Our Kei Van Pop Up Shop

After years of trading at shows, hire vans and manifesting this idea we finally made the big decision to buy ourselves a van. A van that would tick all the boxes, carry stock, be easy to set up but most importantly, something less van. 

Naturally we turned to Japan for inspiration and this is where we discovered the perfect candidate, a Suzuki Every. Many hours spent on google, we found someone had measured up the inside for a camper conversion and with some quick maths we found it to have a bigger loading capacity than most common smaller vans we get in the UK.  

It was the first time anyone in the RH group had imported a car from Japan and luckily for us we knew just the man for the job in helping us find the car and arrange shipping. Tanner from Fujiclassics not only endured the many, many questions we had but made the whole process of finding, buying and shipping a really good experience. 

We set a maximum budget with Tanner and he went to work, waking up one morning we got the news we won the auction of the Every we were after. It was soon off to be checked over at Tanners, before it was off to the boat and then the long wait would start. 

A long four months watching the Ship Finder app passed and once the Every landed, we headed down to Southampton to collect the new addition to the RH fleet. It didn't help that we were surrounded by large heavy equipment but as we first laid eyes on the van as it appeared behind a concrete crusher it was comically small. 

A quick load up and we headed off back home to Eden's unit to assess the new addition to the fleet and have a good nose around it before the work to turn it into a pop up shop started. 

First on the cards was the biggest clean this little van has ever had and for this an arsenal of Carbon Collective products were used. After a little investigation we found some food residue and kitchen utensils which pointed to why the interior smelt a tad funky. So with the interior removed and a set of gloves we got to work, decontaminated and scrubbed from top to bottom.

With this being the base model of the every the rear is not carpeted, so we fitted the back in grey lining and built some simple racking to house our stock for when trading. The final job in this area was to remount the tailgate gas struts, so when open the tailgate was a little higher to preventing us banging our heads on what we found out multiple times, were sharp corners. 

With the interior done, it was now onto the solid but very tired exterior, whilst the van was clean and presentable it had never had a polish and sealant. So we cracked out the Carbon Collective Hex 15 machine polisher and got to work, this brought the paint work back up to a good finish leaving the bumpers as something needing to be done to breakup all that white. 

With this being the "poverty spec" model and with older POV spec cars/vans usual coming with unpainted bumpers we got the bumpers off. After a few hours of sanding and prep we finished them in Satin Black which really helped break the slab of white up. 

When it comes to branding the van we wanted it to fall inline with the rest of the brand, we had been approached for a full wrap but after Jonny's travels he spotted that Panasonic used Every's in Japan. With a strip of their brands colour and logo it was perfect to mimic and innkeeping where the van came from. A quick call with Si from Syco Graphix and a week later the decals arrived. 

Now to our favorite part, Wheels and suspension. Being a four stud Japanese only car we assumed these were 4x114.3 stud pattern but luckily for us they are in fact 4x100 and after some passing conversation with a friend of ours in Belgium we spotted some rather small three spoke wheels in the background. After a spec check and agreed price they were on their way to the UK. 

The wheels of choice, some 13" BBS Benetton's, which were then mounted to Nankang 155/65 tyres. With a little arch roll the wheels sat perfectly in the arches and just in time for Players Classic 2023. 

The roof bars you see in the early pictures of the van build were temporary but did the job for its first few events. The final big job and to finish the van off we fabricated a roof cage with branded wind deflector. The roof cage helped get the awning mounted correctly, carry any light items but more importantly mount a branded light box.

With that being done and despite sitting at 55mph on motorways, we have loved our time with this van and it's been a great project to build. It tested a concept and proved a good assistant to the brand, but is it time to upgrade and get something a little bigger? 

Let's see what 2025 may bring......