Canterbury Pitt interior inspiration

Canterbury Pitt interior

When I originally saw my VW Split screen camper advertised, the rear seats of the Canterbury Pitt interior were covered in a nice hard-wearing removable fabric, plus it also had a coordinated set of matching curtains as well. It all looked very nice and the colours matched the recovered vinyl front seats and the campers door cards. All in all, it was a nice clean and presentable interior, which was a massive plus when I was talking to my wife about buying it!

Upholstery refresh

Unfortunately, for personal/sentimental reasons, the previous owner decided to keep the rear removable covers and curtains, so the camper just came with some thin, fairly faded, poor-fitting loose replacement covers and no curtains at all! I could live with this initially, but with our forthcoming trip to Ninove rapidly approaching, and my sleeping arrangements when there being simply parking up and ‘camping’ in the streets of the town, getting a set of curtains sorted is now becoming a priority! However, the good news is that all the curtain track is still in place, along with the pop stud fastenings for fixing then in place when the curtains are drawn closed

Alternative interior

Originally Canterbury Pitt interiors were designed for bulkhead model VW campers, but this interior had been modified to work with a walk through model which makes it pretty special and a bit unusual. That said, having a walk through camper really is the ideal combination, so I can see why you would want to try to modify the original design layout to work with this. So what would have been a twin, rear-facing bench seat with storage underneath in the mahogany seat base, in this instance, is adapted into a rear-facing single ‘buddy seat’ with storage underneath.

Old fabric upholstery

The rear of the camper has a 3/4 style seat with storage underneath in the mahogany seat base, and a stepped-down area by the cargo door side where a 12v cooler could be stored. As you can see, the thin, dark green cotton covers are not that great, and quite badly faded/discoloured in places. And compared to the light fawn/biscuit fabric used previously, make the interior feel a bit smaller and darker inside.

Canterbury Pitt cooker

Having the original cargo door-mounted cooker was a real plus point for the bus interior. It’s the heart of a really practical, usable camper. These Canterbury Pitt cookers are just so practical. Two gas rings, a grill plus additional storage within the storage unit itself.

Handy buddy seat

Behind the passenger’s side of the walkthrough bulkhead, a modern fold up ‘buddy seat’ has been fitted (which still retains the fabric the rear seats were previously covered in) which can provide some useful additional seating if required.

Rails, but no curtains

Although my starting point is the curtains initially, as if often the way with any project, you start with one thing in mind, and before you know it, you are looking at a whole bunch of other things! You can’t really choose curtain fabric in isolation from seat cover fabric, so this seemed like a good time to also consider getting new covers sorted for the rear of the camper.

If I was going to be looking at seat cover fabric, then does the current layout and arrangement of seats/cushions work for my requirements? I have a feeling this project might start to grow a little…