4x4 Car Trunk Canopy Tent Extension Rain & Sunshine-Proof

The back of the wagon becomes a room.

Camping out of the back of the four-wheel drive works right up until the weather turns. A raised tailgate keeps rain off your head and nothing else — it comes in sideways, the swag gets damp, and the gear you spread out on the grass is soaked. Then you are repacking wet kit in the dark, sleeping across the front seats, and driving home with everything mouldy in the boot.

Heat is the same problem from the other direction. Park in the open on the coast or out west and the boot is an oven by mid-morning. What you want is shade you can sit up in and cook in, not a hand's width of shadow under the hatch.

This is a hand-pitched tunnel tent that sleeves over the rear of the vehicle and gives you a walled, floored room straight off the tailgate. On the supplier's own panel it is 3 m long, 1.5 m wide and 2.1 m at the peak, model GB-130-8, and both the outer and the floor are silver-coated Oxford. It is shelter, not a sealed capsule — there is no insect mesh in it and no water rating printed anywhere. The Limits tab spells that out before you spend the money.

What It Does

• Extends the tailgate: a fabric skirt with a drawcord and buckle straps goes over the back of the vehicle, so the boot opens into the tent instead of into the weather.
• Puts a floor under you: the base is silver-coated Oxford, not bare ground, so you are not laying a swag straight onto wet grass or grit.
• Blocks direct sun: the fabric is opaque and silver-coated on the inside, which is why the interior photographs read grey rather than glowing green.
• Stands on its own hoops: two fibreglass arches carry the shape, pegged and guyed at the corners.
• Packs to one box: 170 x 170 x 650 mm and 6 kg, so it lives in a roof box or down the side of the load area.

Key Features

• Erected size: 3 m x 1.5 m x 2.1 m, the supplier's stated figure, printed on their own dimension drawing.
• Outer and floor: silver-coated Oxford cloth, both listed separately on the supplier's spec panel.
• Poles: two 11 mm fibreglass and five 7.9 mm fibreglass, seven in all.
• Vehicle attachment: drawcord-gathered skirt over the vehicle's rear plus side-release buckle straps.
• Roll-down rear panel: a silver panel rolls down over the vehicle-side opening and toggles back up when you want it open.
• Arched zip doors: the photographs show zip doors on more than one panel, so you are not stuck with a single way in.
• Pegging points: webbing tabs with brass eyelets at the pole feet, and four plastic hook pegs laid out in the supplier's contents photograph.
• Weight: 6 kg, packing to a 170 x 170 x 650 mm box.
• Two colours: green or black, both with the same silver interior coating.
• Hand-pitched: the supplier lists the structure as a hand-set-up tent, not a pop-up.

Limits

Everything below comes off the supplier's own spec panel or out of their photographs. None of it is guesswork.

• We are not calling it waterproof: the supplier prints no hydrostatic head figure in mm anywhere, and says nothing about taped seams. A silver-coated Oxford outer will shed a shower. Sitting out a night of driving rain is a different test and we have no number to back it with.
• There is no insect mesh: the supplier's panel lists mesh as none, and the photographs agree — every door is solid fabric. Open a door for airflow in mozzie country and they come in with the breeze. If you want a bug-proof room, this is not it.
• No inner tent: the panel lists the inner as none. It is a single-skin shelter, so expect condensation on the inside of the fabric on a cold, still night.
• No UV or UPF number: the fabric is genuinely opaque and it will give you shade, but no rating is printed on it. Treat it as shade, not as sun protection with a figure behind it.
• No published vehicle fit: the supplier does not state a tailgate height or width range, so nobody can honestly tell you it fits a 79 Series or a RAV4. Measure your own rear opening against the figures in the Specs tab.
• No sleeping capacity stated: other sellers of similar-looking tents quote four to six people. That figure is not on this model's panel and we are not borrowing it. You have a 3 m by 1.5 m floor, so work it out from that.
• Fibreglass is not a wind rating: hooped fibreglass poles are standard for this class of shelter and they are not a storm structure. No wind figure is stated. In real weather, drop it before it takes off.
• No certification: no standard, test report or certificate has been sighted for the fabric, the coating or the structure.
• The weight print is muddled: the panel gives 6 kg in one row, and 5.6 kg and 6.1 kg for gross and net in another, which cannot all be right. Plan around roughly 6 kg.

Q & A

Will it fit my vehicle?

The supplier publishes no fit range at all — no tailgate height, no width, no vehicle list. So here is what you have to work with instead. The tent is 3 m long, 1.5 m wide and 2.1 m at the peak, and it attaches with a gathered skirt pulled over the rear of the vehicle and cinched with a drawcord and side-release buckles. That drawcord is what gives it its tolerance. Measure the height and width of your own rear opening, and the depth from your tailgate to the back of the tyres, and judge it against those figures.

Is it waterproof?

We will not put that word on it. There is no hydrostatic head figure in mm on the supplier's panel and no mention of taped seams, so there is nothing to stand behind. Silver-coated Oxford sheds light rain. Anything heavier is a gamble and you should treat it as one.

Does it actually have a floor, or is it just a canopy?

It has a floor. The supplier's panel lists the tent base as silver-coated Oxford as a separate component, and you can see it running wall to wall in the interior photographs. That is the difference between this and a rear awning — you get an enclosed, floored room rather than a roof on poles.

Will it keep the mosquitoes out?

No. There is no mesh in this tent. The supplier's panel says so and the photographs show solid fabric doors throughout. You can zip it shut, but then you have no through-airflow either. Up north, or anywhere near still water in summer, plan on a separate net over your swag.

Can I set it up and then drive off for the day?

Not as designed. The vehicle-side end is a large opening that mates to your open tailgate, with a roll-down silver panel above it. Whether that panel closes the end off well enough to leave the tent standing on its own is not stated by the supplier and we have not tested it, so we are not going to tell you it works.

How long does it take to pitch?

No setup time is stated. What is stated is that it is a hand-pitched tent and not a pop-up: seven fibreglass poles to thread, then peg it out and pull the skirt over the vehicle. Budget the time you would give a normal hooped tent, and do it once in the driveway before you rely on it in the dark.

Specs