• RV and camper van popularity has remained resilient throughout COVID-19.
• Advanced RV, a custom camper van maker specializing in Sprinter vans, now has a two-year client backlog.
• See the company's latest custom build: a four-by-four cedar-lined tiny home on wheels.

RV popularity is showing no signs of slowing down, and as interest continues to skyrocket among millennial and Gen Z demographics, so will demand for camper vans.

Source: Insider

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, RV companies — especially those that sell camper vans — have experienced a rise in sales, demand, and waitlists.

Source: Insider

And it's not just the big legacy makers like Airstream and Winnebago seeing a spike in demand.

Smaller makers like Advanced RV — a custom Mercedes-Benz Sprinter conversion company — are also experiencing success during the road travel boom.

Source: Advanced RV, Insider (1) (2)

Like other road travel vehicle makers, Advanced RV's sales grew throughout 2021, and have generally been increasing since the company was founded a decade ago, Mike Neundorfer, Advanced RV's president, told Insider in an email.

As the team continues to grow, so has its client backlog, which now extends back about two years.

But Neundorfer says the Ohio-based company's success is only "somewhat affected" by the rise in RV ownership amid the pandemic, he told Insider in 2021.

Source: Insider

It's "hard to say how COVID-19 has affected sales," Neundorfer said, differentiating Advanced RV from other RV makes. "We're only loosely affected by trends in the mass production RV industry."

Advanced RV still follows some trends in the industry, like planning its builds further in advance to skirt any ongoing supply chain delays.

Its customers have also been requesting add-ons and upgrades that have become trendy across the trade …

… including four-by-four chassis, better internet and cell connection, and sound and entertainment upgrades.

Advanced RV's recently unveiled build, Nelson, is in line with many of these trends.

Let's take a closer look at the van, an "all-cedar" four-by-four camper van built for a client named Terry.

The company works directly with clients to design its highly customized tiny homes on wheels, and this wood-lined camper is no exception.

The van has many of the upgrades RV buyers have recently demanded, such as a four-by-four chassis, off-grid capabilities, and an entertainment system.

The team began working with Terry in 2018. Together, they spent the next year designing the tiny home on wheels.

Advanced RV finally received the 2021 170-inch Mercedes-Benz Sprinter chassis in 2020, and the build was finished several months later.

Now, Terry and her dog are using Nelson as their home base for months-long road trips across North America.

So far, she's stopped in locations like Colorado, Wyoming, Canada, Alaska, and California.

The company's previous few vans have ranged between $380,000 and $550,000, according to Neundorfer.

He declined to state Nelson's exact price, but noted that the van "approaches the upper end of that spectrum" at somewhere over $400,000.

While the price may seem hefty, the van includes all the rooms you'd find in a typical studio apartment, including a kitchen, garage, bathroom with shower, and a joint living room and bedroom.

The interior was also designed to be built with minimal plastic, animal products, and materials with volatile organic compounds, as per the owner's request.

It's easy to notice the van's standout feature: the cedar, which lines its ceilings and walls. The only other color accent is the green fabric that covers the seats and curtains.

Let's take a tour of the tiny home on wheels, starting with the small rear garage. This space was designed to store supplies, tools, and the owner's electric bicycle.

Nelson's bathroom is located in front of the garage at the rear of the van.

The space has all the bare necessities of a bathroom: a shower, toilet, and medicine cabinet.

The bathroom spans across the width of the 70-inch Sprinter body, and sits behind a sliding cedar door that separates the bathroom from the rest of the living space.

You'll find the bedroom and living room just beyond these cedar doors.

Source: YouTube

This living space is lined with two beds: a twin bed and a sofa-bed for the owner's dog.

Source: YouTube

There's also a table mount attached to the sofa bed, which can transform the bedroom into a living room or office space ...

... as well as a television for movie nights on the road.

Moving along, the kitchen and closet separate the rear living space from the front half of the van.

This cooking space has everything you could possibly need to live comfortably on the road, including a sink, a microwave …

… a refrigerator and freezer, a large pantry, and plenty of storage for cookware, such as an induction cooktop.

The entry door is just beyond this kitchen, but the van has one more hidden secret: an additional seat that can convert into a third bed for guests.

The van also has a furnace, heated floors, and heated and insulated fresh, grey, and black water tanks, allowing the van to run through the winter.

And for hot summer days, Nelson has an air conditioning unit.

All of this is powered by the camper van's lithium battery system, which has all the bells and whistles that allow a van to stay off-grid, including an inverter and second alternator.

Advanced RV also added extra upgrades to make the four-by-four more durable and campground friendly, including an upgraded suspension and motion-activated exterior lights.

"When you get in [the van] and you're completely surrounded by all this beautiful wood and the smell, and this is your vision that's now come to life, it's just amazing," Terry said of her new van.

Source: YouTube

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