You Can Now Buy a Rad Metris-Based Euro-Style Camper Van at Mercedes-Benz Dealerships
We've envied those smaller camper vans for way, way too long, and now we can have one in the Metris Getaway.
Van fans always ooh and aah at the great variety of camper vans available abroad. Volkswagen Transporters! Citroën Jumpers! Mercedes-Benz Vitos! They all look so nice decked out with retractable awnings, bike racks and pop-tops so long as they're not in the left lane of the autobahn. Now we're finally getting that last one, as Mercedes-Benz is offering its midsize Vito van—known as the Metris over here—up for camper conversions.
Driverge Vehicle Innovations was the first company to sign up to convert a Metris for happy North American campers with its Metris Getaway, a pop-top camper van now on sale at Mercedes-Benz dealerships. Driverge added a second battery to power the van's accessories, although there is an optional solar panel for the roof in case you'd like to stay off-the-grid for longer.
The Metris Getaway comes with a pop-up roof with an upper sleeping area plus a rear bench that folds out into a bed. That bench can move along a rail to open up storage space underneath it as well. The van's front seats swivel back into the living area to make it a bit more livable.
The options list is pretty awesome, too. In addition to the solar panel, you can spec the Metris Getaway with an awning, bug screens for the sliding doors and rear hatch, roof racks, and even a sweet rear tent that would put Pontiac Aztek owners to shame. There's a rear pull-out kitchen if you really want to get fancy. There are also 200 color decals to dress up the Metris Getaway, although a cartoon pile of maultaschen for this fine Swabian delicacy might still be a special-order.
The U.S. Metris camper vans all come with a 208-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine good for 208 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. They also have a fairly impressive towing capacity of 5,000 lbs. You could, in theory, bring your project car along on a lightweight trailer if you really do decide to live in a van down by the river. (I'm just saying. Never give up on the project car.)
The Metris also has Mercedes' standard suite of safety and assistance systems, including traction control, start-stop to stretch your fuel farther and Attention Assist to make sure you're staying alert behind the wheel. It also has Crosswind Assist to keep it stable in windy conditions. I haven't tried it out on the Metris, but if it's anything like the crosswind assistance system I have used on a much smaller Daimler product—the Smart ForTwo—it's absolutely brilliant and so smooth that I didn't even realize it was doing anything.
The best part about this is that the smaller your van is, the less of a hassle it is to drive places. With road trips and camping shooting up in popularity thanks to the ongoing pandemic, that nicer driving experience is key. After all, whoever thinks it's too small to sleep in can still pitch a tent.
If all of this sounds familiar, you're not imagining things. Mercedes debuted the Metris Weekender earlier this year, but quietly renamed it the Getaway in the interim, reports Autoblog.
Conversions of a Metris van into the Getaway start at $26,413.80 on top of the van price, per Mercedes-Benz of Columbus' price breakdown. With Mercedes' base passenger Metris starting a $31,350, the ultimate Euro-style camper starts at around $57,763.80, but perhaps that's worth it to be able to handle mountain roads a bit better than you would in a traditional RV.
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