This B.C. Couple converts everyday vans into epic tour motors

Christina Yau and John Syslak were used to getting special attention each time they crossed the Canada-U.S. Border inside the custom journey van they built for themselves, which was more significant than ten years ago. Border sellers almost always pulled them aside to take a more in-depth appearance. It didn’t have to do with the humans inside the van or any fresh produce they would carry throughout the border. It’s just that the border guards couldn’t stop themselves from taking a second to glance at that sweet van’s interior. Remarkably, one border shield changed into blown away by using the custom van, which the couple knew as Casablanca. “I see plenty of RVs; I see a whole lot of buses and matters – I never have visible whatever like this,” Yau remembers the guard telling them.

“You men ought to begin an organization doing this.” That one remark won’t have been the precise moment that released Nomad Vanz. However, it turned into a big one on a series of occasions that set the North Vancouver couple on their current course, which has them making some of the fully coveted custom vans around the globe. It all began with the couple’s decision to build Casablanca so that they might get off the grid.

“We’ve continually been lively in the exterior, and we desired a car that we may want to tour out of and bring all our equipment,” says Yau. “We designed the van for journeying with sports gear, from windsurfing to skiing to mountain cycling and avenue biking. We traveled throughout with it.” Everywhere they went, people raved about how cool Casablanca became. An employment exchange for Yau led them to take a break day and spot the arena. The couple carried their van passion, first to Australia and then Europe, shopping for smaller vehicles in each location to get off the grid and discover uncharted territories.

This served as van schooling for them, as they took what they learned from all those excursions and brought it home to North Vancouver, wherein Nomad Vanz became born. The fundamental concept is that clients buy a bare-bones Mercedes Sprinter van and get it to the folks at Nomad, who, at their North Vancouver store, do an entire overhaul interior and out, tailoring the automobile to the consumer’s wildest dreams.

“They all start as an empty box,” says Yau. “We customize the entirety you spot. All the indoors, all the electrical and mechanical, all the outside accessories, changes, any suspension upgrades – we do all of that.” The organization employs approximately ten people who paint through about 20 total conversions in 12 months with numerous extra partial modifications. “We are one hundred consistent with cent custom,” says Yau. “It’s a type of like constructing your dream residence. We build people’s dream vans. … Our esthetics and our seems are more extraordinary than other van developers because I love advanced esthetics and vibrant colors. A lot of our clients come to us because of our esthetics.”

It’s now not just vibrant items and vivid colorations, even though — there’s also a lot of world-leading generation going into these trucks. The modern showpiece for Nomad is called Yabba Dabba Doo, constructed at the ultra-modern Sprinter van platform and unveiled ultimate month at the Overland Expo in Flagstaff, Arizona. The van has an altogether included control center that links all systems to a Bluetooth-enabled touchpad. There’s an industry-first counter-mounted freezer, a unique draw-bridge mattress that maximizes area, Nomad’s nifty rain closet, and a bath placed simply inside the van’s side door that lets in water to waft down through a rain pad within the ground.

Nomad additionally uses a business aluminum fuel tank, doubling the vehicle’s variety. One fuel tank can potentially take the van over 1,2 hundred kilometers. That freedom to get way off the grid makes Overlanding because it’s referred to as so attractive, says Yau. She and Syslak currently finished a 3-day adventure tour that took them from the rim of the Grand Canyon inside the deserts of Arizona up into the mountains, in which they effortlessly drove through sleet and whiteout snow.

“To just be in very remote areas but have the whole thing with you – unless you revel in it, you don’t get it till you strive that,” says Yau. “You’ve got your bed, you’ve got your refrigerator, you’ve got your seat, you’ve got your warm water and bloodless water, and you have all of your meals cooked up, but you’re in a far-off vicinity – this is the moment that everybody gets after they understand the freedom they have got once they move in a van.”