Roof design examples and comment

[OutbacKamper]

The mainstream North American RV industry is starting to introduce more hybrid designs. At there best they combine the advantages of hardside and soft side pop-ups. I think this idea of having a hardside camper with a fold out soft side tent is a great idea for an expedition camper. Here is an example from Host (the side slide out would not be so great for an EC).
Another example from Lance.





Cheers
Mark

[ntsqd]

Some thoughts on various aspects of the topic:

Seems to me that the insulation issue with soft sides need only copy the better sleeping bag batten designs and incorporate some insulation. How much would be a trade off with how much collapsed room could be given to it.
Alternately the insulation could be a 'curtain', again copying the better bag batten design(s), that is independent of the actual soft side and is either fastened in place when needed or stowed out of the way (rolled up ala tent doors?).The only illustration that I found with a short search:



With a hard sided pop-top, could there not be a flexible boot be attached such that either a wiper type seal or a labyrinth type seal would be redundant?



Having seen pictures of what a western Sierras black bear can do to a car when in search of food, I think even the hard walls of a Unicat etc. impart a very false sense of security.

[HMR]

Great thread!

[Atticus_1354]

I have always loved the soft pop tops. But my interests also run toward smaller vehicle like jeeps and land cruisers. I think the overall GVWR of your chosen transport needs to be considered. If your running a FG truck or other large truck a hard side setup is a great way to go. But it is hard to beat the pop tops for small camper vans and suvs.

[whatcharterboat]

I can think of five different directions you might go with a roof,
plus a few pros and cons for each design.

What do you think?

Chip Haven

Chip What I think, is that you have got the most amazing ability to pull pics out of thin air to describe exactly what you are saying. Thanks.


Having alot of trouble with my photo sharing site at the moment, but I had hoped to join this thread with some roof profile pics and opinions of pop top v fixed roof , yada yada. Also trying to talk the boss into letting me post some sneak peaks of our new pop top onto ExPo before offical release. Perfect opportunity for some feedback.Will get back soon. Is Picasa easy to use?

BTW This truck isn't the same one as the FG on the beach. Trust me. Know every nut and bolt on that one and the one in the container definitely isn't it. Maybe it's an Izusu??? Does look like our body profile though.



Oh and Thom, great idea about optional insulation for the soft sides on the pop top. Want a job?

John

[Harald Hansen]

And here is a European design (I don't remember which company
makes this!) When the roof is lowered it covers the windows for
security.

It's from Finck Campingsysteme in Germany.

Some more of their work in this thread.

[ThomD]

My personal favorite:



I value being able to use the head without any setup; not screaming "I'm an RV", unless the roof is up.

It is pretty narrow and nimble, so I could get in and out of parking lots. This particular one isn't off road oriented of course.

[James86004]

As always, it depends on what you want to do with it. My wife & I drool over campers of various sizes. It would be nice to have one of each design and try them all out for a while.

Practically, the soft sides are the way to go for us. If it is really windy or cold or noisy one night, we are going to move. We have spent some pretty cold nights in the Dormobile, well below freezing, but we have a small heater and really good sleeping bags. With the side lift on the Dormobile, you can stand full height anywhere inside. The Land Rover is small enough to get to the places we want to go - I don't think anything much bigger would be able to handle about 1/4 of the trips we do. Our longest trip has been for 10 days at once now, and were reluctant to go home. Of course the weather was perfect. If we were going someplace where the weather is less predictable and we were going to be gone for months, well, the hard sided full height ones start looking better and better.

[Lynn]

Having seen pictures of what a western Sierras black bear can do to a car when in search of food, I think even the hard walls of a Unicat etc. impart a very false sense of security.

Sometimes a false sense of security is important. What my wife doesn't know...

Really, hard walls at least allow more time to wake up and formulate a response. Plus would stop smaller critters like packrats, monkeys, lions?, etc.

[ThomD]

Having seen pictures of what a western Sierras black bear can do to a car when in search of food, I think even the hard walls of a Unicat etc. impart a very false sense of security.

And yet, there are places where the only requirement is to keep your food in a hard sided vehicle. I think the degree of caution needed depends a lot on where you are and how bad their bear problem is.

This is one of the reasons that we are currently leaning toward a van (for head/shower/sleeping/bike storage) and an adv trailer (for cooking/food and water storage). That would give us a very flexible setup. We would never be sleeping near the food.