The all-new Mohab Altus is a car rooftop shelter collection like nothing we have coated earlier than. Utilizing an electric-lift system, it rises right into a boxy cabin that lives atop your car. With 4 arduous partitions of strong climate safety and accessible heating and air con, the Altus blurs the road between tent and RV, turning any pickup truck or 4×4 into a comfortable tenting rig with rock-solid all-season safety.
After we first rolled throughout the title “Mohab,” we assumed it was a play on Moab, the all-off-road crimson rock paradise of Southern Utah that is pronounced in two syllables: Mo-Ab (rhymes with Gradual Cab). Upon a pair seconds extra reflection, “Mohab” struck us as a cross between Moab and Ahab, the wayfaring sea captain of “Moby Dick” fame – off-road tenting gear for car commanders, of landlubbing orientation, with minds fixated on a singular goal?
Not precisely. Because it seems, the phonic proximity to “Moab” appears however a contented bonus, because the title was actually crafted as a portmanteau of Cellular Habitat. And “cellular habitat” is a wonderful solution to describe the boxy, hard-walled Altus shelter that overmatches the typical car roof, designed to be mounted solely to rugged vehicles and 4x4s with particular {hardware}. So neglect “rooftop tent (RTT)” and think about the Altus a cellular habitat.
Mohab
Based mostly in Denver, Mohab is the most recent American model incarnation for a Chinese language producer that beforehand glided by “IIM Camper” and referred to as Sacramento its US dwelling. We have been vaguely conversant in IIM Camper due to its presence at SEMA for the previous few years and the YouTube videos it printed throughout that very same time interval that spotlight its distinctive hard-wall shelters. Mohab introduced its personal presence ultimately month’s Overland Expo SoCal present, the place it served as a sponsor.
Chinese language manufacturers should have the hard-to-shake popularity for promoting cut-rate copycat tenting and overlanding gear, however they’ve additionally been innovating within the house. We’ve not seen a cellular habitat fairly just like the Altus developed by any model outdoors of China.
Wild Land and Topoak are two different Chinese language manufacturers constructing considerate, high-quality gear.
We’ve seen some sluggish, regular progress in US-designed hard-walled rooftop tents lately, however they’ve all been wedge-style tents that always price double or more what a high-end material RTT would price. We’ve not beforehand seen a space-maximizing hard-sided roof dice just like the Altus, outdoors of Alibaba and the movies IIM Camper and some different Chinese language producers have printed.
Mohab
It isn’t arduous to see the large benefit in growing a full-length lifting roof instead of a hinged wedge: a doubling of inside quantity and full headroom all through the whole lot of the inside. The Altus options an electrical roof-lift system designed to open in 60 seconds on the push of a button. The aspect partitions are cut up into two hinged panels that unfold into type because the roof rises, whereas the entrance and rear partitions are single-panel designs that swing manually into place. A handbook override system lets customers set the cabin up with out energy.
The Altus exterior measures in at 93 x 54 in (236 x 137 cm), clearing loads of house for a double mattress inside. It is also accessible in XL dimension, with a physique that measures 101 x 54 in (257 x 137 cm). Mohab charges each for 2 adults and a single little one or pet, although that may very properly entail somebody sleeping crossways on the head or foot of the mattress since a ~50-in-wide (127-cm) mattress may show too slim to suit three individuals comfortably side-by-side. Each customary and XL roofs open to a top slightly below 45 in (114 cm) and near a drive top of 8.7 in (22 cm).
Mohab
The Altus collection is crafted from aluminum alloy framing and PET panels. These supplies assist to maintain weight down, however the sheer dimension of the factor makes it heavier than most: the Altus weighs in at 265 lb (120 kg), the Altus XL at 276 lb (125 kg). Whereas that is greater than the typical two-person rooftop tent, it isn’t the heaviest we have seen listed, particularly when different hard-walled designs, a few which have hit or neared 300 lb.
Different Altus and Altus XL options embody slider home windows on either side, a lift-up hatch door on the rear-end, an HVAC port for operating in air con or heating, and a hinged roof that permits you to poke your head outdoors for panoramic views of your environment.
Mohab
The Altus cabin has been designed to work solely with Mohab’s Fortis rack methods. These embody midsize/full-size pickup mattress racks, pickup mattress caps, and reinforced-cage racks for choose 4x4s like Jeep Wranglers and Ford Broncos. That may sound like the corporate is organising consumers for extraneous extras at an enormous double-price tag, however your entire system is definitely fairly affordable at US$5,139 for the Altus cabin with pickup mattress rack and $6,049 for the Altus with truck cap. The Altus with 4×4 rack costs in at $4,869.
The Altus XL is presently solely marketed for over-bed pickup truck mounting, pricing in at $5,449 with rack and $6,449 with cap.
Mohab
These costs might very properly change, as Mohab remains to be within the strategy of organising a dealership community forward of an official US arduous launch later this spring. Past the precise cellular habitats, it plans to supply a wide range of overlanding gear and equipment, together with water tank/bathe methods, vehicle-mounted awnings, and moveable kitchen packing containers.
We’ll hold a watch out for Mohab’s official launch and retail accomplice community as we get deeper into spring, significantly as soon as Overland Expo West will get underway in mid Could.
Supply: Mohab
