Crazy idea

[Zack]

I was checking out the rooftop tents at www.loftyshelters.com. They're cool, but a little too rich for my blood. I was thinking about trying to make one, and it occurred to me: you could mount a light teardrop body on the roof of a car!

Waddaya think? Would this work? Is a tear too heavy?

==Zack

[Chris C]

Zack, in my opinion, a tear would be WAY too heavy. Those tents weigh in around 150 pounds.....................imagine how much the wood in a tear would weigh.

[Guest]

Zack,
There's a town about 8 miles North of here called Arcata, beside being a college town, it also seems to be stuck in the 60's.
I was over there last week picking up a set of blue prints and low and behold... I saw a small bus that had a VW bus body welded on top of it, like a double decker. I'm sure the guy had his suspension beefed up, because I watched him take a turn and it cornered just fine....
So... I don't think your idea is crazy, but you may need to play with your suspension a bit...

[angib]

I don't think the idea is impractical, because I've driven many miles carrying a 10' x 4' x 18" plywood boat on top of a car that's smaller (yup, smaller) than a Geo Metro (an 800cc 3 cylinder Daewoo Matiz):



The boat was made of 1/4" ply with a 3/8" bottom and had internal tanks, so a super-light teardrop body should weigh not much more - and the weight of the boat was only just noticeable and 'spirited' cornering was no problem (except perhaps for scaring other traffic...). If you built a roof-topper, I think you would have to carry 100% of your stuff in the car - except maybe bedding is light enough to stay 'up top'.

Aerodynamic drag is a whole other subject - that boat dropped the (indicated) top speed from 85mph to 77mph, which was better than I expected! But a teardrop 4' high would be a lot more drag, so you'd probably pay in gas the cost of a trailer in one or two long journeys. Incidentally, aerodynamic stability was no problem at all with the boat on the roof - if anything, the car was more stable in crosswinds.

To make this idea work, I'd look at:
a) making the teardrop in two halves so that the top could be lowered over the bottom to reduce the height, and
b) it would be so light that it would be tempting to just lift it off the roof of the car and set it on the ground to use it - avoids all that ladder use.

Andrew

[Zack]

What about using Georges pop up design? Then you would have something that looks like a small rectangular box when collapsed, and then a large hard sided camper when extended.

[rlphoto]

I was checking out the rooftop tents at www.loftyshelters.com. They're cool, but a little too rich for my blood. I was thinking about trying to make one, and it occurred to me: you could mount a light teardrop body on the roof of a car!

Waddaya think? Would this work? Is a tear too heavy?

==Zack

I came real close to buying one of these things several weeks ago. It was all the researching on small campers that got me here on this forum. Here are some links for small campers I found.

http://www.autohome.it/file_gb/columbus_variant.html

http://members.aol.com/HGsTopBunk/photo.html

http://www.car-top-tent.com/video.asp

http://www.cartopretreats.com/about_us.htm

http://www.bimo.com/skydome1.htm

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

http://www.tent-trailer.com/

http://trailmasterinc.com/campers.html

http://www.thelittletrailerco.com/

http://www.kamparoo.com/

http://www.windwardcampers.com/camperframe.htm

[westover]

If you build it from fiberglass and make it for the warm weather, to keep the weight down, I can see where it would work. On the top of a large station wagon maybe. BUT I would worry about driving in a high wind, those flat sides would act like a wing and blow you all over the highway.

[CanadianCamper]

:) If you build it from fiberglass and make it for the warm weather, to keep the weight down, I can see where it would work.

This one is quite cheap right now, and very light and convenient, the Skydome

[Cutterpup]

Maybe an idea worth exploring, BUT How would you reach the galley???

Judy

[Arne]

Need to determine your needs & wants.

First, my 70 pound dog would be a chore. Second, we go in and out of the tear quite often during the day. And I like a queen size bed and a/c (and tv)..

So, if it meets your needs go for it..... I had thought about a 4x8 years ago where sides folded down and top dropped down over all the folded pieces.... but it would be for sleeping only... and right now, in this heat wave, we were the victim of a bit of jealousy at Mystic because of our a/c.... which we enjoyed very much, btw.....

Bottom line: what do you really want? Could be a stepping stone to a future tear.

[BobR]

I was checking out the rooftop tents at www.loftyshelters.com. They're cool, but a little too rich for my blood. I was thinking about trying to make one, and it occurred to me: you could mount a light teardrop body on the roof of a car!

Waddaya think? Would this work? Is a tear too heavy?

==Zack

Try this out...




Here is a link to JPG files of the plans...

http://www.bobsteardrop.com/Other_designs.htm

OR this one



Plans Link

http://www.bobsteardrop.com/Other_Designs/tentsleeper.pdf

[trabant]

I own such a rooftent from Autohome and they are great. They are expecive bu the quality is great See the pictures below:

Regards,

Michael Staats
the Netherlands

[CanadianCamper]

Here's a picture of the Skydome cartop tent for those who are interested.

You can see it at Skydome. It's on sale now for $595.

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