Hello from Chris in North Norfolk

Hi, I have had my 2002 Hijet Romahome for coming up to 4 years now. It has about 45,000 on the clock and has never had a serious problem so far. I don't use it a great deal, for a start the road tax is too high so I only tax it when I plan to use it for a holiday. I joined this forum because I thought it might be a useful source of information on where to get certain parts, there are a couple of things I think would be best replaced but can't find a source. As this is just an intro, I won't go into that here. I have not filled in my profile yet but I'll tell you now that I am semi retired.

Now that is a good introduction Chris. Well done. But I can tell you from MY experience that there is no such thing as Semi-Retirement. I seem to find more to do now than when I was forced to retire. Grown up kids Grown up Grandchildren and in a few days time a Great Grandson is due.

Plus lots of CHILDREN on here that always need advice, spare parts or a boot up the backside. Just like my own kids.

Anyway welcome along to the Sanitorium.
When you have more time let us know what model and year you have. We have a similar Member in Norwich with a Demountable too.

Romahome is no more. They are working on the last two vans and then it will be bye-bye Romahome after all these years. I was up at Romahome last week and they have had a huge clear out. All the old Moulds have been crushed and disposed of.

So any Romahome now is a very sound investment. They will I expect be going up in value.
I collared the last remnants from Adam - we go back 30+ years and we have worked on 4 different ventures together over the last 20 years including Romahome.
Look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

My Romahome is a Free Spirit model based on a 2002 1.3I Hijet. It is registered as a pick up. Do you know if I can get that changed to a Motorhome?

I worked on the very last Free Spirit made in 2003 and delivered it to Margaret Chee in Malden in Surrey near Croydon. We ended up going out together for 18 months.

I have just acquired a T reg Free Spirit Pick-Up one Isle of Wight lady owner with FULL SERVICE HISTORY and a genuine 32,000 miles on the clock. I worked on it when I was working at Romahome and several times in the past 5 years for Mary.
The Free Spirit body was sold to someone in Holland for £3,500 plus the shipping costs and duties.
I have sold my last Free Spirit Body just 2 months ago. Bad timing really - but unfortunately the demise of Romahome was due to Brian Bailey having a very serious stroke so the company has had to be wound up sadly.
Why are you wanting to try to register it as a Motor Home? Insurance reasons??
You won't be able to get cheaper Road Tax as all 2000/2001 Hi-Jets had to be registered as Light Commercial due to having no Air Bags.

Pre 2000 models the road tax is virtually half the price of the post 2000 models and will often be worth more than a later model Hi-Jet

I like that sort of story, You got 18 months for delivering a vehicle,  
The only reason I would like to change it to a Motorhome is because of speed restrictions on vans. I hate holding up traffic on single carriageways.

As far as my understanding of the numerous Potholes - or Craters around this law and the number of Grey Areas you won't be able to. Under Construction and Use It is defined as a Pickup and is subject to the same speed limits as a Light Van.
Putting a Demountable body on it " Theoretically" it is Dual Purpose. But still effectively it is still classed as a Pickup.
For a Pickup to be classed as Dual Purpose and have the same speed limits as a car it MUST have a Twin Cab - two rows of seats and four doors AND it must be 4 Wheel Drive. Even if you mounted the body on a 4 Wheel Drive Hi-Jet it is to no avail as you only have a two door two seater cab.

There is a lot of information on the Forum from around 2011 to 2015 between Highly Jetted, Rich the Mechanic, Logi who sadly now have moved on although Logi and Highly Jetted (Matt) occasionally put in a very welcome visit now and again - BUT we still have Oldie who
thankfully is still with us and had a lot of information and input into the numerous posts on the subject.

I will try and find some more information - but as it stands at the moment my understanding is that NO you will not get Swansea DVLA to re-classify it as a Motorhome.

Have a look at this CLICK HERE
That info from Woody may be relevant for dual purpose but try registering it, you never know may get done for a single use camper.
This seems to say you should be able to re classify if you match the statements which I think yours would.
Anyway, welcome to the forum, hope your stay will be long and fruitful with us, as you have found we are a friendly bunch. I was down in Norfolk for a holiday with my camper conversion just last month.

PS Posting pictures is an initiation right on here, let’s have some photos....it’s a skill that as you see from Woody...some still have not quite got the hang of it (Sorry Woody!)

Reading through that information it says :QUOTE
Converting a VAN to a Motorhome or further down the list it refers to :DFT definition of a motor caravan.
" The following is taken from the DFT website now in the National Archives.

Motor Caravan means a special purpose PASSENGER CAR constructed to include living accommodation which contains at least the following equipment : UNQUOTE.

AS a Romahome is neither a VAN or a special purposes PASSENGER CAR and is a. PICK UP and is not a permanent part of the construction of the original vehicle I will be interested to see if the DVLA will classify it as a Motorhome. If you can swing that one then it will make quite a few Demountable Caravan owners very happy - Kernowjon01 included with his Toyota Pick-Up Demountable.

Er, no Raggy, I think its because I am using my phone and it clips the pictures because I am
using the phone in the PORTRAIT position rather than LANDSCAPE position.