Making a table for our MPV

Our MPV camper table turns our humble MPV into a mobile office or weekend van

Now I know you’ll be thinking ‘A table in a people carrier? You’re kidding, right?’ Well no, it’s serious, and it’s all part of my masterplan to turn our MPV into a truly multi-purpose work-rest-play vehicle.

You see I use my MPV for work during the week, where it has to double as both load carrier, mobile office and client transport (I remove 3 of the 7 seats most of the time). A table makes a lot of sense when you want to do what I do in my car! I have to work on a laptop, and I mean for up to a couple of hours, comfortably! I don’t want to sit with it low down on my lap. And its ideal when you want to have some food, and not just shove stuff in your cakehole and drive off. I mean actually brew up a cuppa, heat some soup, butter bread etc.

So I utilised a good friend during the times he wasn’t busy running his own Travel Health Consultancy and we set to measuring, cutting, planing and ordering legs for what must be one of the very few MPV folding tables in existance.

A local spraying and powder coating firm charged a small fortune spraying the MDF to match the interior, but most of the cost was absorbed by the pricey paint matching service, which cost £50 alone. Next time I’d just say ‘any colour you’ve got in stock please!’

Said friend made some brackets which are screwed into the table underneath and hook down the window channel. It’s not uber stable, but it stayed firm with my Apple Macbook Pro connected to a new 1000W inverter on top whilst I drove round the city centre for 45 minutes yesterday.

I found and bought the folding table leg from the Caravan Store Online for roughly £14.00, and it’s excellent; better than expected with a handy little catch to release the leg into it’s folded flat position. We cut it to 22″ to fit in the Synergie.

Office on wheels: MPV with new table for working away from studio

Cheap ‘campervan’ floor for your MPV

Flat floor with new hard surface

We’ve finally found an economic solution to one of the only downsides to having such a wonderfully large walk-thru floor in the Citroen Synergie range. And it will probably work for similiar cars & dayvans such as the VW Sharan, as well as the longer Peugeot 807, Ulysse mkII & the C8.

The problem
Normal car mats just can’t possibly protect the wide open walk ways in our car. The OE items wear quickly, & if you remove some seats & run the car as a day van, what’s needed is a whole protective floor, as seen in various campervans & utility vehicles. We wanted something that was easily removable but tough enough to take constant footfall from muddy users. Oh, and it must be easy to clean.

I got a quote to have a custom horsebox manufacturer fit a hard floor, with slots to allow the seats to be fitted. It was scarey. So, I started looking around for large industrial sheets of thin rubber or foam. And then a chance trip to Mole Valley Farmers depot brought me a relatively cheap solution – cattle ramp protectors. Costing £22 per mat, I calculated I’d need two, one almost fitted the length of the main part of the car, with a second needed to fit out the front of the car.

Fitting it myself

Side of Synergie - swivel seats

Now I’m not particularly proud of how I cut the mats to fit – instead of carefully measuring, and because of my impatience I did it with a Stanley knife almost by eye. Luckily it’s all worked out! I cut holes where the seats slot in, and my best suggestion is to cut them but leave one end still attached so they fold up when required, and they’re always there when you need them, as opposed to being left open to catch dirt.

So this is a great solution for us until I can think of something even better. The grey carpets are now protected from damage, from mud & water, I don’t mind throwing bikes and kids in at the weekend knowing that I can now sweep or brush the interior floor before clients see it on a Monday back on the road.

Synergie - doors open, flat floor

Out and about – a mobile office

 

Running with just 4 seats creates a practical mobile office

I’m running the car with just 2 rear seats in at present, and have cut a ‘cattle ramp’ from a well-known  farming outdoor centre to create a rugged floor, a portable gas stove, and a leisure battery to power the Mac laptop. The 2 front seats swivel to give you a versatile working environment for one.