Plāi Vans
An Interview with Orest Massitti
Rocky Mountain inspired, custom built bespoke adventure vehicles.
What is the story behind Plāi Vans?
How long have you been around?
I had built a Mercedes Benz Sprinter adventure van for our family five years ago as we are always hauling ski/snowboard or cycling gear around with us on vacation or travelling to various competitions as our two sons are actively competitive in the aforementioned sports. Three years ago, there was a couple from Edmonton, Alberta, a city four hours north of Canmore that was headed to Portland OR to have their Sprinter upfitted. They forgot their passports and were turned back at the CDN/US border. On their way back through Canmore, they stayed overnight with a mutual friend. She told them about my van and suggested they come see it. As my son had the van away on a ski trip, I emailed them many photos and explained what I had done in the build process. They replied and said it looked nice and asked who did all the work. I replied that I had done it all. Their response was “Can you build ours for us?” I had worked in the Oil and Gas industry for 30 years as a Petroleum Engineer and was not working at the time due to the downturn in the economy. So I figured it would keep me busy for a month or two. That first build was back in February, 2017, and Plāi Vans was born.
What inspired you to use Richlite?
What do you like about the material?
In 2006 when we were building our sustainable house, I was looking for alternative ways of building and using unique, sustainable products. Richlite was on the top of the list for kitchen counters. We did not use it as we went with honed slate to match the fireplace. It has always been on my “One Day” list as I REALLY like the product, its composition and how its made. From a van building perspective, our Canadian climates are much colder than in the US and winter temps can dip down to -30 deg Celsius (about -31 F). I find that Richlite does not hold the cold like other products such as quartz/granite, Corian, etc. Also one of the key design considerations in a van is keeping the weight of materials as low as possible. Strength to weight ratio of Richlite is much better than a stone product. Esthetically, it is much sleeker than any of the stone products and we don’t like the “Heavy” look of a thick slab wood countertop (we typically use 3/8” or ½” Richlite). As the product is just as working with wood, we can do all the machining and construction using Richlite in-house which helps increase our productivity. Most of our clients have not heard about it but once they know about the product, 95 percent of the choose it for their builds and absolutely love it. As an added benefit, our boys do a lot of backcountry skiing. One of the items they have in their survival kit is fire starter. Do you know how well Richlite shavings perform when used in this manner? They always carry a small zip lock bag full of shavings, just in case.
Do you foresee using Richlite for other applications within the vans?
We are currently designing a van where the clients would like to use Richlite for the counters and door/drawer faces. I am looking at other projects within the van where we can utilize some of our Richlite “scraps”, before my son makes 30 dozen chopsticks with them. Yes, Richlite chopsticks.
What's next for Plāi Vans?
Plāi Vans is very much a family business which consists of my two sons, 20 & 18, and myself. We are continuing to refine our projects and enjoy the one-off creations that we’ve been building to our clients precise requests. We have just moved into a new shop this week which has doubled our floor space. We’ll see how that feeds into our current wait list of 8 months.
