About Lo11y
She is a 4x4 Iveco daily who started life as a demonstrator tipper truck and was fitted out as a campervan that we bought and converted into an expedition vehicle capable of off grid living and being self-sufficient.
The box is fully fitted out to enable us to live comfortably in even with a wine rack. We have a box on the back to carry our bikes.
A full spec can be found at the bottom of the page.
Why a mid-size truck?
Choosing the right vehicle for our trip has been a key decision and we drew on our own experiences of driving vehicles overseas and meeting other world travellers on our trips.
Whilst space and comfort are appealing for long term truck living, we didn’t want something so large it restricted where we could park and camp up. Our truck camper we bought in North America (Frank & Betty) had all the comforts and facilities we needed whilst being compact enough that we could manoeuvre into small camping spots that the big trucks couldn’t reach.
For inspiration and ideas, we visited the Overlanding show in Bad Kissingen. On our first trip in June 2019, we were being drawn to the mid-size vehicles, particularly the Iveco Daily, which seemed to have a sensible sized cab and a couple of different manufacturers displaying very nice living box options.
How we found her
Back in the UK we continued to research and form in our head what our ideal vehicle would be and kept coming back to the 4x4 Iveco. When we received an eBay notification that a converted 4x4 Iveco Daily campervan was listed we couldn’t believe it when we looked at it - it appeared to be exactly what we had in mind.
We wasted no time in going to view it – the vehicle was in terrific condition with low milage and while the box layout was pretty much what we’d liked it was very ‘caravanny’ in style & quality and probably not up to the job of a serious long-term trip. However, we bought her not fully sure she was the right vehicle or that we could convert the box to our requirements, but we felt she was right.
Is she the right one?
We picked Lo11y up and took her away for a few short camping and cycling weekends to test her out. We soon decided the truck was more than capable and not too large or too small to live in.
After a 2nd trip to Bad Kissingen we saw more expedition vehicles very similar that made us realise we’d got the right size vehicle and that she could be uprated in the specification to meet our needs of being a self-contained unit that is capable of off grid living. The box was of the right size but just needed fitting out with more robust fittings and appliances.
Getting her into shape
We finalised a schedule of what exactly what we were looking for and spoke to a couple of German companies and one based in the UK however they none could not commence the work for over a year. In the meantime, Colin had been liaising with a UK Land Rover company who said they would be interested in converting the box for us and we thought this would make overseeing the work much easier.
We left Lo11y with them in February 2022.The work took much longer than expected as they fitted her in around other works and due to the difficulty of getting some parts after Covid. To cut a long story short we didn’t get Lo11y back until February 2023.
What we have had done to her
The living accommodation has been completely stripped out and started again. Gone are the caravan type fittings which have been replaced with all we believe we need to live comfortably for the next few years.
She has been rerated from 3.5T to 6T which is a good job as she now weights 5.0T without full tanks of water and fuel never mind our personnel stuff.
Details of what we have done can be found below under full spec.
