A camper van versus a camper Tacoma!

Hey guys! Its great to be here. Just picked up a 2020 Tacoma SR 4x4 w/ the v6 Access Cab.

Usually I think purchasing a BRAND new vehicle is a total waste of money and overpriced, but I got mighty sick of dealing with scumbags on craigslist, and decided to deal with a scumbag at a dealership. Pick your poison I suppose! I figure I'll own this truck for 20 some years and drive it to hell and back, so getting it with 50 miles on it sounded great.

My partner and I have been looking into building out a van for a long time. We camp many many nights a year all around the Sierra Nevada and Northern CA. Occasionally we hit the far out spots in other states. We loved the concept of a fully contained camping unit, but after enough research we realized a few undeniable truths.

A camper van is never going to perform well off road. All the camper vans on the market today have mediocre reliability/ longevity. (Seriously, Try to find a Ram Promaster with over 150k...) A camper van does not make a good daily driver. A camper van with 4wd is way outside our price range... and still won't perform well off road.

With these thoughts in mind... we bailed on a van as the basis for our camping platform. Introducing the Tacoma! We camp fast and light, and in reality our perfect set up consists of 3 things. A comfortable bed, a way to make coffee in the morning, and a spot to hang out and drink said coffee in the morning. By the time we drink our coffee in the morning, we're out the door on a hike, fishing, skiing, or off to the next spot.

And then I stumbled upon Ripcord's guide to build a wedge top camper. I'm a manufacturing engineer, he's a mechanical engineer, and immediately I knew that I had every capability needed to build what he had built. So thats that! I've already run through the majority of the design details, started ordering the long lead time parts, and worked out some time I can borrow a friends shop/ welding equipment.

I'll go ahead and start a thread detailing the progress, decisions I make, problems I run into, etc.

Anyways, cheers guys!

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Welcome to TW Chris

 

Welcome to TW

 

Welcome to TW. Looking forward to seeing the progress of your project.

 

Welcome to TW!

 

You’ll be so glad you kept it light and fast AND that you can actually drive just about anywhere you want to. I’m a big fan of Pickup>Camper Van. Looking forward to the build!

 

Welcome, it will be exciting seeing another home built camper!

 

Welcome to TW! I think you made the right choice btw. Sounds like a great project.

We built a sleeping platform in the bed under the truck cap and are very happy. Light and fast is the best.

 

Welcome! If you reconsider, and might want something already built, my friend has a pop up camper for sale over here: https://monterey.craigslist.org/rvs/d/carmel-valley-2011-northstar-600ss/7132028993.html