Rear-Ender
A few years ago, Harris Upham described a tent that attaches to the rear end of a non-camper VW van. It includes an extension to the rear luggage area that makes a bed behind the back seat.
Meanwhile, this image was sent to me by alert reader Dan Soiney, who said:
"This tent was made by Westfalia for use on passenger vans. This tent allowed people to camp in their passenger vans by providing an extra 3 feet of legroom. It is held on the car by two small brackets on the car, as well as two supports which hook over the hatch supports. The neat thing about this setup is that the tent uses the westy screen snaps. Everything lined up perfectly when I snapped it on the car! This tent makes the bottom bed in a westy usable for tall people."
(The other tent in the image is a "Drive-Away" tent.)
More pics arrived 8/1/02 from Jamie Auch. See the pix at this location. Jamie says:
"The alcove adds an additional three feet on the back of the bus. My guess, the rear ender was made for passenger buses without the z-bed. It is very strong. the base has two tongues ( for lack of a better word) that slip into two brackets, then there are two arms that hook onto the hatch's hinges, then there are two more rods that attach to the bottom of the hatch. My plans are to put a full length z-bed in my '71 Deluxe (for my wife and me) the rearender for one of my girls, and a child cot over the front seats for my other daughter.