Billabong motorhomes, under the direction of Jay Nicholls, is a company that keeps a fairly low profile with its van and bus conversions. But having looked over one of its recent conversions, I can say that this is not a reflection of the product.
“Generally speaking, we let the customer source the base vehicle, be it new, used, bus or van,” Jay says. “That way, the customers gets the vehicle they want and it saves me time and both of us money.”

One of the benefits of this approach is that you get to choose the van options. This might sound trivial, but quite a few of the larger vans around, which are generally well-equipped these days, have safety features such as passenger and side airbags that are optional. Retrofitting such items for a touring couple is not a particularly cheap option.

FIT-OUTS ONLY

Our review motorcamper, a Mercedes Benz Sprinter 315CDI van that had received the Billabong treatment, is a typical example of what the company can do. The customer purchased the van, and handed it over to Billabong for conversion. Jay Nicholls has basic standard layouts that can be used, but custom design poses no difficulties – in this case, the customer added a number of his own desired features.

When choosing your own base vehicle, experience in the campervan/motorhome world would be beneficial. The Billabong team can certainly advise, but there’s nothing like a bit of on-the-road experience for determining your own needs and wants.

Being a Sprinter van, there are only additions, rather than bodywork, to the outside – things like the Seitz hopper windows, Fiamma F65 awning, Suburban 23L water heater, wall light, electric step, gas bin with two 4.5kg gas cylinders and, surprisingly for a van of this size, a slide-out barbecue fitted to the rear nearside. Out of sight on the roof is a 125W solar panel that charges the two 120Ah batteries, Winegard antenna and Dometic air-conditioner.

Inside, the predominant feature is the cabinetry, constructed from plywood beautifully finished in Tasmanian oak – it looks stunning and is well put together.
Given that the Seitz windows each have integrated blinds, there are no curtains, but both the rear doors and the driver’s cab do have curtains – they run around, not across, the swivelled cab seats in the latter case.

Halogen and fluorescent fittings are used throughout, but a more interesting feature of this conversion is the LED strip lights fitted along the floor. They might sound a bit exotic, but they’re handy at night for low-level, find-your-way-around-in-the-dark illumination.

Motorcampers are generally designed with the kitchen and bathroom towards the front and the bed(s) in the back. There are a couple of options with the latter: two singles which may or may not make up to a double, or a fixed double across the van (east-west). This general design principle – i.e., kitchen up front and bed in the back – is true of this Billabong, but the rear bed is a bit different: it’s a fixed north-south double.

Measuring 1.9x1.3m (6ft 3in x 4ft 3in), the bed is set to the offside, which allows for a bedside cabinet with a couple of drawers, as well as a very neat cabinet along the nearside wall. Instead of empty space, internal sliding ‘drawers’ have been fitted, making very effective use of the compartment. The bed base lifts sideways for access to the underbed area and overhead lockers are fitted along the offside and across the top of the rear doorway. Under-locker halogen reading lights and slimline fluorescents are used in the bedroom.

COOKING

Amidships, the kitchen is split across the motorcamper with the nearside bench having a Smev four-burner cooktop/grill/oven alongside a stainless steel sink. Above the cooktop, a locker is fitted with a fume extractor as well as halogen downlights. Underbench storage consists of cupboards and drawers. I’d expect the kitchen layouts to be good – domestic kitchen fitouts are another business interest of Jay Nicholls!

Across the walkway, there is a three-quarter-height slide-out pantry alongside a Waeco fridge. It’s nicely placed off the floor, so minimal bending over is required. The fridge is surrounded by an ensemble of cupboards and drawers offering a variety of storage options.

At the rear of the cabinet, a swivel arm-mounted flatscreen TV is fitted such that it can be easily viewed from the bed.

Between the aforementioned cabinet and the driver’s seat is the bathroom cubicle. Though compact, it does contain a Dometic vacuflush toilet (thus providing flexibility with the location of the waste tank – the tank can be located up to 8m away from the vacuflush toilet itself), flexible-hose shower and a small corner washbasin.

Motorcampers often use the dining table as part of the lounge/bed setup, but considering the fixed bed of the Billabong, that isn’t necessary.

So for dining, the driver and passenger seats swivel and a small table swivels from the side of the bathroom cubicle to which it’s mounted. Given the location of the latter, there isn’t a great deal of room around the driver’s seat, but it is still a workable setup.

On the road, the Sprinter is a breeze to drive and will fit into most reasonably-sized parking spaces. The 110kW turbodiesel handles things without a problem and the Benz five-speed auto, one of the best in its class, performs very smoothly.

The Bottom Line

Billabong’s construction method allows you to choose your own base vehicle and (within reason) have fitted whatever you like. As with any commercially available van there are the fixed restraints of the internal dimensions to consider, which means finite practical layout designs.

However, this custom Billabong conversion demonstrates that there are quite a few variables on the basic design that can be achieved and when added together make a very liveable motorcamper design.