The Lightweight Pop-Top Truck Camper Revolution

The hottest trend in the car-camping and overland world right now is the lightweight pop-top truck camper. It combines a truck topper shell and a rooftop tent. These go-anywhere truck campers are ready for adventure!

The pop-top truck camper gives you interior standing room, a comfortable bed, and a large, locked storage area. It also offers up a solid platform to mount all your big adventure sports toys, like kayaks and bicycles, on the roof. The lightweight pop-top truck camper fills the void between the traditional truck topper and a full-featured, RV-style, slide-in truck camper.

The idea of an integrated tent in a truck bed topper or canopy isn’t new. Lately, though, there’s an all-new crop of this camper type sprouting up. And most of them incorporate wedge-shaped rooftop tents.

Let’s take a look at the current offerings in the lightweight pop-up truck camper space. Which would you buy?

AT Overland Habitat

AT Overland Equipment has been making quality products for the North American overland community since before most people had ever heard the word “overland.” The company started with off-road-capable adventure trailers.

Over the past few years, AT has moved into rooftop and truckbed living systems. The first of this style on offer from the brand is the Habitat. In just the first 2 years on the market, over 100 Habitat flip-open truck campers were sold, with continued growth since then.

The AT Habitat is unique to the current market with its flip-over design, much like many rooftop tents. This design offers a huge amount of sleeping room in the tent for up to four people.

It also offers a dedicated sleeping area for two while still having the entire truck bed area as a standing-height living space. Outdoor gear manufacturer NEMO Equipment helped develop the tent on the Habitat.

A great feature of this design is that the tent system creates a covered area over the back of your truck. This is a great area to cook outside but out of the weather. It also helps you keep wet and muddy gear out of your living space by giving you a covered area to remove shoes and soggy clothes before entering the inside living area.

There are two drawbacks to the AT Habitat design over the other pop-up camper designs. The first and most important for outdoor adventurers is that gear on the roof needs to be removed before deploying the tent. The second is that the Habitat tent can be quite a bit louder in windy conditions, as there is more tent to catch the wind and less rigid structure to the tent.

While this design might look more fragile than the pop-up designs out there, the Habitat is built to take whatever you throw at it. As with the other AT truck topper designs, the roof, when closed, can support up to 350 pounds. The big trick with the Habitat is that the cantilevered bed area has a massive loading capacity of 600 pounds.

All AT Overland truck topper campers are made of one-inch lightweight honeycomb composite panels skinned with FRP. This construction allows for impressive strength, low weight, and quality insulation, separating it from the competition.

AT Overland is also one of the only builders of this style of camper that currently has a full continent-wide dealer network. This allows you to buy any AT Overland truck camper and get product support much closer to home, or wherever your travels might take you.

AT Overland Summit

The second lightweight pop-top truck camper on offer from AT Overland is the wedge-style Summit. The AT Summit was introduced at Overland Expo West 2018 and was an instant hit.

This new camper builds on the same architecture as the proven Habitat. The big advantage over the Habitat is that you can leave up to 100 pounds of gear on the roof when you pop the top. No one wants to take down their adventure sports gear to make the bed!

The Summit’s bed is 48 x 80 inches, the length of a queen-size bed. It has a 2.5-inch-thick mattress and pivots upwards out of the way when not in use, assisted by gas springs. And there’s enough room between the sleeping platform and closed roof to leave bedding in place. Making your bed at camp was never so easy!

My only real gripe with the AT Summit, after spending many nights sleeping in one, is the foot room. I’m tall, 6’3″, and have big feet, U.S. men’s size 13, and my feet hit the low part of the wedged roof when I roll over in the bed.

This is a bit annoying and wakes me up at night. It’s an issue with all wedge-style campers, but a nonissue for those who are shorter and have smaller feet than me.

AT Overland Atlas

The third and most recent addition to the AT Overland truck topper lineup is the Atlas. The AT Atlas is built upon the same basic architecture of the Habitat and Summit but offers a full vertical pop-top design.

The AT Atlas can hold 50 pounds of gear on the roof when popped while still being able to open and close easily.

The tent on the Atlas and Summit is made of Sunbrella Firesist. This is a highly durable, fire-resistant, all-weather material typically used in commercial awning applications.

The bed in the Atlas is the same size as the Summit, 48 x 80 inches, but is made up of two panels instead of one big one. This two-panel design makes it easy to pop the tent from the middle and allows for stacking of the mattress in the cab-over area, optimizing truck bed living space.

The big win for the Atlas is the huge amount of sleeping area you get compared to the Summit while getting way more insulation in the roof over the Habitat. The Atlas design also means you can sleep easily with your head in either direction, versus the Summit where you will always want to have your head at the wider end of the wedge.

A great option to consider for both the Summit and Atlas is the insulated tent liner. AT Overland uses 3M Thinsulate FR insulation quilted into fire-resistant fabric. This setup adds to the already built-in insulation in the walls and roof. All-season camping was never so comfortable!

Go Fast Campers (GFC) Platform/Platform XL

If you want a little bling, and by far the easiest access to gear in the truck bed, the GFC Platform Camper is for you. This extremely lightweight camping system is designed for go-fast camping adventures in remote off-road environments. The Platform is designed for midsize trucks whereas the Platform XL is designed for full-size trucks.

Low weight and immense strength are the ideas behind the Platform. GFC said, “We build these things to jump.”

The Platform frame is made of steel tubing similar to a roll cage. This allows the camper to be extremely rigid and for all the sides to open, as they aren’t part of the structure. The crazy-strong and very sexy roof latches and hinge mechanisms are all machined from aluminum.

The downsides to the GFC designs are that the tent is made of welded vinyl fabric snapped into place. This setup is super durable as well as super easy to clean and maintain.

It’s also prone to condensation issues, however. The relatively thin 2-inch mattress is also not comfortable enough for many. Owners of GFC campers have been known to supplement or replace the mattress with memory foam or self-inflating camp pad options.

If the weather is nice, there’s no better camper to be in. The GFC Platform fully opens up like your own personal cabana. And GFC makes all this camper’s components in house. This allows them to control, modify, and upgrade everything in the Platform Camper system as the company grows and it receives more customer feedback.

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