While Westfalia Americas was busy hosting a full brand relaunch with the $155,000+ Wave camper van in Florida this week, the brand's German HQ was in Stuttgart making some new product waves of its own. In fact, it premiered the type of small, affordable pop-top Americans would love to welcome as part of the brand's US return ... but, unfortunately, didn't see in Florida. The lovable, little Club Joker Urban camper van arrives for Europe as a Ford Nugget alternative that seats up to six people, sleeps four and packs virtually everything needed for a successful multi-day getaway into the open-skied yonder.
The Club Joker series was previously dedicated to VW Transporter camper vans, but with Volkswagen preparing to share a midsize commercial van platform with Ford, Westfalia officially brings the Blue Oval into the Club Joker fold. The new Club Joker Urban follows the Westfalia-prepared Ford Nugget onto the second-generation Transit Custom that launched last year, joining the Kelsey in Westfalia's own pop-top Transit Custom lineup.
The Club Joker Urban features a more conventional floor plan than the rear-kitchen Nugget or VW-based Club Joker layouts, carrying a sleek driver-side kitchen block next to the rear seats. Using built-in floor rails, the van houses two to four rear seats, which team with the front seats to accommodate a total of four to six occupants.
The kitchen block includes a single-burner stove and sink up top, along with a slide-out compressor fridge sandwiched between two other drawers at the front-end. The dual sliding doors come in handy for accessing the fridge from outside the van.
The 199-in (505-cm) Club Joker Urban sleeps four on its combination of 81 x 50-in (205 x 127-cm) pop-up roof bed and 75 x 44-in (190 x 112-cm) fold-out lower bed stored behind the rear seats. It also includes dimmable LED lighting, an onboard command touchscreen for controlling systems and functions, an Eberspächer heater, and a camping table and (2) chair set. A pair of 95-Ah leisure batteries provides electrical power at camp, and water is stored away in 25-L fresh water and 15-L waste water tanks.
Westfalia debuted the Club Joker Urban at this week's CMT 2024 camper and tourism show. It makes no mention of selling the camper with Ford's battery electric or plug-in hybrid powertrain options, listing only a standard 134-hp 2.0-liter EcoBlue engine and six-speed manual or optional 168-hp EcoBlue 2.0 and eight-speed automatic. The new camper van is still in prototype form but looks close to production-ready and wears a €79,750 (approx. US$87,000) base price, including VAT, when equipped in CMT guise.
For those who can't live without an onboard bathroom, Westfalia also revealed the latest version of its Kelsey small camper van at CMT. The camper van officially hops over to the gen-2 Transit Custom and includes a reverse pop-top that opens highest over the rear bathroom.
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Source: Westfalia
