History About Rooftop Tent

Sleeping on the ground is not a great option. And the invention of rooftop tent solves this problem, it presents a brand-new lifestyle for overlander and adventurers. So, what is the history of the rooftop tent?

For more information, please visit roof tent for vehicles china.

Before the invention of rooftop tent, many attempts have been made to utilize the top of cars for sleeping purposes but end with unsuitable and uncomfortable experience, cause the uneven and non-resilient surface, the central top area is too weak to take the weights, roof tents are meant to solve this problem.

Speaking about rooftop tent, according to Wikipedia, says roof tent is an accessory which may be fitted to the roof or bed of a motor vehicles which allows the users to sleep in relative safety and comfort above the vehicle, and leaves the internal load-space free. The first example of roof-tents appeared in Western Europe in the s, what&#;s more, Autohome claims that they are the first official rooftop tent company on the market who have the patent.

A picture of RTT far from recent concept.

The picture above is selected from Donald Wood&#;s &#;RVs & Campers, -, An Illustrated History,&#; and came across the above RTT mounted to a Fiat Topolino. The Topo-tent appeared in the January issue of Popular Science, though neither the magazine nor Wood provided any definitive information about the RTT or its maker.

If you are an overlander for years, you might know the brand called Autohome. An Italian brand who claimed they found the first rooftop tent brand in the whole world.

According to Autohome website, we can approach the detail article that wrote about&#; The World&#;s First-dating back to &#;, it says two types (&#;Maggiolina&#; and &#;Air Camping&#;) of tents are an historical synonym for roof tents. Two of them were created by different creators: Stogl and Gidion. Back then, the origin name of Maggiolina is called Autocampeggio Stogl, from the name of its creator, the models of the rooftop tent remain almost unchanged over 50 years of production.

Since then, roof tents have spread to all continents and been popular in outdoor and expedition circles, especially on large cars such as jeeps and Land Rovers in Australia, Africa and rooftop tent becomes a hot trend ever since, started from Western Europe to rest of the world, under Italian license, those countries including: Brazil, France, Germany, USA and UK.

Let&#;s take a look about those origin rooftop tents made by Autohome.

(Maggiolina roof tent on the roof of Fiat sedan (late Sixties)

But at the same time, if you google&#; rooftop tent history&#;, not very much message you could use beside the Autohome article we&#;ve mentioned above. So, I found an article about this, &#;the circa Corvair Greenbrier that appeared in our first look at factory-offered in-car sleeping arrangements, seemed pretty early. Part of a camping accessory group that Chevrolet offered, the Top Sleeper Unit appears to be a simple canvas-sided pop-up mounted to the Greenbrier&#;s roof with suction-cup mounts. Chevrolet described it as a &#;durable waterproof unit that will accommodate a 3/4 size mattress&#; that comes with a two-piece ladder. But two companies&#; claims to RTT precedence pre-date the air-cooled Chevrolet entirely. According to Italian RTT maker Air-Camping, inventor Giuseppe Dionisio patented his RTT in (to date, we&#;ve only found a French and an Australian patent for his RTT, both filed for in March ).&#;

Anyway, the correct time when rooftop tent been invented just like a blur in the mist. But the true fact we stand is roof tent is a great invention for nature lovers and overlanders.

As we already knew, the Italian rooftop tent manufacturer Zifer, who distributes Autohome, claims on its website its first RTTs were patented between and . The late Fifties appeared to be a boom time for RTTs.

The history of rooftop tent keep goes on around Europe and other continents, manufacturers like James Baroud&#;South Africa Front Runner and Alu-cab, they see the potential of rooftop tent market. Front Runner, South Africa rooftop tent brand who founded in s. Another well-known brand like South Africa rooftop tent brand named Alu-cab opened its doors in as a small canopy manufacturing business. It focused on custom built aluminum canopies for the off-road market. By expanding into new product like rooftop tent to go deep in the outdoor field.

Admittedly, Australia&#;&#;A country which have plenty 4WD fans, a country with vast territory with a spare population. ARB came out quick as a 4×4 accessories. The origins of ARB go back to , and they reached out for factories in China, that explains why Australia show up when mention about history of the RTT, cause the mount of overlanders is huge.

Some companies do their overland business smart and efficient just by acquired rooftop tent brand, here we introduced the company Thule, in they acquired Tepui as their owned, back then, Tepui already gain a lot of fames. As we all know, Thule make the best roof rack, they design the foothill roof tent which just half size of regular RTT, it remains space for overlander who would like to carry bike to go camping. The design is different from other tents on the market, which means roof tent type is developing from the user&#;s perspective.

The same year &#;rooftop tent finally hit the door of China, the soft shell tent pop the market and all the overlanders and manufacturers in China began to develop, most of them provide OEM for big brands. They came up with new RTT models and high degree of scale for Chinese manufacturers meet the needs of our customers. Some of the brands use similar design using fiberglass as tent shell (Autohome), some use aluminum, tough and-long lasting, it really depends. And Wild Land who founded in , become famous all over the world, in they start selling the wireless remote rooftop tent which start inventing in , and grow huge fame since . As the Chinese biggest RTT manufacturer, with unique patent designs successfully captured the hearts of the public.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of canvas roof tent. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

Speaking of the model, a Korean brand iKamper has great prestige. This brand did not start with imitation but with extraordinary models&#;that might be the key reason why this brand get so popular.

Nowadays, rooftop tents are getting more and more popular on the market, traveling with car, tent, portable fridge and so much more outdoor gears show up, we define an RTT as a separate tent attached to a vehicle&#;s roof, there&#;s more, not just a vehicle gear or a camping style, what we truly meant is a whole new life style, to go out, sleep on top of the car, to watch the sunrise and sunset, to enjoy what mother nature provides to this planet.

To stand rain and sand out there, manufacturers make a ton of improvements for the structure, fabric of the tent and also the plate. Here we mention about Autohome, they use carbon fiber to make the tent more sturdy, some use aluminum alloy or ABS with , another part is material, it can be polyester mix cotton / 100% cotton/acrylic fibers&#;countless knowledges inside of it, models of them did not change much, but with small changes to keep themselves different from other brands.

With rooftop developing, kinds of roof tents are being made, like Roofnest Falcon, Thule foothill, Tuff stuff Alpha, CVT Denali Pioneer Extended, with extraordinary figures, durable, sturdy structure. In recent days, Roofnest, Tentbox, James Baroud, Alu-cab are the top brands, with mounts of start-up brands, hard to picture the exact future of it.

Let&#;s take a fair guess, in the future, I wonder, is there a chance that more and more companies will be acquire by big groups, just like Tepui got acquired by Thule in , Front runner acquired by Dometic, and also TWG acquired Tuff stuff, no hard to tell that the rooftop tent field is facing the bright future just by simply see the big groups are going down for this game. Cause now there are many brands in the market that used to do auto parts are developing product lines and moving to outdoor products like rooftop tent. Will rooftop tent market develop the entire franchise formula?

Rooftop tent&#;&#;comfortable, easy to find a campsite, faster and easier to set up than ground tent, warmer and better insulated, it provides you a clean, safe space to enjoy your trip, with a simple introduction of the RTT history, get to know more about rooftop tent.

The Worlds First - dating back to .

For everyone, not only for those who turned travel and outdoor life into a passion, "Maggiolina" and "Air Camping" are an historical synonym for roof tents. An original Italian invention from (see historical leaflet) the Autohome vehicle roof top tent has been the companion of adventurers, explorers and travellers around the world for well over fifty years. The extraordinary intuition of that time, based on the newly born mass car-tourism market, identified a sense of freedom and independence and offered the greatest possible luxury as the basis of its well deserved success in the world market.

&#;Sleeping, ok. But how? And where?
An idea came forth: "...why not attach the tent on the roof of the car..."? The following question was a natural response: yes, but how?&#;

In mechanics there are countless solutions. It was just a case of understanding which one to adopt. Between the end of and March there had been two innovative interpretations of the same idea: vertical lifting tent and the lateral hinged folding tent.

Almost contemporary, the first one &#; even if just for a while &#; was the ancestor of the current "Maggiolina" (called "Autocampeggio Stogl" in its first version, from the name of its creator); patented between and , only a few months before "Air Camping", the folding fabric roof tent by Giuseppe Dionisio (an inventor and designer also known as Gidion) who obtained the relevant patent in .

Between the shell model and the folding fabric model there was no immediate competition, they were even lauched on the same stand at two exhibitions in , first in Milan and then in Cuneo. Both "Maggiolina" and "Air Camping", as they were named, with their extraordinary ingenuity were a huge success at the time, thanks to technical innovations that remain almost unchanged throughout over 50 years of production, travel and history.

Despite the commercial aspect concerning ownership which followed, the "Air Camping" model &#; which was easier to manufacture in terms of build and production &#; gradually attracted the attention of the public, finally entering the myth of adventure and extreme camping thanks to the historic adventures of Nino Cirani.

This innovative outdoor lifestyle accessory was then being built - under Italian manufacturing licence - in many different countries, including: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, USA and Great Britain.

At first, the roof tent represented an inexpensive alternative to independent travel, however as time passed, it became an essential travel accessory, to such an extent that the manufacturing company of the time decided to create "Autohome", a brand created and manufactured in Italy that now includes seven styles of roof tents, "Maggiolina", "Air Top", "Columbus", "Overland", "Overzone", "Overcamp" and "Air Camping", with well over 50 models available to choose from, plus accessories to suit all requirements.

Unquestioned equipment for adventure tourists, professionals and lovers of the great outdoors, Autohome is synonymous &#; today as in the past &#; with the adventurers who made history.

Autohome is the history of roof tents...

Are you interested in learning more about fiberglass roof top tent? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!