Ultra light homemade van now just light but I'm very happy

Well, in my initial quest I wanted a van less than 200kg in tare weight. I know now this would mean a van the size of a teardrop camper with the same materials as I used.
I got my van weighed yesterday...450kg tare. It's black and white that anything over 200kg is not ideal to be towed by my custom trike. There are consequences for doing so like the risk of frame damage etc. Add to this 160kg load including the solar system installed this morning and you have around 620kg hauling around. The van has a final loaded tongue weight of 18kg. The friction type anti sway bar is yet to be installed.

But its ideal for our Hyundai i30, well within its towing capacity with max towball weight of 70kg. It's a diesel. Not towing sees an economy figure of 5.2-5.7 L/100kms. We towed our Detour camper trailer to Qld return to get 45mpg or 6.3 L/100km...the camper weighed 330kg gross. With more wind drag it will be worse but still very economical for a holiday. Our around Oz trip will see us driving 18,000kms meaning a fuel cost in the vicinity of $1800. Not bad eh.

At the end of any build I do if I have no regrets then I'm happy. The frame mainly made from 13x13x1.8mm tube steel and angle (20x20x2mm tube ripped to make angle) proved a strong and light frame. I recall lifting the tongue and walking it around. Clearly the weight was in the cladding and fit out not the frame.

Heavier than expected items include the new rear door, a last minute inclusion upgrade (18kg) from the 8kg s/h Robin door we purchased (1420mm high= to low), the shower wall is acrylic and needed its own 3 ply wall backing glued to it to keep it flat without buckles and the cladding overall was a lot of area to cover. The cladding was light to lift per length but combined it added a lot to the result. Finally silicone (25 tubes? maybe more) and mig welding drums (10) nuts bolts rivets all combine.

The van doesn't have brakes. Towing it from the weigh station yesterday I carried out a number of tests. I'm doubting the benefit of brakes on the van. I was alone so, if I was to have 4 hefty people as passengers and not towing the brakes would be just as effective. Remember folks, this van is not your common unit. In fact the van is so stable no momentum gets up for it to fishtail even though I gave it a try with up and down with my steering wheel. You might disagree. What I'm saying is, sometimes things are outside the "box" to need a rethink. The anti sway unit will be an insurance though.

The solar unit installed now is 120W panel and 100 A/H battery. Based on the examples posted here in previous posts on the topic it should be enough to power our needs. We have CPAP 2 A/H, Teac 280mm TV and booster 3 A/H, cooling fan 2 A/H, LED lights (6 in total ) and 2 water pumps with little use. Hot water by solar camping bag.

Cheers Tony