Opinions on best base vehicle!

Hi all, looking for my first campervan round about 20 years old. I was wondering if anyone has any opinion on the best base vehicle for an autosleeper of this age, in terms of reliability, rust on chassis/body?? Also from the point of view of buying spare parts when needed? Many thanks. Great site by the way, only joined this week!!  

How long is a piece of string?  We're all biased in our views one way or another and what is acceptable to one could be an anathema to another. I like the older Trafics and Boxers, Transits have a lot of fans as do VWs.
All have their good points and all have bad ones. 'Fraid you're going to have to look around, see something you like and then ask for the lowdown on that model.

Frank

I go along with Frank over individual likes and dislikes. AS in that time period used the Talbot Express many still running, could have sloppy gear changes and will by now have the dreaded rust worm. When the model changed to the Peugeot Boxer life moved up a few stakes and apart from a couple of niggles this was a good chassis provided you had the 2.5 td or the much later 2.8td engines.
The Transit was used as well and most are aware of the pros and cons of  the worlds best seller in its different models.  Our Mk7 is by far a better performer than the Pugs and more comfortable to drive, in many ways like the 5 cyl VWs
The Renault vans were considered (by high mileage operators such as mini bus and ambulance operators) to be the most comfortable and I will volunteer Frank to give you tech'l details.
VW are a smaller chassis, fitted with super engines that still are amongst the most economic to run, also nice to drive 2,4 or 2.5td are my favourites.
AS did use the lager Merc Sprinter Based VW in the form of the Medallion, and indeed made a small quantity of this van with the Merc engine. These were larger than many of the others so space may be an issue for you.

Just take your time and don't rush into buying. There are a lot of 20 year old vans in use.
There is a 20+ year old 2.5td Pug/Executive in our family with close on 200K miles on the clock in France for a month at this time and I would trust it to take me anywhere

Transit spares are always going to be the cheapest but you can get the Pug Boxer and VW parts OK, not sure on the Renault

Volkswagens come with the advantage of huge aftermarket spares and accessories support, as well as near-endless advice on sites like the T4/T5 forum. The downside is they often command relatively higher prices: the famous 'scene tax'.

Pretty much as above. If there were one "best" vehicle, none of us would buy anything else.

You really can't do anything other than judge by the condition of what you see. As an example, many would regard the VW T4s and T5s as the least prone to rust, yet we have seen some T4s here with near-terminal rust in the windscreen pillars.

As another example, both of my older Transit-based A-S conversions were ultra-reliable and very cheap to service/repair, but boy did they rust...

When we were first shopping for a camper, we saw several nice VWs. However, none were suitable because of the lack of headroom. Although I am not tall (5' 9" -10"?) I have a longer body and shorter legs so on all the ones I tried, my head touched the "ceiling". Didn't have this problem with Transits, Boxers, Trafics etc..
Goes to show that you need to try before you buy.

Frank

VW have the more advanced (read comfortable) chassis. Torsion bar front with wishbones and trailing arms with coils at the rear.

Really supple ride compared to the leaf spring Pug/Citroen/FIAT based chassis