Most camper vans make you choose. You can have a fixed bed you never have to make and unmake, or you can have room for more than two people. Pick one. This 2023 Ram ProMaster from Tommy Camper Vans quietly refuses that trade-off: it seats four with seatbelts, sleeps four, and still keeps a permanent bed across the back with a cavernous gear garage underneath it.
The trick is a flip-down jump seat in the galley and a Trustmade rooftop tent up on the rack. The jump seat gives two extra belted positions at the walnut dinette table and folds flat against the wall when nobody needs it. The rooftop tent gives the second sleeping space, so the interior never has to convert into anything. It’s a smart bit of layout math, and it’s the reason this van works for a family of four rather than just a couple.
This is our first look at Tommy Camper Vans, a builder out of Phoenix, Arizona. The van is a 159-inch wheelbase ProMaster 3500 with 9,046 miles on it, listed at $89,500.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
A Rooftop Tent Doubles the Sleeping Capacity
The Trustmade hard-shell tent sits on a full-length steel roof rack alongside a Tommy Camper Vans-branded awning and a ladder for access. This is the part of the build doing the heaviest lifting. Adding a second sleeping level outside the van shell means the downstairs never needs a convertible sofa, a drop-down bunk, or a dinette that becomes a bed at bedtime. Everything downstairs gets to stay exactly what it is.
It also changes how the van camps. Kids or guests go up top, adults stay below, and nobody is climbing over anybody at 2 a.m. The hard shell packs down flat enough that it doesn’t wreck the van’s profile or fuel economy too badly, which matters on a gas ProMaster rated around 17 MPG on the highway.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Burnt Wood Ceiling Against White Shiplap Walls
The interior leans on a high-contrast palette that shows up in a lot of well-executed van builds but rarely this cleanly: dark burnt-and-stained pine on the ceiling and upper cabinets, crisp white shiplap on the walls, walnut butcher block on every horizontal surface. The dark ceiling is a counterintuitive choice in a space this narrow, but it works because it visually raises the roof rather than pressing down on you, and the recessed puck lights read as warm points against it instead of glare.
White walls do the practical work. In a van, reflected daylight is most of your daylight, and the shiplap bounces it deep into the cabin from the sliding door and the two side windows.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
The Galley Wraps Three Sides
The kitchen is laid out in a U that wraps the mid-section of the van, which is unusual — most ProMaster builds run a single galley run along one wall. Here you get a two-burner propane cooktop with a glass cover on one leg, a deep white farmhouse apron sink with a matte black spring-neck faucet on the other, and a run of walnut butcher block connecting them. A gray subway tile backsplash sits behind the sink.
The payoff of the U shape is counter space. Cover the cooktop and you have a genuinely usable prep surface on both sides plus the connecting run, which is more working area than most vans this size offer. The cost is floor space in the middle, which is why the jump seat had to be a fold-away.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Storage runs above on both sides in dark-stained upper cabinets, with drawers and cabinet doors below the counters in white shiplap fronts. A Dometic compressor fridge is built in under the counter on the passenger side.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
The Jump Seat That Makes It a Four-Person Van
Here is the detail worth studying if you’re planning your own build. The galley jump seat is a belted bench on a folding steel mechanism that collapses vertically and straps flat against the wall beside the fridge. Deployed, it faces the walnut pedestal table and pairs with the swiveled cab seats to make a four-person dinette. Stowed, it gives back the entire aisle so you can actually cook in that U-shaped galley without stepping around furniture.
Most builders solve extra seating by adding a permanent bench, which permanently eats floor. This solves it by making the seat temporary. If your van gets used four-up on weekends and two-up the rest of the time, that’s the right answer.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
A Fixed Bed You Never Have to Build
The bed is a permanent platform spanning the full width across the back of the van, made up here with a Southwestern-pattern wool blanket. No conversion, no cushions to rearrange, no nightly ritual. In a van used for real travel, that convenience compounds — it’s the difference between pulling over for a nap and deciding you’re too tired to bother setting up.
Windows on both sides and the rear doors mean you can wake up looking at whatever you parked in front of. The MaxxAir fan sits directly overhead for cross-ventilation with the side windows cracked.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
The Garage Underneath
Because the bed is fixed and elevated, the space beneath it becomes a full-height rear garage accessible through the back doors. This is where the build hides its infrastructure and still leaves room for gear — the bay is finished in white with a laminate floor rather than left as raw metal, which tells you it’s meant to be used and not just stuffed.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Look inside and you can see how the systems are organized: four Interstate deep-cycle gel batteries strapped along one side making up the 400Ah 12V bank, a Renogy Rover MPPT solar charge controller and a battery maintainer mounted on the shelf above them, the propane tank on the opposite shelf, and the 30-gallon fresh water tank below it. Keeping all of it in the garage rather than under seats or in cabinets means service access is a matter of opening the back doors.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Power, Water and Climate
The electrical system runs a 400Ah 12-volt gel battery bank fed by 200 watts of rooftop solar through the Renogy controller, with a 3,000-watt inverter for AC power and shore power hookup as a backup. Gel batteries are heavier and less energy-dense than lithium, but they’re also cheaper to replace and tolerate the heat of a Phoenix summer without the low-temperature charging complications lithium brings.
Water is a 30-gallon fresh tank with a gray water tank and a propane hot water heater. There’s a cassette toilet for the necessities but no shower, and an exterior spray hose at the rear for rinsing off gear, boards, or dogs. Air conditioning runs off shore power or a generator, and the MaxxAir fan handles ventilation when you’re off the grid. Notably, there’s no diesel or propane cabin heater listed — worth factoring in if you’re planning cold-weather use.
The control wall by the bed keeps it all in one place: MaxxAir fan controller, water heater switch, a GFCI outlet with USB, a switch panel with voltage readout, and the Renogy monitor.
Images courtesy of Tommy Camper Vans
Design Details
- Builder: Tommy Camper Vans, Phoenix, Arizona
- Chassis: 2023 Ram ProMaster 3500, 159-inch wheelbase
- Price: $89,500
- Mileage: 9,046 miles
- Drivetrain: 2WD, automatic transmission, gas — approximately 17 MPG highway
- Seating: 4 with seatbelts (2 cab, 2 on the folding galley jump seat)
- Sleeping: 4 — fixed rear bed plus Trustmade rooftop tent
- Electrical: 400Ah 12V gel battery bank, 200W solar, 3,000W inverter, shore power
- Water: 30-gallon fresh tank, gray water tank, propane hot water heater
- Kitchen: Two-burner propane cooktop, farmhouse sink, Dometic compressor fridge
- Bathroom: Cassette (portable) toilet, no shower
- Climate: Air conditioning (shore power/generator), MaxxAir roof fan, vented side windows
- Exterior: Roof rack, ladder, awning, rooftop tent, backup camera, cruise control
- Title: Clean
What Makes This Build Special
- Sleeping capacity without interior compromise. Moving the second bed to the roof is what lets the fixed bed, the wrap-around galley, and the garage all coexist in a 159-inch van.
- The fold-flat jump seat. Belted seating that disappears when you don’t need it is a better answer than a permanent bench for anyone whose passenger count varies.
- A U-shaped galley in a van. Three counter surfaces instead of one, which makes actual cooking practical rather than aspirational.
- Systems consolidated in the garage. Batteries, controller, propane, and water tank all live in one serviceable bay you reach from the back doors.
- Honest, maintainable component choices. Gel batteries and a propane cooktop over lithium and induction — less glamorous, cheaper to live with and repair.
- Low mileage on a recent chassis. Under 10,000 miles on a 2023 van means the expensive part of the equation is barely broken in.
Things to Consider
No shower and a portable cassette toilet make this a weekend-and-road-trip van more than a full-time-off-grid one, though plenty of people live in vans with exactly this setup and use gyms and campgrounds. The lack of a listed cabin heater is the bigger flag for anyone eyeing winter travel — worth asking the builder about adding one. And air conditioning that requires shore power or a generator means hot-weather boondocking leans on the MaxxAir fan and shade.
Learn More
- View this ProMaster listing at Tommy Camper Vans
- Tommy Camper Vans — 107 N. 57th Dr, Phoenix, AZ 85043 | 602-975-6853
Pricing, availability, and specifications are set by the seller and subject to change. Verify all details directly with Tommy Camper Vans before purchase. Tiny House Talk is not the seller.
Highlights
- 2023 Ram ProMaster 3500, 159-inch wheelbase, 9,046 miles
- $89,500 — seats 4, sleeps 4
- Trustmade hard-shell rooftop tent on a full-length roof rack
- Fixed full-width rear bed with a gear garage underneath
- Wrap-around walnut butcher block galley with farmhouse sink
- Fold-flat belted jump seat at the dinette
- 400Ah battery bank, 200W solar, 3,000W inverter
- 30-gallon fresh water, propane hot water heater, cassette toilet
- Built by Tommy Camper Vans in Phoenix, Arizona
More from Tommy Camper Vans
This ProMaster uses Tommy’s Jump Seat layout — one of four standard floor plans the builder offers. If you’re weighing which one fits how you actually travel, we broke all four down here: Tommy Camper Vans’ 4 Layouts Explained.
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Alex
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