Hitch Mounted Suspension Awning for your Taco!

Hey Guys,

I'm a new member here but I have been lurking here for the past 8 years since I had my first Tacoma, a 2003 tan 4 banger manual. Ever since, I have been a passionate Tacoma aficionado. This led me to my first new vehicle purchase, that being a 2013 Tacoma 4x4. Because of this site, I've been able to find help for just about everything for my truck. So thanks guys!

In any case, I'm here trying to get some feedback on a project a friend of mine and I have been working on. We have recently launched a kickstarter for it (a first for us). It is a hitch mounted adjustable suspension awning. We'd been working on it for about a year and were about to scrap it due to my buddy leaving town for another job but we figured we'd just put it out there and see what happens. You can see it in the picture below. It's currently a prototype that we think is not too far off from the final design. Before we go too much farther we wanted to see what kind of reception it'd get. We had set a high goal, not so much to reach it, but with the hopes of at least getting some feedback about the idea. Just wanted to see what you guys thought? Thanks!

 

Any pics of it folded up?

 

The photo below shows how the whole thing folds up but you can get a better idea of it looking at the video we had put up on kickstarter.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1015254378/umbrae-a-suspension-awning-for-motor-vehicles

 

Bump

 

That's pretty awesome!! Go for it!!

 

Really cool idea!

 

Thanks for the feedback guys!

 

I like it. I am really interested in this as it is an alternative to roof rack mounted awnings. I hope this thing can handle strong winds through.

 

It's cool, but utterly impractical if you want to access anything in the bed of the truck. Any way of putting together one that'll clear the tailgate? I still feel that a roof rack mounted awning is more practical for that reason.

 

We've tested this thing at the beach with moderate winds and it held up very well. Although we haven't really subjected it to real strong winds.

 

Spin the Awning around 180 degrees, and attach that bad boy to a hitch swingout that can lock at 90 degrees. Boom. I'd buy it.

 

With this being the prototype, this was something that we were planning on addressing in the final design. We are planning on incorporating a swing arm design that would be able to free up access to the tailgate. Then be locked back into position for use.

 

That is exactly what we plan on doing with the final design. This prototype was our proof of concept.

 

My suf

My suggestion would allow for 100% function of the tailgate while the awning is in use.

 

Sweet!

 

Strong winds is a subjective matter. For example, I would like to use this where I work, but we get winds 20 MPH with gusts that reach 40+ mph. I doubt it would be cost effective to design around that kind of parameters so possibly a way to quickly collapse the awning would be an excellent alternative especially in a method that allows it to close with a breeze present (not dependent on gravity)

 

Possibly look at what hitch mounted BBQ's do? Improve upon an existing design.

 

We definitely saw those and were hoping to do something similar with our final design. For our prototype, we made due with what we could at the time. We wanted to prove the concept first and see if it would be worthwhile taking it further.