Foldable and modular, the Cubivan camping system turns your van into a full camper with kitchen
This clever system turns a small van into a hard-sided camper with a kitchen, bathroom and rooftop bedroom, then folds back down for the road
Quick Summary
Cubivan’s Camping System slides out of the back of a van and unfolds into a standing-height living space with a kitchen and wet bathroom.
A separate rooftop module provides a four-walled double bedroom, with the whole system due to launch in 2027.
I love a good campervan conversion, but there’s always a compromise. You either sacrifice most of the van’s everyday practicality or end up with something that costs a small fortune and spends most of its life sitting on the drive. The Cubivan Camping System offers a third option, make the entire camper fold away.
The system slides out of the back of the van like a conventional camper module, but that’s where the conventional bit ends. The upper and lower sections then expand down towards the ground, creating a hard-sided room with around 1.9m of standing height.
Inside, there’s a proper kitchen with a stove and sink, while a fridge sits in the adjacent section. There’s also a wet bathroom, with a portable toilet sliding out from a lower cabinet and a shower fitting into the same compact space.
The clever part is that the kitchen can rotate into the van, freeing up the floor area when you actually need to use the bathroom.
And because this is a hard-sided structure rather than a fabric tent, it should feel much more like a tiny room than an elaborate camping awning.
The really bonkers bit is what happens above your head. Rather than trying to squeeze a bed into the already-packed van, Cubivan puts the sleeping space on the roof. Its separate hard-shell module folds flat while you're driving, then expands at the campsite into a four-walled bedroom with a huge 200 x 200cm mattress.
That means a relatively small van can effectively gain a kitchen, bathroom and super-king-sized bedroom without permanently losing all of its interior space.
The system is designed for vans including the Volkswagen ID. Buzz, Ford Tourneo Custom, Volkswagen Caravelle and Mercedes Vito.
Better still, the kitchen and bathroom module can be removed after a trip, allowing the van to return to normal passenger or load-carrying duties.
There is, inevitably, a catch. This isn't going to be cheap. Cubivan says the complete system is planned to launch in 2027 for between €22,000 and €25,000, while the kitchen/bathroom module and rooftop section will also be available separately.
And while the system looks impressively clever, all those folding, sliding and swivelling components introduce considerably more complexity than a basic camper box.
Still, I can see the appeal. You get something approaching a full campervan when you want it, without necessarily having to own a full campervan all year round. Now if someone could just make it a little cheaper...
