Foster Huntington

After my Confessions of a Marketplace Addict write up, I did an a painful thing, and I followed my own advice. How much driving do I actually do off-road when I’m on a road trip? My F350 with the Bison excels on BLM land, forest service roads, in the snow, and in Baja, but most of my miles this last year and a half have been blasts down to Northern California on hunting trips. With diesel at $7.00 a gallon, a BMW e36 M3 that I’d driven 5 times in the last year languishing in my studio, I started doing shower math and daydreaming.
 If I sold the BMW for a little less than I had in it, I could get a van that I could use for hauling stuff around and for road trips where I never leave gravel roads. Make a simple platform for sleeping and storage that I can remove and stack in the studio, throw some solar on top, run a standalone battery system that I can pull out and use elsewhere, tap into the fuel tank for a heater, and call it a day. With the logic of a marketplace addict on a runaway loop, I was sold on the idea and committed to the path. I sent a few texts to friends and associates about the E36 M3 and had it sold in two days. With cash in hand, I dove into searching for a van to use before a series of April trips to northern California.  I ended up buying a 2016 Ford Transit with 3.7 v6, a short wheelbase. a low top and 190k miles for 9k.  So far I’m into the whole thing for less than 12k and cant be more pumped on how the first trip went.  I’ve been documenting the project on my substack.  I break down why I went with Transit, the inspiration for a simple van and some of my philosophy of van use, and have posts on dec about the build, and plans for the buildout I went with.  The link is in my bio.  It feels good to be back in a van.