1. Where to begin..?

 We've all heard this story before... the cost of living rises, and another person is permanently priced out of the rental market. In this case, I realised my disability payments were no longer enough to live on. 

Having lived for a time in a very old 1950's New Zealand Air Force ambulance in my twenties, I decided it might be time to revisit the concept of living in a vehicle; which now had a glamorous new zeitgeisty social media hash-tagged nomenclature- #vanlife!

After saving and saving, looking everywhere I could online and in person; going through the frustration of so many ignored marketplace messages and navigating a virtual minefield of scammers, I saw her. The asking price was AUD$15,000, and she had a lot of problems. But I had been looking for a van like this for a very long time, and I bought her the next day. I'm calling her Lorca.

June 30, 2025, Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne, Australia.

The previous owner was a man called Nick. He listed every problem he was aware of, patiently explained how to drive the complicated manual transmission with an automatic interface, and downloaded the alerts from Lorca's on-board computer so I could see the issues she was having.

And there were a lot of issues.

Aside from a number of sensor failures, missing lights, a huge tear in the fibreglass roof, missing trim and light lenses, door rubbers, and a few litres of spilled detergent in the sliding door wheel well; Lorca had been modified to allow pallets to fit between her rear wheel arches. The mechanic who cut them down and re-welded them did a terrible job, and there was no way to obtain a roadworthy certificate so she could be legally driven once the registration was signed over.

The offending wheel arches.

I wasn't worried though, I'm a qualified welder who used to work converting brand new trucks straight off the ship into mining, police, trade, and roadside assistance vehicles. I also used to make custom hand made chopper bicycles for my own business. Here are some pics of some of them:

So Nick and I did the paperwork, and Nick was nice enough to deliver Lorca himself.

This blog has been created to organise the progress shots into a chronological online album, so one day I can look back and see all of the changes that Lorca went through. If you're here, I hope you enjoy her glow up!

See you next time!