November/December 2020 15of travel. According to Monika Geraci, a spokesper-
son for the RV Industry Association, Airstream
broke its all-time monthly sales record in May, while
July saw a 54 percent increase in RV shipments
across all makes over 2019—the best July for ship-
ments in four decades. “A lot of people who hadn’t
thought about RVing before, once states reopened in
May, flooded the dealerships,” she says. Meanwhile,
bookings on rental website Outdoorsy were up by
4,500 percent between March 30 and late July. Sales
of van-style campers have also skyrocketed.
The Getaway camper is the result of a part-
nership between Mercedes and custom outfitter
Driverge Vehicle Innovations, as well as a collabo-
ration with Seattle-based V W restoration, repair,
and rental operation Peace Vans. “We viscerally felt
the gap in the market [left by the Eurovan],” Peace
Vans owner Harley Sitner says. “The most common
customer question was: ‘When is a new modern
pop-top V W camper coming out?’”
But until 2015, North America had no proper
Vanagon- or Eurovan-scaled rig to upfit. Then,
Mercedes brought its midsize Metris cargo and pas-
senger vans to North America. Sitner set to work
building out his own pop-top version using Euro-
pean-imported components, and started selling it
in 2018. Mercedes of Seattle also sold the camper
on its lot. Stock quickly ran out. Seeing the “grow-
ing demand for a practical daily driver that could
double as a weekend getaway camper,” according to
Mercedes upfit manager Don Maxwell, Mercedes
corporate partnered with Peace Vans and Driverge
to mass-produce the build.
During two weeks of putting the Getaway
through duty as a surf van and a mountain escape
pod, my family and I became enamored. Though
it lacks that coolness of a Vanagon, the Getaway
shares more DNA with an old-school VW than a
luxury Toyota Sienna. The interior is spartan—
with plastic trim, wood laminate flooring, manual
seats, and no galley (sink and stove) or cabinetry.
But it still offers a nice Pioneer stereo unit and Mer-
cedes’s slew of safety features: blind-spot warnings,
rear curtain airbags, collision prevention assis-
tance, and traction, lane, and stability control.
Inside, the Getaway has a trick sliding bench with
under-seat storage, shoulder belts, and a removable
table. Crucially, that seat also easily folds down into
a spacious bed. Overhead is the coup de grâce: a
crash-tested fiberglass pop-top. Releasing a couple
of latches and pushing gently creates a cavernous,
tented interior with another bed hiding in the roof,
which lowers with a pull. Together, the mattresses
provided roomy, comfortable sleep for all four of us.
Driving into the mountains, our rear-wheel-
drive van’s aggressive stance and nearly 7 inches
of clearance were plenty for North Carolina fire
roads. And the Getaway’s tight 36-foot turning
radius eased through forest switchbacks. I initially
worried that its turbocharged 2.0-liter, inline-
four would feel anemic, but with 258 pound-feet of
torque, its 208 horses ran up the Blue Ridge Escarp-
ment while delivering nearly 20 mpg.
For 20 years, I’ve wrenched on eight of my
own Vanagon and Eurovan campers and over-
seen buildouts of a 4x4 VW Syncro and a pair
of veggie-oil-fueled Ford Sportsmobile rigs for
Jimmy Buffett. Having owned full-galley camp-
ers, I’d always thought we needed one. But now,
I’m not sure if that’s necessary for a traveling fam-
ily. Unlike in the tighter confines of our Eurovan,
my son and daughter appreciated vast, motion
sickness-preventing views through the Metris’s
expansive windows. They watched Star Wars
thanks to rear USB charging ports, and a middle
seat allowed plenty of room between them.
For the price of a Lexus GX or a Ford F-
Limited Edition, the Getaway is safe, fun, and emi-
nently practical and capable, with hauling to beat
any minivan. It manages to capture the zeitgeist of
the Vanagon—with none of the mechanical risk.THE BEST
CAMPER
VAN RENTAL
SERVICES
Not ready to commit
the tens of thousands
of dollars on your own
rig, or don’t need a
camper van full time?
Borrow a loaner.▶ Outdoorsy (out-
doorsy.com) and
RVshare (rvshare.com)
both function as Airbnb
meets Vrbo for camper
owners, with a variety
of rigs. $134 average
per night on Outdoorsy,
$150 on RVshare▶ Peace Vans (peace
vansmodern.com)
loans Getaway Metris
campers along with its
own “full camper” (read:
full galley) Metris. $
per night▶ Though it’s more set
up as a peer-to-peer
car rental company,
Tu ro (turo.com) and its
owners offer plenty of
Vanagon- and Micro-
bus-based campers.
From $75 per night▶ If you’re traveling to
Southern California,
Vintage Surfari
(vwsurfari.com) is a
good, reliable source for
a Bay Window, Vanagon,
or Eurovan camper.
From $149 per night.