Nothing wrong with dreaming, but I wonder if there's any sizeable market for
campers like you're describing, especially at higher prices and with the
competition from larger RV's presently available. It's easy to think along
the  lines of "because I like it, everyone else will," but whether there's a
real market larger than what Ben and a few other people are serving remains
to be seen. Didn't VW try this with the Eurovan, sort of?

What seems to be selling right now is large-wheeled, military-looking SUV's
with names like "Nitro" and "Armada."

As far as price goes, I see tons of late-model, primo Westies listed on the
local CL for over 10K...for many months. What do they really sell for?

Part of the charm of these, to many of us, is precisely that they ARE cheap
rides. That's part of VW bus/Vanagon culture, and it's hard to work against.
 VW itself has tried, pretty successfully, to dissociate itself from its
Volksy roots in the past couple of decades, but the first thing that comes
to mind when thinking Vanagon, for most people, is "hippy bus." How you
gonna sell hippy buses for $60K?

These are the kinds of questions you'd have to answer to potential
investors. Building them would be relatively easy. Selling them is another
matter. Let alone at a profit.

It seems to me that given current automotive tastes, the Syncro platform
would be the place to start. That you could market as distinctly different
from a VW bus, and go from there.