If there’s been a single moment when you have thought of scaling your camp days down to a van, this is your perfect moment. I say this solely because the Bürstner Habiton concept camper van (should be available by the time you’ve really made up your mind) has a modular interior permitting residents to change the layout during the day and night, all without making the interior feel cramped or overdone.
The highlighting feature of the Habiton, based on a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, is its sliding bathroom. Based on the embedded rails, the sliding bathroom and collapsible dinette can move forward (toward the cabin) to make enough room for a longitudinal folding bed on its side to stretch out fully. FYI, the camper van has two full-length single beds in the rear and the option to add a pop-up roof for additional accommodation.
Designer: Burstner
The Habiton resides on the short-wheelbase 593-cm-long (5.93 m) chassis of a Sprinter that has been designed with all onboard amenities to feel like a home on wheels. The idea with this camper van, the German motorhome manufacturer informs, was to design a “vehicle that offers real living comfort for four people in under 6 meters.”
To this accord, Bürstner brought the sliding bathroom concept within the van prototype to the recently concluded caravan salon Düsseldorf. The van design with the centrally placed sliding wet bathroom focuses on everyday usability and a compact camping experience that’s not really seen in the camper van segment before. Ideally, to accommodate a full-fledged bathroom and kitchen behind the cabin, transverse beds are used in the rear. The Habiton is changing the notion and doing it gracefully with the inventive layout that moves the bathroom compartment and front dinette back and forth at will.
The moving compartment doesn’t change its usability. The bathroom still accommodates a toilet, sink, and shower. That said, it’s not devoid of modularity either. The sink drops down when needed, while the toilet seat below slides back into the wall to fit underneath the bed platform (on the other side of the wall). When both the sink and toilet fold away, the space is opened up for the shower.
Just opposite this interesting bathroom compartment (on the passenger side) is the kitchen with a dual-burner stove and sink. The 69-L compressor fridge resides just below. The collapsible dinette (with two-seat bench and retractable table) is adjacent to the bathroom and houses a 95-Ah battery pack underneath. As an option, you can upgrade the electrical system to a 150-Ah battery, connected to 150W solar panels.
The pricing structure of the Burstner Habiton modular camper van is pretty interesting. The van home will start at €72,999 (approx. $85,500). An option based on a Sprinter AWD would set you back €86,999 ($102,000). Both Habiton models can be provided with an all-weather pop-up roof that sleeps two. The addon price starts at €6,990 (approx. $8,200).
