If you’ve been scrolling through Instagram lately experiencing FOMO when you see minor car-world celebs cruising around the world with a roof top tent on their sports car, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Sports car camping has been done for decades, and Porsches especially, fitting the front trunk with a tent and sleeping bag and heading for the hills. But these days a roof top tent has been made all the rage by the increasing popularity of “overlanding” in trucks and SUVs. Having a roof rack with a permanent tent on it is something of a status symbol these days, and Porsche is more than happy to sell you one with a Porsche logo on it for your Porsche. Can you look cooler than having a matching roof tent?
There are a few practical reasons to get a roof top tent. For one thing, it’s significantly easier to set up camp at the end of the day with a roof top tent, as you can just pop it open and extend the ladder down to the ground. All of your bedding stays put inside the hard shell of the tent when you’re rolling around, so you never have to set up an inflatable mattress or unroll a camp roll. And it’s significantly more comfortable to sleep on a mattress with a hard shell under it than a thin sheet of foam with the uneven hard ground under it. In terms of sleep quality, the roof top tent is a big step up from traditional tent camping. That said, it’s significantly more expensive to do it this way, as the Porsche roof tent will cost you something like $5,000 [US pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but this Tequipment accessory costs 4980 Euros in Germany]. And that doesn’t account for the increased fuel consumption you’ll experience with this windbreak on your roof, or the extra 123 pounds you’re strapping onto the roof of your sports car.
The all-season two-person roof top Porsche tent is set for deliveries in November of 2022, and you can have your local dealership order one right now. The tent is capable of mounting to any Porsche with roof rails or roof racks, including 911s, Caymans, Taycans, Cayennes, Panameras, and Macans. This doesn’t work for cabriolets, targas, or any of the GT models. Personally, I’ll stick to a hotel room, thank you very much.