Perhaps it’s not camper vans as a whole that have gone mad, but camper bathrooms and toilets have definitely been undergoing some rapid changes of late. We’ve already seen an increasing number of convertible wet/dry bathroom designs and toilets that wrap #2s up like birthday presents. Now we have a camper van bathroom inside the all-new Bürstner Habiton that not only converts between modes but also slides completely out of the way to make space for a unique floor plan with a combination of features you don’t usually find in a sub-6-m (19.7-ft) Mercedes Sprinter camper.
It’s not unheard of to see a sub-6-m camper van with a pair of longitudinal rear beds built inside a Sprinter or comparable van, but they often involve some furniture removal, reshuffling or general trickery as compared to more common transverse rear-sleepers in that size class.
For instance, Frankia does away with the two-seat dinette bench in the front of the Yucon 6.0 in order to slide everything else forward and accommodate longitudinal rear beds. Innova does something similar with its Roadtrip 595L van, albeit with a rounded-off rear convertible dining/bed area. Both limit the van to just two people when driving, making them nonstarters for families or others who need extra seats, even if only occasionally.
Westfalia and other shops have engineered around this two-seat limitation by installing a dramatic slide-out bedroom pod, while Malibu has extended the length of the Sprinter van body itself.
Bürstner
Bürstner has an equally unconventional solution, but it builds it within the stock Sprinter van rather than going outside it. The company already previewed one kinetic bathroom in its sleek Signature small motorhome, and it has prepared a separate solution for the 591-cm-long (233-in) Habiton.
Like the Signature, the Habiton bathroom features a single footprint that transforms into multiple modes for showering, toilet use and sink access. But the entire Habiton bathroom unit also slides back and forth into day and night positions.
Bürstner
The sliding bathroom works in collaboration with a foldable front dinette and telescopic driver-side bed platform with folding mattress. During the day, the bed remains compacted to about half its fully extended length, and the bathroom remains in its rearmost position, with the front dinette set up for dining and lounging. The cab seats swivel around to create a four-person dining lounge, and the rear bench includes two seatbelts for carrying a total of four occupants when driving.
At night, the dinette tabletop and bench flip up, and the bench slides forward independently on the same floor rails the bathroom uses. The bathroom then pulls the lower section of the telescopic bed out as it slides forward, creating two full-length individual longitudinal beds at the rear.
Incidentally, the biggest advantage of longitudinal beds versus a transverse bed ties into the bathroom – with separate longitudinal beds, each sleeper can get up in the morning or middle of the night without having to disturb the other sleeper. So a 2 a.m. bathroom run does not have to wake one’s co-camper. The layout also eliminates the need for the width-extending side flares that converters need to add in order to make the transverse bed long enough, maintaining a sleeker profile.
Bürstner
Inside the bathroom, the toilet sits on a retractable slide of its own, disappearing away into the rear wall below the driver-side bed when not in use. The sink basin is mounted over top the extended toilet, folding flush into the wall for toilet access. When the toilet is retracted away and the sink folded into the wall, an accordion divider wall extends out over them to create a clean rear wall that turns the busy space into a dedicated shower room.
Bürstner
Bürstner also claims that the sliding setup opens up the largest seating area in this camper van class, providing a little more leg and elbow room around the dining table. The company further opens things up with a panoramic sky window just above the windshield for a brighter, airier feel.
While the entire driver’s side features the unique furniture-shuffling design, the passenger’s side is quite straightforward, with a galley amidships in front of the second longitudinal bed. There’s no indication of fill-in center cushions to create a full-width double bed out of the two singles, so we assume they’re meant to stand alone for easier ingress/egress.
Bürstner
In the past, Bürstner has used the “Habiton” nameplate for small concept vans, and the new model is the first to be based on a full-size van. While all that sliding equipment does scream “concept camper!!,” Bürstner ends its preview video with the below shot of three different models. The two on the left appear to include pop-up roofs, which would make more complete use of those two rear passenger seats by allowing the camper to both transport and sleep a total of four people. The mention of 96 possible color and trim combinations also hints that we’re looking at the first production model born from the Habiton series.
Bürstner
We’ll look to find out for sure once the new Habiton makes its official world premiere at the 2025 Düsseldorf Caravan Salon, where Bürstner will also be debuting the aforementioned Signature small motorhome and its distinct kinetic bathroom.
In the meantime, you can have a closer look at the Habiton’s unique interior layout and movement in the short clip below.
Habiton 1 208351982 1
Source: Bürstner