Ep176 – Talking Rooftop Tent Brands

Listen to the full episode here:

Our rooftop tent brands that elevate every campsite setup…

Ben and Lauren scale the heights of rooftop tent excellence, breaking down their top picks from powerhouse brands like 23ZERO, Darche, and Inspired Overland. Our gear gurus compare equivalent models across manufacturers, and explore everything from detachable designs to solar-integrated solutions. The conversation covers lightweight alternatives for weight-conscious campers, brands beyond the Snowys shelves, and confessions of their own rooftop tent FOMO!

The best elevated sleeping isn’t just about getting off the ground, it’s about not breaking the bank – or your roof racks!

Ben and Lauren break down their top eight picks from powerhouse brands like Inspired Overland.

Shortcuts:

00:00 – Intro

01:10 – Top Rooftop Tent Brands

03:24 – 23ZERO Rooftop Tents

10:58 – Darche Rooftop Tents

18:00 – Darche and 23ZERO’s Equivalent Rooftop Tent Models

19:06 – Inspired Overland Ultralight Rooftop Tents

23:53 – Lightweight Rooftop Tent Alternatives

26:56 – Darche Detachable Rooftop Tent

28:24 – Darche Solar Rooftop Tent

29:45 – Coming Soon From 23ZERO

30:17 – Rooftop Tent Brands Beyond the Snowys Shelves

31:00 – Ben and Lauren’s Rooftop Tent FOMO?!

33:03 – Summary

Mentioned in this Episode:

Products: (full range can be viewed on our website here)

View our full range of rooftop tents on our website here >>

Podcasts and Blogs:

Ep114 – Rooftop Tents With Dave & Jacob From Snowys Brendale

Ep125 – Rooftop Tents, Awnings, & Everything OZtrail 2024 with Michael & Ben

Ep165 – Revolutionised Rooftop Tents With Inspired Overland

Transcript:

Ben: 00:06
Howdy listeners, welcome to the Snowys Camping Show. Joined by myself Ben and Lauren again. How are you?

Lauren: 00:13
Good. I just realized I don’t have my headphones on.

Ben: 00:15
I’m prepared. We’re just gas bagging about how we’re gonna put today’s content into some sort of legible form for our customers to understand where our brains are at. Um so stick with us, we’ll try and get through it. But um before we jump into that, uh subscribe to our channel via YouTube, your favorite podcast app, or jump in in the conversation at the Snowy’s Camping Banter Facebook group. Now, today I wanted to we get a lot of questions like what’s your best rooftop tent, right? The rooftop tens are hot at the moment. Everyone’s talking about rooftop tents. There’s the new innovation. It’s a crazy category, really like hot, high-priced items that are hard to put in your car, uh, but they’re really convenient when you get it all set up, really popular right now. And people are always saying, What’s which one should I get? What’s your best one? And it’s another one of those questions you go, well, need to know more about your setup and how you camp and what your budget is and what your vehicle is and all these sort of things. So

Top Rooftop Tent Brands:

Ben: 01:10
so we could go through and just list like what are our best selling rooftop tents, but we thought, well, that I don’t think that’s very useful. Um, because there’s various reasons why we might sell more of one than the other, and the number doesn’t really tell the whole picture. No, it doesn’t. Um so we just thought we’d go through our main brands one by one and kind of what is most talked about, I suppose, within each brand, because we have 23Zero, we have Darche, Inspired Overland is in there as well. That’s that’s our three kind of top brands. There’s a few others. Frontrunner’s got a lightweight one, I don’t think we’ve got the Hard Korr ones online anymore. Like they’re all really good tents.

Lauren: 01:44
But we’re just going to talk about also you’ve got that we’ve got like sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got lots of different platforms of engagement with customers. We’ve got like phone calls, emails, QA’s through our website, chat, um, socials. It’s not um just general website traffic, people, all the products people are looking at. So when we sort of talk about what’s um hot right now or what’s a popular, we look at all of those things. We don’t just look at uh hit add to cart type thing.

Ben: 02:11
Yeah, absolutely. So we’ll we’ll cover brand by brand, what’s popular in each brand, because Darche and 23Zero in particular have some similar top models. Yep. Um, and in reality, you’re probably just gonna we we would recommend choosing which brand you have an affinity to, basically. If you’ve already got a 23Zero awning and you want to match it with your rooftop tent, get the 23Zero rooftop tent. If you like the colour of the Darche khaki better, get the Darche because they’re both really good products.

Lauren: 02:38
You often see that, don’t you? You see your four drivers getting around, they’ve got the awning and the rooftop tent, and you know, like then they get the swags out and their chairs out, and they’re just they’re just they like the brand, and that’s fine. Yeah, that’s it’s good. It’s good to have brand loyalty, in my opinion. Absolutely.

Ben: 02:52
So we’ll cover off on kind of what’s best in each category. Now we’re not gonna go into the best in terms of your vehicle setup. Uh, I’m pretty sure we would have covered it many a times in an episode. We’ll put a link in there, but you need to check your roofload ratings and all of those sort of things, how you mount it. Not covering that in this episode. We’re just gonna talk about the tents that are most talked about in the conversations you have with customers, the conversations we have online, conversations that happen in store. So let’s start with 23Zero. The brand 23Zero. Now, I we we we love working with 23Zero.

23ZERO Rooftop Tents:

Lauren: 03:24
They’re just can I just I just want to say we have done an episode with Ben and uh I meant sorry, Dave and Jacob from our Birdel store on rooftop tents, where we do cover the specifics of differences between a soft shell, hard shell, packing it away, bedding, roofload rating, mounting, like all of the specifics of okay, I I want, I think I want a rooftop tent. What do I need to know before I start looking for the specific models? Check that episode out first. We’ll put the links to the show note if you haven’t already.

Ben: 03:51
Yeah, cool. Now, 23Zero, just want to premises this by saying 23Zero are just constantly moving forward with new stuff. Like by the time we get a model, they’re already working on or taking feedback from previous models and working on the next one ahead of that. So it’s a bit like technology with 23Zero. You’ve never got the latest model, or you’re never gonna have it because there’s always the next one on the way. They’re really innovative and always moving forward, always listen to what the customer’s saying. Didn’t like this, didn’t like that. That was really good. Take features of this, take features of that, put it in a new model, call it something different. And I know us uh floor staff have headaches sometimes going. So, where where’s this? Like, how what’s the hierarchy here? And you’re like, Well, you just kind of gotta roll with her. Yeah, they’re all awesome tents, just gotta, you know, customers gotta lie in it, check it out, um, make sure that it fits what they’re after. But let’s start with 23Zero though. Um, there what have you got a qu with you working in customer service? Is there one that’s asked about the most right now?

Lauren: 04:48
Uh…

Ben: 04:51
Maybe the new one. Like they’ve just released the Panther.

Lauren: 04:54
To be honest, if I’m like full disclosure, people are asking the most about the Panthers at the moment because they’re being superseded. And so the old Panthers, a lot of people like, oh, I want to get onto the old one because they’re generally a bit of a lower price, maybe more accessible, maybe they’ve had their eye on them for a while and things like that. There is lots of excitement around the new range, obviously. But I do think that uh when a brand drops a new line of things, there’s always an opportunity there to pick up the previous season stuff at a real at a real bargain. Because let’s face it, rooftop tents aren’t cheap.

Ben: 05:29
Cheap. And right now there is if if it’s still there when this episode goes live, but right now there are some big savings to have be had on that Panther series, the original Panther series, which is the 1600s, 2000.

Lauren: 05:43
Uh 16 and 14, I think.

Ben: 05:44
16 and 14, was it?

Lauren: 05:45
Maybe. Uh maybe, no, you’re right. 2000, I’m pretty sure it’s 16.

Ben: 05:48
No, I think it’s 16 and 14. I’ve got it written in front of me here.

Lauren: 05:51
Oh do you, ok.

Ben: 05:51
Um they’ve got a tig like an aluminium welded shell and it kind of folded out. It’s heaps of internal space and it folded out in front. Really, roomy, really long. Um, but they’ve updated it to the Panther Horizon. They kind of took some Yowie features and some Panther features and chucked it into one and called it the Panther Horizon.

Lauren: 06:07
Yeah.

Ben: 06:07
Uh made changes like listen to people saying, I can’t struggling to put my awning next to my Panther tent because it folded out and um uh there’s a word I always want to use, and I always forget whenever I go to use it because I think it makes me sound uh really clever, but I forget what it is. Um it’s it hits the roof. I’m just gonna sit with hits because that’s exactly what it does. Um it hits the the awning when it folds out because it it kind of comes out the boundaries of the tent. So they changed it so it kind of lives up so you can mount the awning next to the tent now rather than have to leave the gap. So fouls, that’s the word I’m looking for. It fouls on the awning. You don’t look very impatient.

Lauren: 06:46
Hey, wait, what? Fouls like is in F-O-U-L-S.

Ben: 06:51
Yeah, like it if it’ll move out and then it fouls the rooftop tent because it’s in the way. I hope that’s the right use of the word now. Oh, yeah. Keep moving. Um…

Lauren: 06:59
Sounds like some ye old English.

Ben: 07:01
Yeah.

Lauren: 07:01
It’s like our boss came out the other day and he’s like, I quite like this of an evening. And I was like, What is this? Like a…

Ben: 07:06
Who said that?

Lauren: 07:07
Laine.

Ben: 07:08
Did he?

Lauren: 07:08
He was like, Oh, I don’t mind a bit of this of an evening. And I was like, What are we here?

Ben: 07:12
Yeah, he’s in some sort of uh he’s getting a bit old, general ly.

Lauren: 07:15
Who’s that? Who’s that? Jane Austen novel or something.

Ben: 07:18
He drinks English breakfast tea now as well. So yeah, like it really fits. Um, yeah, so the Panther’s a big, big buzzword at the moment, but the Panther Horizon is the is the latest one in that series, and it is pretty cool. I had a look at it at the Adelaide show, and we’ve got videos, if not already out, coming out very soon uh on those. So…

Lauren: 07:34
Interestingly enough, though, the the uh the th the sort of I guess when I say top three, it’s not sort of necessarily sales or whatever, but the the more the top three more popular models for for 23Zero are a bit tried and true in the sense that we’ve got the Yowie AX, um the Saber Max,

Ben: 07:57
Which probably kind of goes in the Saber series because they’re kind of similar with slight differences in each model, three or four different ones in the case.

Lauren: 08:03
The Saber series is extensive, um, and the Dakota 1400, which I think the Dakota 1400 is like your classic soft shell rooftop tent. Like the original rooftop tents we all saw, that’s the Dakota 1400.

Ben: 08:16
Yep.

Lauren: 08:17
Um and I think that they still soft shell rooftop tents still have a place in the market because of their affordability versus the space and the function that you get with them.

Ben: 08:31
You’re you’re talking circa 1,500 to 2,000 for a tent with the same space as a three to four thousand dollar hard shell.

Lauren: 08:39
Yeah.

Ben: 08:40
But the three is quite interesting when you look at it the three that you mentioned there, excuse me. The Yowie is a hard shell small footprint because it it half the tent kind of folds inside the shell. So it’s a little bit taller, smaller footprint, so it fits tub racks and that sort of thing. And because it’s got a hard shell, you can put roof racks on top as well. So you put it on your tub, it can kind of be level with the cabin of your dual cab, and then you can put a surface board, a solar panel or Maxtrax, whatever on those, uh, and then it folds out to the side. Then your Saber range are your full-length clamshell style, so that they don’t fold in half, they just open up. Um, and the the Saber series is extensive. You’ve got your Saber, which is a classic, and there’s now the Saber vertex, which takes all of the features of the other ones I’m about to mention and kind of puts them all in one, all the best in one. Um, but there was the Saber um Max, the Litepaw, they were kind of similar, but the Saber Pro Saber Pro well that had a different shell altogether. That had a tig welded hard shell, slightly different.

Lauren: 09:40
Oh, that is true, yeah.

Ben: 09:41
Didn’t quite, I don’t think we’ve really seen many of the Saber pro didn’t really take off quite like the rest of the Saber range. Um the Saber Max and Saber Litepaw one’s just kind of like a it has one hinge, the Saber Max has a hinge that lifts up, so you pay a bit more and you get a bit more

Lauren: 09:55
Saber X.

Ben: 09:56
Saber X might be what I’m thinking of.

Lauren: 09:57
Yeah, with the X hinge, but then I think the Saber Max has the Saber X Max is like a uh uh upgrade on the Saber X. Like there’s just there’s just yeah,

Ben: 10:06
I’ve got to sit and look at the range and think how does it all fit? So but they’ve taken all those Saber series and then stuck it into the Saber Vertex, which I had a look at the other day, and that’s that’s really polished as well.

Lauren: 10:16
Nice, that’s good.

Ben: 10:17
But then they’ve gone down the s the light range because there was the Saber Superlite, which is quite thin and pretty cool, but then they had a thinner mat and you couldn’t fit bedding inside there. So now they brought out the Saber Superfly and incorporated tonneau cover that you can fit a bit of bedding into, and you it’s now 45 kilos off the top of my head. So they’re getting into that lightweight category. So yeah. Um and then, like you said, the Dakota, which is just if you,

Lauren: 10:40
Classic

Ben: 10:41
If you can’t afford all the if you’re not too worried, people buy their Sabers and the Yowies because it looks good as well. They’ve got the streamlined look. Dakota’s got that classic PVC tonneau cover over the top, but they’re really affordable and they’re still waterproof and comfortable and do the job. So…

Darche Rooftop Tents:

Lauren: 10:58
Darche.

Ben: 10:59
Yeah, so yeah, Darche 23Zero Darche. It’s kind of like Ford and Holden, right? Yeah, a little bit. Which one did you go for? Um I’ve kind of got well they uh we just had a look at the range before now, because there’s a few Darche products we currently don’t have on our website. I had a look at the range, and it used to be very much that they mirrored each other, but now they’re a little bit different. Darche’s got some other cool things going on that are a little bit different than 23Zero. Some are the same. Um, they’ve got one called an Intrepidor, which was which is just their affordable, easy.

Lauren: 11:29
Intrepidor is probably, I would say, um, a really popular model because similar to like, you know, your 23Zero Dakota and whatever, there’s obviously a whole range that Dart you do which are which are similar in the Hi-View, right? They’re all the ones that fold out and then they have an like a bit of an overhang in the sense that your ladder attaches, but when you climb up the ladder, you’re climbing up into the tent above you, and you’re sort of going over the lip into it that way. Um, whereas the Intrepidor or is just like a single, like a little pod. It still opens out, like it folds up, so shell opens out, but you climb up the ladder and then you unzip the side of it and then you climb into it. So there’s no overhang, it’s just really simple. Yep. Um, you don’t need a huge amount of space. It fits on a lot of different cars because it has quite a small footprint, and it’s just no, it’s just no fuss, no frills.

Ben: 12:19
Yeah.

Lauren: 12:20
Um, and that’s all that that is always um one that’s well talked about.

Ben: 12:25
The closest 23Zero has to that is this Dakota Super Light, but we’ll touch on that a little bit later because we want to talk on the lightweight options.

Lauren: 12:31
And and I will say 23Zero did used to do something like the Intrepidor, but they they don’t anymore. So um I think the Intrepidor is really nifty for that side of things. And it’s also affordable, it’s simple, it’s a really great like starter, I guess. Maybe you could say the other one that surprises me every time people ask about it and every time we sort of ship one out, the the Darche Basecamp 2200, it’s it’s a monster.

Ben: 12:57
It’s a big unit. I think it’s it’s a hundred and something kilos off the top of my head.

Lauren: 13:01
It’s quite I’m not gonna pretend to know how much it weighs. The great thing about it though is that it’s it’s a soft shell rooftop tent, opens out like you know, the classic rooftop tents we’re used to seeing around, but it is 2200 wide. So you can sleep a family of four, potentially five or six if your kids are really little. It’s just it’s just a full big family sleeper on the top of your car, folds out, you go up the ladders under the the cover, like you go up into the rooftop tent. Um, it’s got a couple of different opening doors. So if you wanted to have your kids on one side, that can be all fully sealed off and just have your door for your parents’ side open, whatever. It’s it’s it’s a monster, but it’s popular because people, people, you know, if you think about a big family, right? Some of your options, if you’re looking at a rooftop tent, it’s not an option for you because your parents either have to sleep in the rooftop tent and the kids have to sleep on the ground somewhere else. So you put your kids up there, or you know, it’s just um rooftop tents are often not something family that’s where the base camp comes in because it caters to families, fits that size. It’s it’s awesome.

Ben: 14:09
So the the comparable thing with 23Zero, if we’re comparing the two here, the base camp is sort of part of their Hi-View range, um uh Darche’s Hi-View range, which are that folding style with a PVC cover similar to 23Zero’s Dakota range. So and Dakota comes in a 2200 as well. So but uh the but the base camp 2200 seems to be the popular option in that sort of category. Um but they’re the they’re the sort of affordable folding classic rooftop tents that we knew in the past before hard shell rooftop tents became a big thing.

Lauren: 14:41
Yeah. And I think that um the the also the other element of that base camp and and particularly being that size, the price comparatively, again, it’s such a huge big tent, but being that soft shell tent version, the price of it is still cheaper than a lot of the more modern clamshell, hard shell rooftop tents that only fit two people in.

Ben: 15:05
Tight tight two people. Tight two people, yeah.

Lauren: 15:08
I mean, some of them are you know 1100, 1200 wide. That’s a tight two-person option. Yep. Um, so yeah, it I mean, when you look at it on paper and you you really compare it with what else is available out there on the market, you can see why it’s popular, but it’s just um great family tent option. And then the other one for Darche is the um Buffalo.

Ben: 15:30
I’ve not had a good look at these. I must admit, I I keep saying I think I need to, I don’t think we’ve got one up in the shop.

Lauren: 15:36
I think we actually do recently, yeah.

Ben: 15:38
I need to have a good look through them because they look cool. The top of them looks really cool. Very cool, but it’s a side opening tent.

Lauren: 15:43
It’s a side opening tent in that it’s a clamshell, but it opens on the long side, not the short side. So obviously you’re going up into that longer side. And and the really cool thing about rooftop tents that are clamshell opening on the long side is that it opens up very square, it creates a very square, very open and airy. You got windows on both ends, windows down one side, you’ve got a lot of visibility from the top there. There are clamshell on the short side tent options that like Darche’s Hi-Rize, for example, where you can open it like a clamshell and you’ve got that sort of V shape, and then you it’s got a second roof that you can sort of lift up again. So you’ve got a Z on the side and it makes it all like a big box. But that’s obviously very heavy, right? Because you’ve got a couple of different layers and they do move around in the bigger. And I think 23Zero is dropping like a what it’s actually called Z, like it’s got the letter Z in it because it looks like a Z shape. But um, but so there are rooftop tents that give you a bit of flexibility with that option of either being a a triangle or a full square. Um whereas those the ones that open like a clamshell on the long side, they give you all of that room. It’s like the best of both worlds, but without the additional weight of having an extra shell section to and hinges and struts and whatever.

Ben: 17:06
So the walls are vertical, so you make the length use of the full length and almost the full width as well. Whereas pretty much, yeah. Uh a clamshell goes down to a point if it doesn’t have that X hinge and you lose a little bit of space at the end.

Lauren: 17:18
Yeah, and I and I really like the this like the the look of the Buffalo, especially. It just it looks like a really nice rooftop tent. And we do get uh, you know, I had someone call up the other day and they’re like, oh, we want three of these, you know, like because all of us mates are getting together. We want it, yeah. So it’s like it’s a it’s definitely a a popular option and quite different. It offers something a bit different.

Ben: 17:40
So you might need to consider a side opening tent if you’ve got a tent a car with a 270 awning and you don’t have a um thing up through the awning to get to rooftop tent, you can put a side opening tent to open on the side that doesn’t have a 270 awning. Excellent. So that’s a consideration with um why you might want a side opening awning. Yeah. Uh rooftop tent. Now um we should mention Darche do

Darche and 23ZERO’s Equivalent Rooftop Tent Models:

Ben: 18:00
have a similar sort of range. Well, Darche’s competition range, I suppose, to 23Zero Saber is their Hi-Rize, as you mentioned.

Lauren: 18:08
Um and their which line? Ridge back uh Ridgeback Hi-Rize.

Ben: 18:13
Sorry, it’s Ridgeback is the series. So the Ridgeback Hi-Rize has got that double fold thing, really big, really roomy tent, but they’re quite heavy. And they’ve also just got the clamshell opening ones as well. Now we don’t I don’t know why we haven’t got them on our website at the moment. Um, but that’s a that’s a competitive. If you’re going Doigger 23Zero Darche, you’re going to be going uh one of the Saber models or one of the Hi-Rize models if you’re looking at the similar type of tent.

Lauren: 18:35
Yeah, and and similarly, I guess if you’re looking at the Saber, similarly, the Ridgeback do have a couple of different models within that Ridgeback series, and they’ve you know, like they’ve even um delved into eco materials, eco canvases and stuff like that.

Ben: 18:48
They green colours and stuff, a little bit different.

Lauren: 18:50
Yeah, so lots of lots of variation, lots of variation in there.

Ben: 18:56
No, Darche’s got some cool new stuff. We’re gonna jump into some mentioning some new things a little bit later, um uh because they uh look quite innovative with some of those technologies, but I

Inspired Overland Ultralight Rooftop Tents:

Ben: 19:06
think we’ll move on to Inspired Overland next, because that’s uh other big brand that we can.

Lauren: 19:12
Like obviously, if you listen to the podcast pretty consistently, there’s been a lot of Inspired Overland recently.

Ben: 19:18
Um maybe we’ve been known about it too much, but it is new. I don’t think it’s been 12 months since we’ve had the brand.

Lauren: 19:25
No.

Ben: 19:26
We got excited about it because entry level 34 kilos for a two-person rooftop.

Lauren: 19:33
Which is worth getting excited about.

Ben: 19:35
So you’re now opening up the scope for everyone who’s got uh a Toyota Yaris or a Subaru Forester Jimny. I mean, there’s questions around whether you should or shouldn’t, because a Jimny’s roofload isn’t isn’t enough. Uh, that’s another conversation.

Lauren: 19:49
Another conversation.

Ben: 19:50
But if you want a a rooftop tent that isn’t 70, 80, 100 kilos, Inspired Overland, do that. That’s their primary focus. Now, there are some trade-offs to that, a little bit in terms of um, I guess how how sort of rigid and tough it is, all the extra features to mount stuff on the outside, a little bit sacrifice of space inside, but marginal compared to the weight savings that you get. They’re still really comfortable.

Lauren: 20:16
But yeah, and I think that’s the point. It’s like, what are you gonna get if you’re going for an ultralight version of something? It’s the same thing with hike with hiking tents, right? It’s it’s gonna be stripped down. If something is light, you can’t have a buttload of features and it can’t be massive and it can’t be made with heavy duty materials because it completely contradicts ultralight.

Ben: 20:35
And they’re only 13 to 15 centimeters in height on the car rather than 30. Yeah. So much lower profile, better on fuel. Easier to handle if you want to take your rooftop tent on and off, much easier to handle 35 to 40 kilos than it is to handle 70 to 100 kilos. So they’ve got a few in their range, they’re um tonneau cover, which is a they’re really affordable lightweight option. It’s got a zip around the side. I actually really like it because I actually not not true. What I haven’t what I haven’t said yet is not true. Um, previously, a lot of the clips on the rooftop tents were really hard to do up. When they first brought out clamshell rooftop tents, doing up the clips to squash everything down was you had to get your whole weight on it. Latest tents I’ve seen uh use a 23Zero’s vertex as an example. Not the case, they do up so much easier, they’ve made some changes. But the 20 the Inspired Overland standard and XL, same thing, just slightly one’s larger than the other, has a zip around the outside. It’s really easy to do the zip up. You’re not doing clips, you just zip around the edge, and it also creates a good water, watertight seal around it. Yeah. Um, and they have a what’s really cool with 23Zero is they play in the carbon fiber space. So they’ve got a carbon carbon light model, which has got a big carbon fiber sheet in the top’s got a carbon zone.

Lauren: 21:54
Inspired Overland, because you said 23Zero.

Ben: 21:55
Did I? Inspired Overland sorry.

Lauren: 21:56
Because I was like 23Zero, do carbon now?

Ben: 21:58
No, they don’t know. Inspired Overland. Um It’s got carbon fiber sheet in the top, some carbon fiber rails in the bottom. Um, I’ve got some other we’ve seen some other cool stuff from them. It’s carbon fiber as well. So they’re really playing in that lightweight category. Everything they do, they try and make lightweight.

Lauren: 22:17
Very cool.

Ben: 22:18
Yeah.

Lauren: 22:18
And so that is essentially having um those sort of tents on the market is starting to push other brands to and and obviously the success of that as well is starting to push some other brands into investigating what they can do in that space of being ultralight. Um which I think is really important because uh prior to Inspired Overland dropping, I can’t remember who it was, but I think potentially the I think it was the Dirty Dee. I think is it Darche Dirty Dee? That was one of the Double Dee. That’s it, the double D rooftop tent. That was a rooftop tent that dropped um just before we got the Inspired Overland in. And it, you know, it exceeds 100 kilos. Or it’s 96 kilos, like not including the ladder. And so we’re we’re sort of that rooftop tent space is how we can make rooftop tents so luxurious and so comfortable, and you put them on your tent, and you know, I mean put them on your car and whatever, but like pushing a hundred kilos is crazy for for something to be on the top of your tent, right? So then by con uh thank you on your car. So then by contrast, the Inspired Overland tents dropped and they’re like totally back the opposite direction. So I heard of the way. I feel like the the the trajectory of rooftop tents was very much going in one direction, and now it’s sort of at least part of it has gone, hang on a minute, put the brakes on, let’s try and go to the opposite extreme.

Ben: 23:51
Um if you’re in

Lightweight Rooftop Tent Alternatives:

Ben: 23:53
a car and you’re you’re looking for a rooftop tent, sorry, and you love the look of the Saber, um, or they Ridge back, that um full-length clamshell opening rooftop tent, and then you go, wow, it’s really heavy. Step back with weight. You first want to go to the Saber Superfly, which comes back to that 49 kilo category. If you want to go lighter in the. I think the Superlite. I can’t remember the weight on that one. It wasn’t quite 49, it was 50 something off the top of my head. Have a quick little um not as much space inside of that one though. But I think the Superfly is a better tent in that respect.

Lauren: 24:27
The Superlite, just just so it is about 64 kilos.

Ben: 24:31
I think they’re getting out of the Superlite. I think that one’s gonna disappear. Yeah. It’s been the they listened to what people are saying about it, made some changes, and now got the superfly and the version.

Lauren: 24:40
Superfly 53.

Ben: 24:42
There you go. That’s including uh ladder and everything. The base weight of the 10 is 45.

Lauren: 24:49
Yeah.

Ben: 24:50
Um, and then if you want to pull it back again, your car’s even smaller, uh a lighter weight or a more compact car, you’re gonna be looking at um Dakota Superlight. Well, the Inspired Overland range, or the Dakota Super Light is another option, which is a folding tent. So you’ve got I hope everyone’s keeping up with us here. We’re all over the place.

Lauren: 25:09
We’re just we’re we’re just ra we’re just rambling now, really, are we?

Ben: 25:13
It’s just a pub conversation about rooftop tents. Um the so Dakota Superlight is actually a really cool tent. It’s got a PVC cover, so it’s a folding thing, but it’s all self-deploying awnings. So the most time to set it up is getting the PVC cover off. And then you’ve fold it out and it all just pops up.

Lauren: 25:28
I’ve done I think I did a little video on that. I really like that tent. It was really cute. I’ve seen a few of them around on people’s cars as well. Um, so they do have that more boxy, soft shell rooftop tent profile on top of your vehicle, but it is smaller and it is a bit of a bit shorter or like height-wise, it’s not as high. Um, but that’s a really good option. It’s also really affordable. Yeah. And then interestingly enough, like Darche haven’t at this stage anyway. I don’t know what’s on the few on the future cards for Darche, but they haven’t really delved into that lightweight rooftop tent space yet. However, not too long ago, they did um they did bring out a what’s it called? It’s called a detachable rooftop tent, which I thought was really interesting or a little bit clever because um it’s sort of a little bit like how how far can you take from in terms of okay, well, without doing a me too product, you know what I mean? Like without just bringing up something that already looks like what other brands are doing.

Ben: 26:32
I think that’s where Darche is is moving forward in this space. There’s not all Me Too things. 23Zero is constantly evolving their resisting range. Darche is pushing the boundaries outside of that a little bit, yeah. And bringing out some things like the the Double Dee was one thing they brought out. That’s pretty cool. It’s massive, but then at the same time, a couple of things.

Darche Detachable Rooftop Tent:

Lauren: 26:50
And then like that Buffalo, that side opening thing. Like, yeah, but the Darche detachable rooftop tent is interesting in the

Lauren: 26:56
sense that it is light. Okay, so it’s lighter than a couple of your other options. Now, having a look here, it’s about about uh 41 kilos, but it’s essentially a uh a platform or a baseboard with a rooftop tent similar to the Dakota light, but the rooftop tent is completely removable. So you can attach it to your car and have a solid platform to sit up there and eat a deck, a deck on your roof to sit up there, watch the sunset, have a have a cold beer or a hot bevo, depending on what time of the year it is. Um, it’s got a rooftop tent on it that attaches that will fold away if you want it to, but you can also take that off if you don’t want to use it. You can it it will still, when it folds, it still folds with an air gap in it, as if the tent is in there. But you could use that for storing other camping gear if you don’t want to take your tent with you, right? It just it doubles as like rooftop, like a protected uh structured rooftop tent. Uh I meant, sorry, um, cargo bag, yeah.

Ben: 27:58
Almost. Yep.

Lauren: 27:59
But you can also use the tent on a stretcher, you can use it on the ground, you can use it on your roof, just gives you a bit of extra flexibility. Yeah, so it’s a bit of an odd product. I definitely recommend you check it out because it is unusual. It’s unlike anything else that um that we’ve got in our range or even on the market, really. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else doing anything like it.

Ben: 28:17
But quite affordable too.

Lauren: 28:19
Affordable, um worth checking out.

Darche Solar Rooftop Tent:

Ben: 28:23
Now the other

Ben: 28:24
thing Darche have done that that’s pretty cool is their solar rooftop tent. So they’ve taken a a tig welded shell, aluminium shell, and incorporated a solar panel into the actual shell. Yeah. So you don’t have to add a solar solar panel onto the side.

Lauren: 28:40
It looks like it looks like one of those um stealth fighter jets, right? What do you remember? Like when I was a kid, I remember there was these black stealth fighter jets that came out and it was like, wow.

Ben: 28:49
Yeah.

Lauren: 28:50
Um looks like one of those.

Ben: 28:51
Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I haven’t had a good look at it once again. Um I have seen it at a show black year or so ago. Yeah. Um it’s kind of, I guess it’s everything you’d expect. But the cool thing is that integrated um solar panel and like electricals in here. But all of these tents now, so not all of them, most of them are coming. I know the Saber range in particular, the ridge back range, I think, does as well. Um have integrated wires and uh Anderson on the outside so you can just get the power straight from your vehicle plugged into your own. Yeah, yeah. Um, but the solar one’s pretty cool. Something um something different and new if you it it allows you to not have the roof racks on top, but have the solar panel in there so you haven’t got that extra wind resistance and wind noise and that’s the thing. They’re not cheap. So that’s the only thing they’re not cheap, but they’re pretty cool.

Coming Soon From 23ZERO:

Lauren: 29:44
Yeah. I think

Lauren: 29:45
also there’s um a couple of new things coming with 23Zero’s new range as well. Like they’ve got an Onyx rooftop tent series that we’ve not seen before. That’s also like a darker canvas. So um lots happening in the rooftop tent space. We probably recommend you jump online and have a look through all the models and the options that we’ve got and just see see what’s cool and what’s new.

Ben: 30:04
The Saber Z as well. We mentioned that before, but that’s that takes that Darche Hi-Rize thing slightly different. It’s got like a little hatch on it. Yeah, you don’t have to use it. But yeah, it’s on our website. Check it out.

Lauren: 30:16
Also, obviously worth

Rooftop Tent Brands Beyond the Snowys Shelves:

Lauren: 30:17
mentioning there’s lots of other brands that do rooftop tents um around the traps. We’re obviously just talking about the ones that we sell and uh have first hand experience with.

Ben: 30:27
You go to a show nowadays and everyone’s got a rooftop tent. They’re all all have their own merits. We’re just talking about the ones that because we can’t we can’t carry them all. We’re just we’ve got some suppliers that we have good relationships with, and they’re the ones that we don’t.

Ben and Lauren’s Rooftop Tent FOMO?!

Lauren: 30:42
I don’t know about you, but I think when you see something like the rooftop tent space really boom and see all these really cool ideas and all these sort of things, I’ve never thought to myself, I’m a rooftop tent camper. Like I’ve never ever really envisioned myself being a rooftop tent camper.

Lauren: 31:00
But I have to admit that in the last couple of weeks, there is a part of me that’s like, I need a rooftop tent. And it’s like, I’m not even sure how, but I’m I’m I’m I just feel like my mind has gone to this space where it’s like, I want a rooftop tent now. I need a rooftop tent now. I’m probably I think I might just I might kit out a little trailer, um, chuck a rooftop tent on because I don’t want anything on my daily driver. But it’s like I want a rooftop tent. And it’s like I just, you know, it’s sort of it’s just…

Ben: 31:28
I’m a little bit the same.

Lauren: 31:30
It’s not FOMO, it’s just I’m being caught up in the excitement of all the cool stuff, you know.

Ben: 31:34
It’s Inspired Overland that’s pulled me into that space because you know as you know, I’m a weight person. So if you’re talking 30 odd kilos, and we did we did mention actually they’ve got something called a Trailpeak coming out soon, which is a side opening. Yes, that’s it does look cool. That’s roomier than their clamshell opening ones. Um has a tonneau cover, that’s pretty cool. But they’ve also got um, and we’re still working through what’s actually going to be available, but they’ve got um it’s on their website, something called a Stargazer, which is got a clear top on it, but they’ve got a Stargazer solo as well.

Lauren: 32:04
Which is just like a little one person half, yeah.

Ben: 32:07
So I need space on my car to put surfboards and stuff. But I think I could have one side as a rooftop tent. I still got space for my surfboard, and then I can just go. Then it’s just you. See you later, family. But not many people doing a single rooftop tent, but then we get the occasional question. I think it’s still out there whether that’s uh something people want or not. Um, I’m yet to have a look at it. I imagine it would be a little claustrophobic, a bit like a hiking tent, but which wouldn’t be for everyone.

Lauren: 32:32
If it suits you and your style, who cares?

Ben: 32:34
Yeah, but I’m the same. I’m kind of thinking, oh, maybe I could use a rooftop. Yeah, maybe there’s a way I could do this. It would make a really easy weekend getaway. Like on a Friday afternoon, you could say, I might just drive down to Pink Gum campground a camp. Yeah, I don’t have to pack much more than some stuff in the fridge.

Lauren: 32:49
Yeah, yeah.

Ben: 32:49
And I can set up camp. Don’t have to worry about whether the ground’s wet, pegs.

Summary

Lauren: 32:53
Nothing.

Ben: 32:54
Just get in there. So we might be converts. We might be anyway. Watch this space. I I don’t know if that was useful. Um, I hope it was. It’s just

Ben: 33:03
a pub conversation that we’re not going to sit here and say this is the best for you, but hopefully that gives you a bit of a a rounded view on the range, what’s coming out, how you might go about choosing your rooftop tent. But we’re always here to answer questions, uh, either in the chat on this video, in the group, Facebook group, because we can answer questions, but there’s heaps of other people in the group who’ll be able to answer the question as well. Yeah. We’ll give Lauren and her team a call and they’ll sort you out. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.

Lauren: 33:29
Catch you later.

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