The bus is coming, but when?
Our bus (a striking VDL Berkhof Ambassador 200, in case you missed it) passed its mandatory vehicle inspection, which is called APK in the Netherlands. That’s good. Hooray. However, it’s still registered as a bus. Before converting it to a camper, we want to change its registration to recognize it as a truck officially.
Why? You might ask.
Because of taxes. In the Netherlands, the amount of road tax you pay depends on the type of vehicle — at least, on how it’s registered. Taxes are weight-based when you register your bus as a camper(van). The heavier the campervan, the more you pay. For our bus, that’d amount to about € 1620 every quarter. Yeah, one thousand six hundred and twenty Euros every three months.
The exact same vehicle, registered as a truck… € 96. So, yes, we’ll take that 94% tax cut. And it’s completely legal, too. We’ll have to jump through some legislative hoops, modify the chassis, and slap on a few additional mirrors, and that’s it.
By the way, a group of dudes who also bought an Ambassador 200 managed to get it registered as a truck a few weeks ago. In order to get there, they had to make some technical drawings, which we low-key agreed on “buying” from them after they’d finish. When push came to shove, they wanted to charge us € 1250 for the drawings. We kindly declined their offer.
So, there is progress, but we’re still in the dark about when the bus will actually be delivered to our doorstep my parents’ doorstep, where the complete conversion will take place.
Here are some photos the seller randomly sent over.
Indeed, the photos don’t give us much information. There were 12 more of them, which were very similar to these, just so you know.
Meanwhile, we sit tight.
Talk soon.