My BMW powered RV... The Vixen 21

Here is my Vixen 21 XC. It is powered by a m21 turbo diesel engine, the same one from the 524td. It has a Renault 5-speed manual transaxle, she gets 30-35 mpg. The suspension is chevy g20, and the frame is made partly from the same chevy g20. The body is fiberglass. The engine is mounted in the rear of the vehicle and is mounted backwards, so the engine time belt/water pump is right in the back.
This one happened to of been left to rot in water for 6 years so the inside of it was very very nasty. The new inside will consist of e28 red leather power sport seats up front, e30 leather rear seat for the back side. The walls will be a neutral color, on the driver side wall there will be a counter top and cabinets, plus the bathroom in the back. There will be a closet on the passenger side behind the side door. The rear has a full sized bed over the engine, In there I will be putting in a LCD screen and a small 5.1 surround system. I am going to put my Mac Mini in there to run GPS and music. The floors are going to be fake wood from Ikea and the front floor will be black carpet. I am going to paint the outside of it BMW Sterling Silver with Salmon Silver lower part(the storage compartments and bumpers)

Here is the layout of the cabin

This is how she looked when it was purchased in Florida several years ago by my friend.




This is "The Blue Door" we dont know what its for but Im going to use it to ice fish from, keep in mind this came from florida so they couldnt really ice fish with it there.

Here is the inside after I pulled most of the rotten inside out. I used a link as the picture is huge!
IMG_800.JPG

Cool!

PS We do Ice Fish here in Fla; we put the beer on ice and head for the fish!

That thing is COOL! I can't wait to see the finished product. Any mods planned to eek a little more power out of the M21?

Originally Posted by burn740i

That thing is COOL! I can't wait to see the finished product. Any mods planned to eek a little more power out of the M21?

Yeah, I will going larger BB turbo, bigger injectors, and a couple other things too, my goal is to hit 200hp, I know of one guy on mye28.com who has a 220hp 524td so it is doable.... I would really like to be able to tow a 14 foot trailer with my 1988 325iX on it when I go camping

Well it sounds like an excellent project, two thumbs up for you!

Wow. Never seen an RV like that. Did it come over from Europe? Quite a project to undertake. It is quite wide too!

You might find this interesting. My ex-wife has two miniature dachshunds...the first one is named Isetta, the second one is called Vixen (After your van). And Isetta's "cousin" in Nashville is named Dixi (Which was the first BMW automobile).

Originally Posted by lensman314

Wow. Never seen an RV like that. Did it come over from Europe? Quite a project to undertake. It is quite wide too!

I believe they were built in Michigan, but not in Europe for sure. There's a website about them and it's quite an interesting story as I recall.

Yeah, they were made in Pontiac Mich. from 1986-1989 before the company went under.... they made 586 of them in 3 styles... there was the td (full camper with pop up roof) the xc (limo model(what I have)) and the se (fixed hightop roof and a buick 3.8 v6) all models had the m21 cept for the SE with the 3.8... When new in the 80s they were nearly 50k to buy, now they sell for anywhere from 15k all the way up to 48k

After having it sit at a farm for a few years I decided to go try to get it to run again... took 4 hours and a starter motor, but she moves under her own power again.