Meet the Ecowagon Volkswagen conversion specialists taking on the world’s best from Portreath

Kenny Green and John Smith started Ecowagon in 2012 and the business has since gone from strength-to-strength.

A pair of campervan conversion specialists are continuing to defy the odds to take on established names such as Volkswagen and Westfalia – all from modest surroundings in Cornwall.

In 2012 Kenny Green and business partner John Smith, both with a background in the automotive industry, set out on a voyage to start up their own business, Ecowagon, doing the thing they love the most, converting VW vans into campervans.

Since then the pair have won awards for their work, beating competitors such as Volkswagen’s own conversion company, German-based Westfalia and Danbury Motorhomes, near Bristol.

In March 2017 they moved into their new premises in Bridge near Portreath.

With an ever-growing fanbase and customer orders for their vans, the business also needed to grow its workforce, employing two new fitters and an apprentice and they recently signed the mortgage papers to buy out their neighbours, increasing their production shop from 2,000sqft to 6,000sqft.

This week they have also added a new machine to their equipment, a state-of-the-art CNC router, which, when it arrives in February, will not only speed up their production from three weeks to seven days, but also increase the ability to develop new designs and sell their furniture in flat-packed kit form to other convertors around the globe.