We decided to retire our 2006 Chrysler Town & Country minivan this year and move into something a little bigger for road trips. This minivan has served us well for the last ten years. It has traversed from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. . . more than once. But, there comes a time when you need to look into making changes. We have loaded this little Town & Country and the previous Plymouth Grand Voyager to the hilt and trekked off on road trips many times. But, there comes a time when you need to reassess the situation.
We have worked out a loading scheme that allows us to carry the main cameras we use, but there is more! I have not hauled the 16×20 camera in near 10 years now. It is just too much to fit into a minivan. Seeing how our Town & Country is now 10 years old and just turned over 100k miles, we started thinking about something new.
It has taken 3 months of research, a lot of looking and just thinking about what our traveling goals really are. We wanted something a bit larger, without all the fluff of computed-out over the top luxury vehicles, like the current minivans all seem to be obsessed with. What we wanted was a TRUCK! We looked at a pickup with a topper, but that did not suit our goal. Everything we found in a van was either massively big, or ridiculously small.
On the last trip to Utah we had the opportunity to see a lot of rental vehicles on the road and in the parks. That along with a lot of searching the Internet, it was becoming obvious we were not finding anything that would work for us. Near giving up, on a day lost to rain in Springdale, UT, I found something searching the Internet one more time. There is one vehicle that fit between too much and too little. More research, and then a visit to a dealer, after we returned home, pretty much sold us on the idea that we had found a vehicle that would work well for us.
We finally settled on the Nissan NVP 3500 12-passenger van. This is a relatively new vehicle, just going into production in 2012. The NV is basically a Nissan Titan truck built into a van. They have several models that are sold with no interior for work trucks. But, Nissan did something that makes real sense. They build a passenger model, with full interior and seating for 12 people. We drove one and decided this, minus the seats, would be just fine for us.
The NVP has become very popular with large families and are somewhat hard to find. . . at least if you want a particular color or configuration. We made a request for what we wanted and sure enough, the salesman found one and had it brought in for us to see. That did it. . . Sold!
We spent a few hours at the dealership and brought the blue NVP home. First order of business. . . remove the seats. They are removable and are just latched to the floor. Into the storage barn they went. Next we needed to build a new tripod box. Took a little time and some CAD work to come up with a new box and a way to get it mounted to the floor. Had to design a mount that would attach to the factory seat hold downs in the floor and then build a new box to hold four tripods.
Some plywood, some glue, some aluminum bar stock, a few dozen deck screws, assorted hardware, sawing, machining and finally a luxurious covering with speaker carpet and there you have it. The tripod box is installed and ready for the road. Now we need to get out. . . and yes the 16×20 will be back on the road!
And not to forget the 2006 T&C. . . we removed the tripod box that has been in it for the last ten years and put the factory seats back in. It now looks just like it did when we first got it. The 1999 Plymouth Grand Voyager with near 170k miles had to go and was sacrificed as the trade-in.
Yes. . . it is Time For A Change!
JB