Van cargo area leveling

06 Express Van.  It's actually a passenger van with carpet in the back, but I have removed the seats and I use it as a camper/cargo van.  The existing carpet is getting destroyed, so I want to level the floor and put something on it that is that perfect combination of "slippery enough that it's easy to slide plywood in," and "sticky enough that things don't slide around every time I come to a stop sign."

Leveling it will be pretty easy.  It's built like a corrugated truck bed, so I'm just going to bevel-cut some ply or OSB strips to fill the valleys and glue it in.  My first desire was to make it something pretty and coat with polyester resin or polyurethane, but that would be slippery, and it would also likely get chewed up pretty fast.

I'm taking nominations for coverings - linoleum, rubber sheeting, bedliner coating, or [insert brilliant idea here]

Alright, let me think this through...

The bare floor is corrugated, painted steel. Tough and not that grippy. Corrugations allow drainage to prevent puddling but are hard for little wheels to roll across. Noisy and probably uninsulated. 

Plastic sheet is tough as well, but slippery.

Plywood is cheap and flat and reasonably impact tolerant. It is also susceptible to water damage.

Berliner coatings of the Hercuraptor variety are fashionable. If they are as tough as the advertising makes them sound, they are probably worth considering.

The fact that you also use the van for camping makes it tempting to civilize it while you have the opportunity. Cheap carpet squares would outlast the factory carpet and be more cargo-friendly.

How expensive is cheap laminate flooring, and how big a beating can it take? You could even throw a little insulation under it and make the van a nicer place to be.

I wouldn't bother leveling the floor. Just go put a couple of horse stall mats down. They're about $50 each and are 4'x6' at your local farm store. I had floor runner from Lowe's in my last Astro. Buy it by the foot at any big box building store..

Not sure I would glue the strips to the steel.  Seems smarter to glue it to a piece of plywood, then put the grippy surface on top of that.

Never know when you might want to take it out.

In my express camper van I had to deal with the seat mount brackets so I put down 1-1/2" foam insulation with plywood over it. 

On top of that I glued a sheet of hardwood look vinyl flooring, may be too slippery for your use, totes and items in the back will slide around a bit while driving if it isn't packed so they can't move much. 

If you want stuff to not move around while only partially loaded, I would think of something along the lines of a floor made of pegboard (not actually pegboard, just a visual)

Make up a couple of dividers that drop in, potentially lock in place somehow?

A concrete self-leveler would be ideal, if you didn't want to drive the van. 

I've used BedRug in two vans and like it a lot. The BedRug for my E350 was shaped to fill the valleys in the floor. They offer a VanMat liner as well.

https://realtruck.com/b/bedrug/v/chevy/express-van/2006/

I'm confused. 
 

A "slippery" floor would only help the FIRST sheet of plywood slide in. I could see that being annoying with carpet, but there are very few other materials that would limit my ability to slide a sheet of plywood in.

My truck has a rubberized mat. I definitely prefer the un-slippery-ness.

I use an old  rug , the type you would put on a hardwood floor , 

Cut it to size around the wheelwells , 

boxes will slide on it a little but not like a bare floor , 

and it cuts the road noise down some......

Not exactly what your looking for, but I have a cheap rubber door mat - the type that a business would use, with the little nubs to catch debris & water - and it does a damn good job of keeping stuff from sliding around. 
 

Of course it's only about 2'x3' so you'd need something larger. 

Level  and insulate it and use these? ^

Maybe some kind of pourable rubbery stuff if you want to fill the grooves. Something fairly tough like self leveling urethane sealant made for sidewalks. That'll give it a little grip in between the bumps. 

Something like a 1.5 gallon pail of Masterseal SL2. Two component product so it cures by chemical reaction, not "eventually" from exposure to the atmosphere. Read the prep steps carefully..

BedRug comes pre-cut, pre-formed, and pre-grooved. I've spilled water, oil, various cleaners, and gasoline, on it and they all just bead up and wipe off.

I'm not affiliated with them, I just love their product.

Bedrug 100% = way better than any DIY option and not that expensive.