have to admit that I bought her back in the day already with the idea that one day I want to travel the Panamerican highway with it, this was also the reason why I looked for an all wheel drive.
The Citroën Jumper was built into a camper van by Clever. It is the Clever Tour Model 540 from 2020 with some extras, I would have never chosen myself (like paying extra for a coated bumper) The van was an exhibition model and that is also the reason for the extras… like bright red leather seats… (who does that?) But when I talked to a friend abbot the van she said: „Cute, rose seats, you could call her Rosi“. Truth be told the seats are not rose, they are red, bright dark red, but I took the name proposal, and from that point on the van was called Rosi.
I chose the Clever built for multiple reasons. The first reason was, that it had a pretty good reviews and some pretty happy clients, which is very rare when it comes to prebuilt campers. I guess the reason why so many people built their own van, is the overall poor quality of the built campers you can buy. In my research for a camper, that span over multiple years, I also found out that many companies that built out vans do it in pretty poor quality, but Clever was for me the best compromise of good enough quality for a fair price.
I also wanted to have the shortest model with 5.4m to still be able to manoeuvre in tight environments, still be able to park in vertical parking bays and to have the least amount of car to keep the weight low, because the all wheel drive alone adds a lot of weight and people who own a van know how hard it is to stay below the 3.5 tons weight limit.
Travel history
In the last years Rosi was tested in details by us. A few of the trips were:
- Three longer trips to France and northern Spain
- Multiple trips to the Allgäu
- Wakeboard trip to Lithuania
- A trip to Tuscany
- Two winter camping trips to the alps
- Countless trips to the lakes around Berlin
… and many more
Here is an overview of some of the modifications we did on Rosi over the time
Wheels and Wheel base
We changed the summer tires to all year offroad tires, in this case the AT3 Grabbers to be prepared for rougher and more slippery terrain. At the same time the wheels were changed from 16 to 18 inch and the suspension was lifted to give a little more ground clearance. The bigger wheels combined with lower tire pressure improve the driving experience drastically while increasing the fuel consumption only a little. That was definitely a huge improvement. All this was done at Ramto and they did a great job
Composting toilet
We removed the old cassette toilet and installed a composting toilet from Trelino. This was the biggest game changer ever! Going to the toilet is just better with the composting toilet. It is so funny when I talk about it, the feedback I get can be separated in two groups. 1st: People who don’t own a van have no idea what I am talking about. 2nd: People who do own a van are either very interested or hyped because they have a composting toilet themselves.
Roofrack
From the beginning it was clear to me that I need to carry a surfboard on the roof, so I needed a roofrack. I got a self built kit and installed it myself. A mistake from the van retailer where I bought Rosi led to the fact that the solar panel was installed in the direction of the car and not rectangular to it. This mistake turned out to be pretty good, because now we can carry several surfboards and a fuel canister and the solar panel is still completely free.
Spare wheel mount
One disadvantage (which I was not aware of (or made aware of) when I bought Rosi) of that all wheel drive was the fact that the position for the spare wheel under the van is taken by the differential leaves the force to the back axis. So I had to built a construction that carries the spare wheel. There are only a few applier for this spare wheel mount for a Citroën Jumper and they are all very expensive, so I reattached a lot until I found the British company Wheeliams. I still had to mount and coat it myself, but this worked all out. I just took some time, because we wanted to be able to carry two bicycles while carrying the spare wheel, and there are very very very few (not super expensive) options for that.
Bike Rack
We found the perfect option with the PushRack bike rack from Push components, that we mounted ourself thanks to their perfect online tutorial and so far we are pretty happy with it. The clue is that the bikes are mounted vertically to the right backdoor. That makes the vehicle longer, but does not affect the ability to climb steeper hills. Let’s see how it will survive this trip.
Additional locks
For extra security we installed two extra locks from heosolution on the side and back door.
Sand tracks
If we get stuck in the sand we needed of course sand tracks, so we installed them with some airline rails on the side of Rosi. We glued extra-wide airline tracks (for more surface area for the glue) from the Airlineschienenschop to Rosi.
Floor
We did not like the floor of rose at all. It got dirty immediately and was hard to clean, and also it was always cold. When a friend at our Wakeboard lake near Berlin showed us his amazing new foam floor that was made for boats, we didn’t hesitate, and just built it in Rosi. It looks amazing and it feels amazing. It will get through the test right now.
Light bar
I also wanted to have a badass lightbar, if we arrive on a camp ground at night or if we drive in the snow…. also it looks cool. It was pretty easy to install and can light up a full camp ground.
Bathroom
The „bathroom“ in our small camper was very tight from the beginning and we never really used the sink there. So we removed the sink and installed a new shower. The bathroom is way bigger now, and we have a really cool shower that we use mostly out of the window to shower outside.
Diesel heater
Rosi has a very well functioning gas heater, but gas is not so easy to get in south america, and we need it to cook as well. Sinde we will travel to colder places, where we need heating we wanted to install a Diesel heater as well, so I just bought one and than found out that it is again really expensive to get it installed. But my friend Frederik said he could help and he did! I could have not managed without him and his tools. We built in the Diesel heater ourself and now can rely on two separate independent heating systems, that shall bring us through the coldest winters. Thank you again, Frederik! At the same time Frederik helped us to install a really helpful drawer under the cabinet bench.
Frederik
This is Frederik! Rosi would not the the Rosi she is without him. He helped with countless tipps and tricks, actively invested his spare time. I am blown away by his level of support without ever asking a favour back. We need more Frederiks!
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