Camping freedom breeze in Ford Transit
The driveabilty of the facelifted and re-engined Ford Transit Custom is impressive, writes Rob Maetzig and good to go camping in too.
Dare we publish the two dirtiest words blighting the New Zealand landscape this summer? Let’s do it: Freedom camping.
That’s the el-cheapo means of going on holiday or touring the country. What you do is get your hands on some sort of vehicle (usually big enough to sleep in) then enjoy the sights by day, and camp on public land that isn’t a recognised camping ground or holiday park by night.
Over in the United States, freedom camping is called ‘‘boondocking’’ – that expression comes from the Tagalog word ‘‘bundok’’ which translates to mountain, and which these days is used to describe isolated rural and wilderness areas, as in out in the boondocks. Or in New Zealand, the sticks.
Whatever the term, and no matter where you are freedom camping, chances are that wherever you go the locals will hate you.
That’s because freedom campers who have gone before you may well have ruined everything by peeing and pooing all over the place, dropped their litter everywhere, and generally injuring the very attraction of the wilderness.
And who can blame the locals? It’s easy to sympathise with them when you step out of your vehicle to admire a lovely coastal sunset somewhere – and put your foot into someone else’s rubbish.
As a consequence of all of this, some strict rules are being implemented throughout New Zealand. Some district councils won’t let visitors freedom camp within 1 kilometre of town, others restrict the number of nights freedom campers are allowed to stay, while many councils will only allow freedom camping to visitors whose vehicles are certified as self-contained – and that means they must have a toilet, fresh water storage, waste water storage, and a rubbish bin with a lid.
For the so-called free independent travellers who simply want to drive something like a basic van or people-mover and experience New Zealand at leisure and in their own way, it’s all getting rather tough.
But that’s the price of progress. Something has to give as New Zealand continues to welcome tourists into the country in their hundreds of thousands, and that ‘‘give’’ is the progressive removal of the freedom to park and camp anywhere they (and we) like. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that there’s an easy solution to this – all you need to do is stay at a recognised camping ground or holiday park.
Unpowered sites can be booked for as little as $15 a night and powered sites for as low as $20 a night, and visitors are allowed to use toilets, showers and cooking facilities to their hearts content.
We’re explaining all of this because we’ve just been freedom camping.
Well – not really.
What we did was take advantage of a couple of weeks behind the wheel of a new Ford Transit van by chucking the tent and various camping bits and pieces into the back, and heading to a camping ground at the beach.
‘‘Chucking’’ is definitely the operative word when loading up a van.
These vehicles traditionally have so much room that we found it a breeze to load up our $51,990 Transit Custom model either from the rear or via sliding doors on both sides of the vehicle, which gained access to 5.95 cubic metres of load space.
And our test vehicle was a short wheelbase version – if it had been a long wheelbase model the space would have been 6.83 cubic metres. That’s massive.
So for a camper, the Transit Custom offers freedom from the hassles that come with trying to pack everything into the limited space offered by a trailer or a ute.
It really was quite refreshing – to the extent we even offered to carry other campers’ equipment as well. Talk about being an unofficial courier.
The Ford Transit has been around for years.
First built way back in 1965, it is now so familiar that in some European countries you don’t talk about ‘‘vans’’, but ‘‘Transits’’.
More than eight million of them have been built, and the current fourth-generation model has been on the market since 2013.
Transit has been Europe’s bestselling light commercial vehicle for more than 40 years, and it’s also the biggest-selling van in the US.
In New Zealand it enjoys a solid reputation, last year achieving almost 1000 sales in a market that saw a total of 6323 van sales.
That number of sales of the Ford was quite a jump on 2016, and the major reason was because last year the Transit was given a facelift. Crucially not only did this involve installing a new EcoBlue 2.0-litre four cylinder turbo diesel engine (and we’re soon going to see it in other product), but for the first time in New Zealand the model now comes with an automatic transmission.
Yes, we know that manual Transits are traditionally easy to drive – the high-mounted location of the gearstick helps make changing gear a breeze – but this six-speed auto is so much better.
It mates easily with the Ford’s new EcoBlue diesel to help make full use of the engine’s 127kW of power and 405Nm of torque.
It all makes for a very relaxing drive, even more so because the three-seat driver compartment is separated from the load area by a wall, which helps keep the interior environment nicely quiet.
It also means rear visibility is quite restricted, but you learn to use the exterior wing mirrors and, when parking, the van’s reversing camera.
This Transit has an 80 litre fuel tank, and the vehicle’s published fuel economy is 6.5L/100km, which translates to excellent range on a full tank of diesel.
Our journey to the beach, laden with our camping gear, covered more than 300km, yet when we arrived our fuel gauge was still showing better than three-quarters full.
Quite obviously the whole point of the Ford Transit is as a workhorse van for such customers as couriers and tradies, and very few people buy such vehicles new for private use.
But you know – I would.
I was so impressed with the driveabilty of this facelifted and reengined Transit that I think I would happily own one as a normal private vehicle.
Sort of like a very big ute with a roof, with the only real downside being that it only has the three seats.
That way, I’d be able to freedom camp to my heart’s content.
Overnighting only in proper designated areas, mind you.
But that’s what we’re all going to have to do in the future, you realise.