German camper van upstart Alcovia Vans has taken the well-known Ford Nugget multi-room camper van layout and adapted it for the ever-popular Fiat Ducato full-size van. It elevates the floor plan’s versatility and comfort by adding an extra bed, trimming it all out in warm wood and felt, slatting in adjustable separation between the two “rooms” on the main floor, and adding an extra available seat to carry and sleep up to six people.
Since introducing the reconfigured gen-2 Nugget in 2000, Ford has prided itself on offering its small camper van with a signature multi-room layout that packs an L-shaped kitchen just behind the rear bench and a dining lounge/bedroom up front. The upstairs bedroom in the roof of modern Nuggets adds a third room. The Nugget is not the only camper van with this floor plan, but Ford is certainly the most vocal about marketing it, emphasizing it in virtually every Nugget announcement and calling it the van’s defining feature.
Algovia proves that the layout is even more effective in a full-size van than it is in the midsize Transit Custom that underpins the Nugget. It bases its new Escape 540 on the Sevel series of cross-badge vans – the Fiat Ducato, Citroën Jumper, Opel Movano and Peugeot Boxer – creating a uniquely efficient floor plan that boasts discrete spaces without sacrificing versatility or comfort.
Algovia seems enamored with the idea of multi-room floor plans in general. The Escape 540 follows its original camper van offering, the Evoke 600, based on the larger 600-cm (236-in) Ducato/Sevel series. That model has a conventional full-size van camper layout with passenger-side kitchen, rear bed and front dinette, but it delivers separation by housing the expandable bathroom and a full-height wardrobe directly between the bedroom and dinette, complete with a door for full separation.
Algovia Vans
In downsizing to the smaller 541-cm (213-cm) Ducato, Algovia no longer tries to accommodate a private walled-off bedroom or a bathroom, blowing up the Evoke floor plan and rearranging its rooms in Nugget-style. This ensures freedom of movement between common areas like the kitchen and lounge area while still creating discrete rooms with individual purposes.
As in the Nugget, the Escape kitchen is laid out in an L-shaped design to carve the most work space out of the load area while creating clear division from the dinette up front. Algovia further emphasizes this split in a way Ford does not, extending an optional wall from the kitchen counter up to the roof behind the seating bench. Instead of going with a solid wall, it uses rotating slats that can be swiveled closed like vertical blinds if you want to wall off the kitchen from the lounge (e.g. you don’t want to see how the sausage is being made back there) but left open to increase the feeling of space and continuity.
Algovia Vans
The kitchen itself features a warm, rustic wood-grain countertop that matches the flooring, held up by deep-blue cabinets and drawers below. Leather-style looped drawer pulls add to the simple, rustic look, while a large rectangular sink with flush counter-matching lid, dual-burner electric or gas cooktop, and 70-L under-counter fridge take care of the practical bits. There’s even a rear-corner hideaway compartment below the counter that fits a small coffeemaker.
Also like the Nugget, the dining lounge up front features a three-seat bench that converts over to a double bed at night. This one is helped out by a table with adjustable-height pedestal.
Algovia Vans
Unlike the Nugget, the Escape 540 comes with airline track integrated into the floor next to the bench, where an optional fourth rear seat can be added. This works to expand the total number of belted seats to equal the six sleeping berths. Joining the dinette bed and available pop-up roof with double bed, an optional rear Murphy bed stores against the wall during the day and folds down atop the kitchen block at night, completing the six-sleeper configuration.
Of course, all that sleeping, seating and multi-room division doesn’t leave space for a wet bathroom, which some buyers will undoubtedly expect in a van of this size. Perhaps Alcovia should follow Ford and Westfalia’s lead in shoehorning a toilet into the rear corner across from the kitchen. Ford (Westfalia, really) is able to do it inside a long-wheelbase Transit Custom that measures a similar 545 cm (215 in) in length.
Algovia Vans
Then again, buyers can always carry along a portable toilet for that and enjoy the smart, chic floor plan without the kitchen corner toilet room. Adding in a toilet there would also complicate the optional Murphy bed, which folds away around the same area the toilet would need to be.
Algovia introduced the Escape 540 earlier this year, and prices start at €64,990 (approx. US$76,250).
Source: Algovia Vans
