Racking on all walls and plenty of accessories to be ready to go at any time?

Simple, with only a basic racking system to which accessories can be added at a later date?

With only liners and cargo retaining accessories ready to carry bulky loads?

Dreaming is one thing, but reality needs to be carefully considered. Your van’s racking and equipment must be designed to suit your trade or profession, the type of customer you serve and the equipment and material you need for your daily work.

These same considerations also apply to your choice of van. There’s no end of models out there and we don’t all need the biggest in length or height!

Today’s van is quite a special case. We are looking at a Volkswagen Transporter owned by a firm of undertakers, who use it to carry coffins and other materials for funeral services.

The customer came to us with a compact, inconspicuous vehicle and expressed the following needs:

• sober and unobtrusive liners and equipment
• easy loading and unloading of coffins
• easy sanitisation of all internal surfaces
• practical, easy-to-reach compartments for transporting wreaths, cushions and funeral urns

Let’s take a closer look at the equipment installed in this Transporter.

Every inch of the interior of this Transporter has been lined to ensure 100% effective sanitisation and to create a sense of continuity in look and texture.

The customer wanted the liners to create the impression of an aseptic environment. Only strictly necessary equipment was to be added.

The floor is covered with a two-layer floor liner consisting of a 9 mm plywood bottom layer and a 1.2 mm stainless-steel top layer.

This combination of two materials gives greater strength and stability to the floor surface, which has to withstand significant loads and must be fully protected against damp. The rear bumper is protected by a panel of aluminium tread plate.

The van’s walls and roof are lined with anodised aluminium panels, while the bulkhead, like the floor, is protected by 1.2 mm stainless-steel panels.

While the wheel arches are not individually encased, they are effectively protected by the metal compartments around them.

Other lining solutions for the Transporter

This Transporter L1 H1 features just one main item of equipment – a highly specialist product made by Syncro for use by undertakers: a coffin slide.

This equipment consists of a frame fixed to the floor and a slide that moves in and out on rails. A roller at the rear of the van facilitates loading the coffin and helps it to slide inwards. Coffin travel is halted when a mechanical stop strikes a raised profile on the slide, preventing impact with the bulkhead.

Locking knobs on the fixed frame near the rear doors secure the foot of the coffin after loading.

There is only one other item of equipment in this simple but super-functional Transporter: stainless-steel compartments which run along the bottom of the side walls, offering access only from above.

These large compartments are perfect for carrying the wreaths, cushions and other materials (like boards and trolleys) used to move the coffin after its removal from the van.

Syncro’s coffin slides can be positioned in the middle of the van, as in this case, or to either side to allow easier access. They can be fixed to the floor of the van or mounted on frames to allow the cargo compartment to be divided into vertical sections.

View other Syncro solutions for funeral services:

A Dokker for a veterinary carcass collection service

A Custom with a coffin slide to one side

A Renault Trafic with a four-level arrangement

If you have an unusual job and need a special racking solution, and have not found anything suitable among the hundreds of examples on this site, just ask for an obligation-free consultation!

Between 1996 and 2024 we have fully satisfied over 99% of the owners of the 100,000 and more vans we have transformed. Given such a flattering achievement, we think we are justified in presenting ourselves as the specialists in van racking!