Octavia VRS Estate Van Conversion

[Togsodar]

Ok, so ive decided to turn my estate into a van for a few reasons:

 

1. Ill be able to do all the stripping and welding myself and i have a friend who is willing to respray her as a swap for a website.

2. Over the 6 months ive had her ive had the rear seats down and the back filled up probably a good 75% of the time.

3. It would just be so cool and unique.

 

Im not aware if anyone has done this before, if any of you know any different please feel free to share.

 

This conversion may happen over the next few months as i can do bits and pieces while im still driving the ca starting with stripping the rear of the car back to the bare bones. Attached is a very rough photoshop retouch to show you what i have in mind. I may also have her on air bag suspension when i have the funds as ive fitted this before to anotehr car which will save me the fitting costs.

 

Let me know what you all think.

[Guest]

Looks good, can't understand why Škoda never did this in the first place IMO?

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[jublybug]

Do it mate looks good in your pic .just remember if it looks right it is right ,are you going to just pannel in the windows or put a full flat side in?

Do it

Jim

[Togsodar]

Thanks guys, I did it to a ford focus estate a while ago for a friend and that turned out great, I'm going to adopt the same idea in welding and smoothing the rear doors, then remove all the rear side windows and cut a large single sheet of steel to weld in place so the side should be relatively flat which would suit any company branding on the side in the near future.

[Togsodar]

heres the focus van, turned out nice, lots of people pass it by thinking it was something that was always build by ford, just a testament to how good it looks i guess :-)

[J306TD]

Wow that looks great. Can't belive Ford never did it

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[Togsodar]

And to think the guy was just going to scrap it too :-)

[RobClubley]

I'm sure I've seen a picture of an Octavia van, but I think it had back doors and just the rear windows were metal panels.

 

Focus above looks great. Watching this with interest!

[Toxicvrs]

Octavia Praktik

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[devonutopia]

Would be pretty cool to make the rear doors sliding on both sides?

[big bobz]

looks great

[pikpilot]

Depends what you want to use the van for as well.

I used to run my estate like a van for my business and found the rear side doors invaluable for getting things in and out. But then I was filling my "van" with lots of relatively small objects. Getting to everything without the side doors would have meant emptying things onto the street to get at things at the back of the load area.

 

Depends on a balance between what it is being used for against looks and style. Your solution looks better but I would have preferred the Octavia Practika pictured above, or better still, sliding side doors as said above.

 

One more general point on vans: I like the up hinged door of an estate rather than side hinged doors of most vans, particularly when it is raining!

 

Not an issue here, but most vans with split rear doors of different widths have not been altered from their continental derivatives, so the larger door is kerb side for us.

 

So making vans from estate cars is much better!

[softscoop]

Looks like a good project, and if it looks like that Focus, it would look very factory.

 

When I've had my combi in van mode, being able to open the rear doors has definitely made it a lot easier to rear things right at the front.

 

Are you going to have some kind or partition behind the front seats?

[Togsodar]

Well the project has started :-) as mentioned ill be welding bits whilst still driving.

 

I had seen that white van and aware the police use them as dog vans however it seems a bit of a noddy way of doing it :-) i mostly have been loading large items in the back recently, have been getting into a bit of 1980's arcade game restoration and that only just about fit :-)

 

Heres a few photos, I have one query before i start cutting bits out i shouldnt, in removing the rear seats theres a crossmember at the bottom of the back of the seats (marked in red in the last photo) which im assuming is merely for strengthening the seats during an impact, am i right in my assumption or does anyone think its integral to the structure of the car, its be nice to have it gone as itll provide an extra 3 inches of load depth.

 

 

 

 

[Togsodar]

Hi Softscoop

 

Ill probably have a removable steel mesh piece behind the seats mainly to stop the dog from wandering around in the back :-)

 

its actually quite a nice car to climb in the back of so im happy to creep around in the car and may actually fit a roller system to the floor to aid with loading and unloading though i have to check the logistics and cost of this.

 

 

Looks like a good project, and if it looks like that Focus, it would look very factory.

 

When I've had my combi in van mode, being able to open the rear doors has definitely made it a lot easier to rear things right at the front.

 

Are you going to have some kind or partition behind the front seats?

[Togsodar]

Thanks for your response and input pikpilot. Im a graphic designer first and foremost so i'm all about design and style over practicality :-D

 

Sliding side doors would be great, though im not sure im at that level of fabrication yet. I think in terms of easy loading i will look into fitting sliders or rollers on the floor so anything i put in or remove will be as easy as possible. I've based the design and fabrication kindof on the vauxhall astravan and felt if this works and I see alot of them about it cant be too problematic.

 

Depends what you want to use the van for as well.

I used to run my estate like a van for my business and found the rear side doors invaluable for getting things in and out. But then I was filling my "van" with lots of relatively small objects. Getting to everything without the side doors would have meant emptying things onto the street to get at things at the back of the load area.

 

Depends on a balance between what it is being used for against looks and style. Your solution looks better but I would have preferred the Octavia Practika pictured above, or better still, sliding side doors as said above.

 

One more general point on vans: I like the up hinged door of an estate rather than side hinged doors of most vans, particularly when it is raining!

 

Not an issue here, but most vans with split rear doors of different widths have not been altered from their continental derivatives, so the larger door is kerb side for us.

 

So making vans from estate cars is much better!

[pikpilot]

I'll be watching out for you in and around the Swindon area as work progresses!

[StevesTruck]

I've had a few Astravans, they're a pain in the neck to an extent, but nothing keeping a long handled garden hoe in the back doesn't solve when you can't be arsed to crawl in. 

 

If it's not big enough for pallets or you don't use them, tailgate over barn doors every time - especially in the rain.

[Togsodar]

few photos from todays work, its coming together though i had to buy another mig welder as my old one packed up :-(

 

Its coming together and looking very sexy ;-)`

 

I've taken into consideration everyones responses about the van and inaccessibility so ive decided to panel one side and keep the door the other side for access though they will have the windows removed and panelled up with no handle for that smooth look and ill have it opperating on a door popper. Unfortunately not a chance of making them sliding.

 

 

[Guest]

Looking good so far. [emoji2]

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[jublybug]

Like it mate like the idea of leaveing one door on still at the back .

[Togsodar]

Thanks guys :-)

 

Heres the other side, I've also fitted the plywood floor so i can use it as a van now, there is some tidying to do and the respray will most likely follow in a few months.

 

[Togsodar]

Hi Guys

 

To all intense purposes its finished, just waiting for the respray which will be end of the month with any luck, i have painted it in black so you can get a pretty decent idea of what it looks like.

 

Ive also fitted 15mm wheel spacers to align the wheels with the arches a little better.

[softscoop]

Looks very good.

 

Better than I was expecting.

 

I assume you can only open the rear doors from inside, or do you have remote poppers?

[Guest]

Looking really, really, good

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