About us

How it started

Tonke campers is founded by Maarten van Soest in 2005. Friends asked him to tow a big old gypsy cart with a four wheel drive to their residence in France: ‘…It was a beautiful summer when we travelled over the great wheat plains of Northern France. I towed the gipsy cart every evening across the fields to the hilltops, to see the wildlife and the sunset. When we got home two major things happened in our life: my wife gave birth to our first child, Tonke, and I made the first Tonke Camper. It had the combination of some of the good things in life: a safe and modern truck, a sailing-yacht style interior, and roughly the exterior aesthetics of the gypsy carts. I sold this truck to a well known comedian here in Holland and I began to built a second camper. This is how Tonke Campers started…’

Today

Every vehicle is designed and built to order in our own workshop, where we work with 12 persons with pleasure on these beauties. Standard models and customs solutions all get the same skilled attention. Because we have the whole process from designing to assembly and building in our own hands we can, if needed, make custom solutions. We like customers to challenge us to build something beautiful, and we are only happy if we succeed in inspiring the customer with the result. In 2016 the Tonke VAN was elected ‘campervan of the year’. Because the contact with customers is so inspiring we don’t work with dealers. Customers from all over the world come to our workshop in Terheijden.

Mission statement

We like to built beautiful things. Things that have been built with pleasure, that everybody likes to see, products that inspire people. But we not only strive to built things that look good, but that are very well built as well. Our products need to be sturdy, sound and function flawlessly. That makes these products sustainable: because of how they are built they have a long expected lifespan. That results in a smaller ecological footprint and a smaller depreciation over the years. Our customers appreciate all these things.