Car Rear Tailgate Tent for SUV, Wagon & 4WD with Awning

Your tailgate is already a roof. This makes it a room.

You pull up at the end of a long drive, lift the tailgate and that is the whole camp. It works right up until the weather turns. Rain blows in under the tailgate and gets into the bedding. The sun swings around mid-afternoon and cooks everything left in the boot. Then the light goes and every mosquito in the gully finds the one open hole in the vehicle. You end up sleeping in the front seat with the windows wound up, and you drive the next leg tired.

This is a fabric shell that drapes over the back of a wagon or SUV and closes that opening in. The tailgate lifts up inside it, so the boot floor stays your bench or your bed, and you get walls, a mesh door and a back you can zip shut.

The awning is the other half of it. Two poles, two guy ropes and two pegs run a 1.4 x 1.35 m panel out from the roofline, which gives you a patch of shade to stand in with the tailgate up and the drizzle off your gear.

What it is not is a free-standing tent. It has no floor, no frame of its own, and it only stands up because it is hanging on your vehicle. That makes vehicle fit the whole argument, and the supplier publishes almost nothing about it. The Limits tab deals with that first, because it is the thing most likely to go wrong.

What It Does

• Encloses the tailgate: the shell goes over the raised tailgate and down both flanks of the vehicle, so the boot opening becomes a room with walls instead of a hole in the weather.
• Hangs off the car: webbing straps pass under the body behind the rear wheels and clip back on, so the shell is held by the vehicle rather than pegged into the ground.
• Keeps the insects out: a full mesh panel behind the solid outer door, both on dual-direction zips that open from inside or outside.
• Runs a shade awning: a 1.4 x 1.35 m panel on two poles and two guyed pegs, extending the covered ground out past the bumper.
• Zips down flat: the whole back closes up with the tailgate down, so the boot stays covered while you are away from camp.
• Packs into one bag: shell, poles, ropes and pegs go into a single flat carry bag with a handle, at 5 kg all up.

Key Features

• 210D oxford fabric: the density the supplier states for the shell and the awning. No coating figure is published with it.
• Two-layer doorway: mesh screen plus a solid outer panel, so you can run it open for airflow, meshed for insects, or shut.
• Dual-direction zips: two zip runs down the sides and one across the top, worked from either side of the fabric.
• Under-body anchor straps: clip straps that run beneath the vehicle behind the rear wheels and pull the skirt in tight.
• Reflective strap detail: the anchor webbing carries a reflective element, so the straps show up in a head torch when you are walking around the back at night.
• 1.4 x 1.35 m awning: the only dimension the supplier prints on its own drawing, and the one worth planning your camp chairs around.
• Sectioned metal poles: two poles that break down into short lengths to fit the bag. The supplier does not name the alloy.
• Four colourways: army green, khaki, black and white, all the same shell.
• Everything in the bag: one shell, two support poles, two guy ropes, two ground pegs and the storage bag. Nothing else is needed to put it up.

Limits

Read this one first: the supplier publishes no vehicle fit range.

No make, no model, no maximum tailgate opening, no minimum. The only figure given is an installed size of 2 x 1.2 x 2.4 m, and the supplier does not say which of those numbers is width, which is depth and which is height. That is thin, and we are not going to dress it up.

Here is what we can tell you from the product itself. It is a drape-over shell, not a clamp-in panel. It sits over the top of a raised tailgate, runs forward over the roof and drops down both flanks past the rear wheel arches, and it is pulled in by straps that pass under the body. So it needs three things from your vehicle: a top-hinged tailgate or hatch that lifts up, enough rear width and height for the fabric to reach down past the wheel arches, and ground clearance to get a strap underneath. A barn-door or a drop-down tailgate is the wrong shape for it. A ute without a canopy is the wrong shape for it.

Measure before you decide. Take the width across the back of your vehicle at its widest point, and the height from the ground to the top of your tailgate with the tailgate fully raised. If either of those exceeds the largest of the supplier's numbers, the shell will not reach. If your vehicle is a small hatchback, the opposite problem applies and you will have a lot of loose fabric to gather up.

It carries no water rating.

The supplier calls the fabric waterproof, and prints that word on its own artwork, and we are not repeating it as a claim. Tent fabric is normally rated by hydrostatic head, which is quoted in millimetres — 2000 mm or 3000 mm are the common numbers. That figure is a pressure, not a length: it is the height of a column of water the fabric holds back before it starts to weep through. No such figure is published for this shell, no coating is named, and the seams are stitched rather than taped. Treat it as a shade and shower shell. It will handle drizzle, dew and road spray. Sit it under sustained rain and water will find the seams and the zip lines, and anything on the ground inside will get wet from below.

There is no floor.

The shell is open at the bottom. Whatever the ground is, that is your floor, and dirt, ants and runoff all come in under the skirt. Sleeping happens on the boot floor with the seats folded, or on a mat you bring yourself.

It does not stand up on its own.

Drive the car away and the shell collapses. It is a vehicle attachment, not a tent you can pitch at a campsite and leave while you go for a drive.

Two pegs and two ropes is a light tie-down.

Those two pegs hold the two awning poles and nothing else. The skirt of the shell is not pegged down at all. In a decent blow the awning is the first thing to go, and the honest answer is to drop the awning poles and let the panel lie against the shell rather than trying to hold it out. Extra pegs and rope are worth carrying.

Two figures that do not add up.

The supplier gives a packed size of 420 x 280 x 30 mm. A 30 mm thick pack cannot hold two sectioned metal poles, and the carry bag in the supplier's own photographs is plainly deeper than that. The 5 kg packed weight is consistent with the contents; the 30 mm is not. Do not plan a storage slot around it — allow for a soft flat bag around 100 mm deep and you will be closer.

No sun rating and no sleeping capacity.

The fabric is opaque and it casts real shade, which is a physical fact. It carries no UPF number, so we are not putting one on it. And the supplier states no person capacity anywhere, so we are not inventing one either — how many people fit depends entirely on the boot you are parking it against.

Q & A

Will it fit my car?

We cannot tell you, and nobody who is honest can. The supplier names no makes or models and publishes no fit range — only an installed size of 2 x 1.2 x 2.4 m without saying which number is which. It is built for a wagon or SUV with a top-hinged tailgate. Measure the width across the back of your vehicle and the height to the top of your raised tailgate, and compare them against those figures. If you drive something unusually wide or unusually tall, it is a gamble and we would rather say so than take the order and the return.

Can I still open and close the tailgate with it on?

Yes. The tailgate lifts up inside the shell and the roof panel arches over it — that is how the thing is designed to sit. With the tailgate down, the whole back zips closed over it.

Is it waterproof?

No, and we are not going to call it that. The supplier publishes no hydrostatic head figure, names no coating and does not specify taped seams. Shade, wind break, drizzle and dew are what it is for. Steady rain will get through the stitching and the zip lines eventually, and with no floor, water running across the ground goes straight under the skirt.

Do the poles and pegs come with it?

They do. Two sectioned support poles, two guy ropes, two ground pegs and a carry bag are all in the packing list, and they show in the supplier's own kit photograph. That is a light tie-down for the awning and nothing more — the shell itself is held on by the straps under the vehicle.

Can I drive with it fitted?

No. It is a camp shelter, not a vehicle cover for the road. It goes on when you park and comes off before you move. It also covers the rear number plate and the tail lights when it is fitted, which matters on a road or in a car park.

How long does delivery take?

Ten to fourteen days from the day you order — allow up to three weeks, and longer again if you are regional or remote. Delivery is free to Australia and New Zealand.

Specs