POP TOP TOUR - Citroen Relay LWB Van Conversion Elevating Roof | Family Van Life Ep.12

We are just on our way to pick up a van because it's been away for a week and a half, week and a half. Having it's pop top fit. We're excited but a little bit nervous because we have no idea what it's going to look like do we? We'll see, we'll see what it looks like. Yeah. Not got a clue so let's go and find out. Hopefully it pops. Hopefully it pops! So the van pop top has been done by a company called Lakeland Campervan Interiors I think, I think that's what they're called. And that's in Kendal. So we're back here today and Kendal is probably our favourite town in the UK so far. Yep. Used to live here, it's the place that Piper was born as well so it's a very special place for us. Yep, lived here when we went to uni. Yep. How many years ago? Just a couple of years ago. Six, six years ago. Six years ago. Six, six, seven, yeah. So. It's a lovely town. It's been a while but yeah. So we're just hitting some rush hour traffic but we're not far from the actual pop top company place now so we can see the van soon. Right guys. I wonder if they've got it open for us. I don't know, maybe. It's just in here. I'm anxious. You've got to try and spot it. I mean it's not going to be hard to spot. There it is on the right. There it is yep. Yeah probably yep. It is up. Oh that looks cool. Do you see it Pip? That looks really cool. I'm going to unbuckle mine now. You can unbuckle. We're going to get Teddy's sandals on first and then we can go and have a look guys. That's going to be sick. I need my smartphone but I do need it. Where's our van? Here we go. It does look cool. It's a nice colour canvas isn't it? Just give it a gentle push and it will open up on it's own. Just like that. That is pretty snazzy. You've got there buddy. I found the zip up here. Yeah yeah. Well you don't undo the zip. Picture it now. I want you to make my heart feel as much as I know it should. I want to get high on you, caught by surprise by you. I want you to make my heart feel as much as I know it should. So I'm just up here testing out the pop-top and I'm going to show you a really cool feature that we've got with this one because we've gone for a scenic view pop-top type style. So I'll give you guys a look. So I'm just sat up here at the minute and there we are. This is just the view we've got. Oh hello, nice view. Why did we get a pop-top? Why did we go for a pop-top? And the small van, it's a long wheelbase, but it's not very big to fit two adults, three kids and a dog in it. So having a pop-top allows us to get that extra space. So we went for a skyline scenic pop-top. Now that's not specific to the Citroen Relay. They don't make one specific to the Citroen Relay that I'm aware of. This one's actually for a VW Transporter small wheelbase and they've slightly adapted it to fit this. So let's have a look how it works. So in a lot of the VWs and stuff what they do is they cut the whole roof out. We didn't want that because we've already got plenty of space. So we've got this little hatch which is just with this strengthening bar and we can clad up on that and just have a hatch which we can climb in. And all that's holding it down is these two straps. So you simply take these off and you can either leave them on, we'll leave them on for now. You just loosen those off and then literally just push it up like that and there we go. Now we haven't got the ladder yet, that's on order from Amazon. But the great thing about this is that if I open up these you'll be able to see a bit better. And this one, let me just climb up. Yep. Right then if I grab the camera we'll have a little look and there she is look at that lovely. And what this one has is it's got this sort of net vent so you can have that open allow a bit of air flow in the same as this side. Just this mosquito net and then the front is a PVC plastic so you can sit up here and just look out which is fantastic. So they all close up at night just a zip. And then what we've got is this is a full sheet of 12 mil ply which is just carpeted and that goes up to here so that's what 2.4 meters plus that so it's about three meters from end to end which is really fantastic. This is lovely sort of suede and then you get a choice of canvas colours. We went for the moon rock finish which is yeah it's turned out a nice colour actually quite quite like it. But the reason this is called a scenic is because if we, I'll just put the camera there for a sec, if we do these back up you see how dark it goes once these are all done. I've just got this zip that goes all the way well not all the way around it goes two thirds so that's the zip undone and then what we do is we just start rolling it up. And there we go we're now opened up you know two thirds of the way back opened up no obstructions and you can just uh you know we can just oh we can just lounge out. You know very nice you have to try and uh you have to try and imagine being in Norway or somewhere chilling out I can chill up here escape the kids with a beer look a little man cave it's a van man cave that's what it is. I don't get ideas. Lovely what's she saying? I don't think so. I don't know it's a good idea I don't know man cave. Definitely not a man cave. Especially if I have a little hatch that I can pull up close the hatch off yeah that's what we need. Yeah I reckon all the all the blokes out there all the dads uh will be saying yep getting a getting a pop top after this but here it is look and you can see the uh the color beautiful beautiful so a great space and the good thing about these we didn't realize how big these are going to be I thought well the kids would be able to get up here but as I said it's a full sheet of ply which is uh 2.44 meters so I can literally I'm six foot and there my head still got a bit of room there and my feet are not even at the end yet so absolutely massive space um width wise you know it's going to be smaller than a double I think the standard double is about 140 centimeters 1.4 meters and this is 1.22 so a bit smaller but for me I can easily stretch out up here so I'll probably be sleeping up here quite a bit that's the color moon rock yeah and there we go so we went with the black which is a bit extra to pay for and as you can see we've still got room for a roof vent at the back there so on the inside you've obviously got your hatch but we've still got a really good size roof vent at the back there's still plenty of room it comes up to about here fantastic and something else people are probably going to ask is how much did this cost these are about two and a half grand to buy and then you need to pay for the install so overall it's about four and a half grand they do come in white so if you want it just standard white it'll be a bit cheaper and also your canvas you do get a standard canvas so if you're going to do more summer camping and just weekends then maybe a standard canvas will be fine skyline do a marine grade canvas and that's going to be really really good for us because we're going to be traveling all over the place we are going to hit rain and they also have a thermal line in which you can buy separately which we're probably going to do later on for the winter months so we'll see how that goes okay so there's just one more thing and that is to close it and to close it you simply grab these straps and pull down easy as that make sure the canvas is all tucked in that's what this does this is a bungee strap so as you close it it just pulls it in just make sure it's all in all sides and then there we go and then just literally tighten these ones up one side oh look i'm twisting it that's terrible that is terrible can't have that there you go get that twist out thread that through do that make sure your canvas is poked in and then you can just and then that's it and chop that up there out of the way do something with it and i'll get that camera there is a good hand gap a good four or five inches it's probably more than five inches uh gap there so you can get a mattress and you can get a mattress and keep your mattress up there or your duvet and that sort of stuff it does get narrow at the other end so i have tried closing it with two mattresses in and it doesn't so that's a bit of a pain but hey uh it's not too bad so there we go that's all popped up want you to make my heart feel as much as i know it should i want to get high on caught by surprise want you to make my heart feel as much as i know