Three years in the past, German startup Roof Area turned to the Indiegogo crowdfunding group to assist deliver its unique hybrid rooftop tent design to life. The marketing campaign was a rousing success, and Roof Area has gone on to change into rising star within the European rooftop tent (RTT) market. Now it is formally coming to America, bringing its aluminum-shell cabana-style tent to adventure-hungry US explorers.
Whereas Roof Area did use a well-liked Silicon Valley-based crowdfunding engine to launch its authentic tent, the marketing campaign was aimed primarily at backers in Germany and Europe, not North America. The corporate has lengthy had its eye on the American market, although, and has now formally established its presence on the continent. It opened up Roof Area USA HQ in San Diego this previous November and made a broader announcement this week.
Over the previous 10 to fifteen years, rooftop tents have loved fairly an increase in recognition within the US, going from a curious novelty related to unique safaris in faraway lands to on a regular basis tools used for all the pieces from primary automotive tenting, to overlanding, to base tenting for sports activities like climbing, browsing and mountain biking. RTTs are actually carried by main retailers comparable to REI, Backcountry and Amazon, to not point out extra overland-specific specialty outlets.
Roof Area
Extra than simply one other generic participant in that sea of rooftop tent manufacturers and retailers, Roof Area has got down to be an RTT innovator seeking to deliver one thing contemporary to market. Its first product, the Roof Area 2 addresses the identical challenge as the unique iKamper Skycamp and the quite a few fold-out hardshells that adopted however another way.
The Roof Area 2 is a hybrid RTT designed to mix the small packed footprint and expandable residing house of a softshell RTT with the ruggedness and ease of use of a hardshell RTT. However as an alternative of utilizing a hardtop that tilts out of the best way for entry to the fold-out flooring, a la the Skycamp and others, the Roof Area 2’s hardtop turns into its prolonged flooring, folding out a full 180 levels to double the footprint of the tent at camp. It takes about 30 seconds to fold out, and the tent erects because it folds.
Roof Area
At camp, the absolutely pitched tent gives house for 2 adults, and Roof Area even reckons you can squeeze in a baby or pet with these adults on the 81 x 53-in (206 x 135-cm) mattress. The tent design is extra like a softshell RTT than a hardshell, a full cloth dome with 51-in (130-cm) peak atop the bi-panel flooring. For the reason that exhausting lid works as the ground, it doesn’t function a roof or one of many partitions, the best way it might on different hybrid and hardshell RTT designs.
A singular characteristic Roof Area gives is a “panorama” mode that lets homeowners rapidly unzip the material across the entryway of the tent to create an open air deck, good for sitting out in the course of the day to absorb the views from a excessive vantage level.
Roof Area
When folded again into journey type, Roof Area says its two-man tent matches comfortably on a number of the smallest vehicles on the market and over prime quick pickup truck beds.
Final time we in contrast the Roof Area 2’s preliminary specs with the full-size iKamper Skycamp, however now we understand it is a lot nearer in measurement to the two-person Skycamp Mini 3.0, which has a comparable 83 x 51-in (211 x 130-cm) sleeping space. The Mini 3.0 folds all the way down to 58 x 55 x 14 in (147 x 140 x 36 cm) when packed up, in comparison with 62 x 54 x 9 in (157 x 137 x 23 cm) for the packed Roof Area 2. So the Roof Area is significantly slimmer but in addition heftier at 147 lb (67 kg) in comparison with iKamper’s 125 lb (57 kg).
Roof Area
The Roof Area 2 costs in at an MSRP of US$3,499, $200 cheaper than the current base price of the Skycamp Mini 3.0. It’s out there from Roof Area’s San Diego headquarters in addition to by way of its dealership network of overland provide shops across the US. Roof Area additionally gives numerous annex tent and accent choices and plans to deliver its four-person Roof Area 4 to the US this spring.
Supply: Roof Space
