I met with owner Jeff Kelson mid winter '18 to discuss the possibility of fabricating a set of bumpers and side rails / steps for the Sprinter. Jeff, renowned designer and creator of some of the most extreme steel fabrications for off road 4X4 addons was interested in this new fast growing market of van conversions of 4x4 Sprinter vans for overlanding and light off road use.  

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We started with a simple tubular front bumper that would offer protection for the front end and do it without removal of the front factory bumper.  His lead tech, Cameron, was extremely collaborative and open minded to what I envisioned and what he saw as best practice and efficient design for esthetics and function.  After a few days in the shop to develop this one off prototype, the crew moved to the rear where the flimsy and useless  factory bumper was pulled off and a simple, clean but knarly multipurpose bumper was added.  The bumper still offered the standard 2" hitch, but had double swing out arms. Each arm built filled the bill to carry the spare and the other, well whatever I wanted to adapt to it. For the time being I will use it to carry two 5 gallon fuel cans, but may move to a storage box as we travel in the winter months.

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The team produced the products and I finished the bare metal with UPol ( like a Linex) and mounted up myself, great for the DIY guys.

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I can' t say enough about how Jeff, Cameron and Cayden worked to create very functional products.  Given the Sprinter step up access was quite  a bit more than factory we asked the team to consider building some simple rock rails / steps for the rig, wow they came through with quite a cool design, matching the lines and design of the bumpers, the rails and steps exceeded our expectations. 

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If you are considering adding some protection to your rig, Sprinter or otherwise, I highly recommend you talk with Jeff and the Badland Bumper team!