New Speedy

As you can probably see from the new header photo for The Speedy Journal, we have a "new" camper van, a 2018 Hymer Aktiv 1.0.

After the trip to Canada last summer, we decided that the Roadtrek was getting a bit long in the tooth as it was nearly 20 years old and had 128,000 miles on it. While we had no problems on that trip, we'd had an on-the-road problem on almost every trip in the previous couple of years; many of which were chronicled here. So we put it on the market. 

It sold in less than a week. 

The question became—What do we do next? We wanted something newer and a little smaller. While Speedy Roadtrek was only 22', 25' with the Combo Box bike rack, it was just a little too long for a standard parking space and almost always triggered additional charges on ferries.

A slightly shorter (<20') euro-style van (Sprinter, Promaster, Transit) would certainly fit the bill. We considered building one from scratch which would have our exact amenities, but that seemed a little too time consuming to do ourselves and custom vans were way too pricey. Actually, new manufactured camper vans, Class B RVs, are also much too expensive.

So it was off to the used market. We looked locally and on the various online marketplaces but found nothing suitable at a reasonable price and age. Then Ellen remembered that we had seen a listing for a Hymer Aktiv last winter. It had been listed at a Campers Inn in NJ (Campers Inn in Raynham is where we bought the previous two vans). The Hymer was one of the vans that met our requirements, but I found it hard to believe that it would still be available six months later...but it was.

The specifications and appearance looked good and the price had dropped $10,000 since we first saw the listing. We didn't quite understand why it sat so long, but decided to take a look at it. We later found out that the dealer had changed ownership and the staff had turned over in the interim. The van was a trade-in that had sort of gotten lost among the trailers and Class A motorhomes that they specialized in.

In mid-July we drove to New Jersey in the ID.4, our longest trip in the EV (A story of its own), and bought a 2018 Hymer Aktiv 1.0 with 26,000 miles on it. It was a bit of tricky sale. We wanted to pay cash, but they would only sell it at the price we agreed to if it was financed. We also wanted it delivered for pick-up at the Raynham Campers Inn, which they agreed to. We did all the paperwork for financing, turned down all the added offers and paid off the loan as soon as the bank made the loan.

It took a few days for it to get to Raynham. When we went to inspect it, the service folks were astonished that the van had made it to them. The front tires were nearly bald. They said they would replace them at their cost as it would not pass inspection otherwise. We ended up with four brand-new high load index tires which I was planning on getting anyway. They also found a few other non-working items which eventually got replaced. 

The Hymer Aktiv is a Euro-style Class B van that was briefly built in the same factory as Roadtreks when the Erwin Hymer company, a large European RV manufacturer, acquired Roadtrek in 2010s. It was a short-lived partnership and the North American company blew up. Hymer left the NA market and Roadtrek was acquired by another European RV company, the Rapido Group, so Hymer Aktivs were only sold in the US between 2016 and 2019.

Speedy, our Hymer Aktiv, is the 2018 model, built on a beefed-up 19.5' RAM Promaster 2500. It is a more European style van than the Roadtreks of the same era. The interior is lighter and more modern looking. It has four wide opening side windows. It doesn't have quite as much storage as our Roadtrek, but that was 2 feet longer and we had added more cabinetry. New Speedy seats four, with a somewhat tight two-person bench seat behind the driver and permanently installed drop down table.

It has a large head with a shower and cassette toilet. The only downside is the width of the shower room and the double passenger seat leaves a very narrow passage to the back. 

The kitchen is a little shorter than the Roadtrek but has sink, propane stove, microwave and a compressor refrigerator, also a bit smaller than the one I installed in the Roadtrek. Heat and hot water are provided a Truma Combo furnace that runs on propane and/or AC and is very quiet. It has two 200AHr lithium batteries and a 100AHr AGM battery that are charged by a separate alternator, shore power or the 250W solar panels. It also has the usual overhead air conditioner which is nowhere near as quiet as the heater. 

It has a 3000W inverter, which can run the A/C, but not for very long on batteries, but that is somewhat ameliorated by the Voltstart system which automatically turns on the engine to charge the batteries if they get low. (We haven't tried that yet).

One of the biggest differences between the Aktiv and the Roadtrek is that the bed goes across the van. It has a much better mattress than the last van, but the bed it nearly two feet higher in the Aktiv. We need a portable step stool to get in and out of bed. But it does mean that there is a lot of storage under the bed.

Since we have had it, we have added a mattress topper, shelves in the hanging locker, additional USB ports, GPS and iPad mounts and a door-mounted bike rack. We were not able to use the combo box since it would require a hitch-mount extender to get beyond the rear mounted spare tire. This would mean that it would extend several feet of the back, negating short length we wanted. It also swings to the left and would interfere with the spare tire.

We've taken a couple of short shakedown trips in the fall, which we didn't write up. We think we are in good shape, but the real test comes next week.

New Speedy will on its way south at the end of next week. we should be out at least a month with the main stay at Fort Pickens campground on the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Hopefully, it won't get shut down during our stay.

More as we travel.