The All Terrain Bobcat is an aluminum framed, pop-up camper
that performs very well on the smaller pick-ups like the Toyota
Tacoma, or Taco. Toyota has made the Taco larger over the years,
and added bigger engines. The four wheel drive performance is
considered quite good. It is tremendously helpful in the snow.


But the Tacoma does not have a lot of capacity. It really cannot
carry a 1,000 pound camper with gear and two people, within the specs.
A thousand pounds is not much for a camper, either. Most wood frame pop-ups
seem to weigh a thousand pounds, but they usually have a lot of cabinets.
Tanks can be filled, and that is eight pounds a gallon, for water. The
other option is towing. The tow rating is over three tons, but that is
theoretical. If you want to tow three tons, a Taco is not a great choice.
Even for two tons, you may find that is a lot of weight for a six cylinder engine.

Is there any good way to have some RV convenience without all the weight?

The ATC Bobcat is a simple design. The camper extends to the
back of the standard bed, and a bit over the sides. The cabover
is fairly long, and that is basically the bed (the one you sleep on).
Since the bed is on a slide, and you sleep lengthwise, you get a very
large bed, essentially a queen size. This is pretty nice, when you
think about how little space it takes in motion, and how little space
there actually is, looking from the outside in travel mode.

How much space is enough?



Actually, if you keep this camper simple it has a lot of space.
Most current RV's are so full of stuff that you feel pretty
crowded, and then they add a slideout to 'open things up'. But
this is a lot of complexity. The All Terrain aspect is worth noting.
The camper is designed to take the stresses of some off road use. That's
obviously a plus. A lot of less expensive RV's do not look like they
would hold up, over time. The aluminum frame on the ATC is light,
but also strong. The outside is basic aluminum panels, which can be fixed
fairly easily. The inside is nice but not demanding. It seems like the best design
if you consider weight and strength, long term durability. Some designs, like the Airstream
will clearly endure over the years. A 13 foot Bambi costs thirty thousand dollars.
There are similar designs to this ATC camper that are 20 years old, and more.
Basically, the Four Wheel Camper is about the same.

The basic camper is sold as a shell. You can add to the shell, or buy a
full camper. The full camper has a water tank, sink, two burner stove,
and icebox. That takes up one side of the camper, and the other is a sofa,
in the full configuration. You can get a propane reefer and furnace. With
the shell, you might get the sofa, which is a pretty good place to start. The
sofa is comfortable, converts to a bed, and has a ton of storage underneath.
It is cleverly designed, if not terribly sophisticated in terms of setting it
up as a bed. Since this camper has no holding tank, disposing of waste water
is about the same with the kitchen unit or without. You collect it and dump it,
as far as I can see. Of course, there is no room for a bathroom. Basically, with
the shell, you need a simple stove, a cooler, and a plastic dishpan. One way to look
at it, at least. With the shell, you will have two empty 'steps' covered with basic
carpet.


SHELL SIDE




Where does this camper fit into the RV world? Well, since most of the RV
stuff is now super-sized, this is a totally different concept. It has plenty
of room for standing, unless you are over 6 feet something. Since the truck
basically holds two people, there is equal room in the camper. There is a place
to sit, or room for a camp chair. The expensive RV stuff barely fits in many basic
campgrounds. It is risky to venture down narrow roads, especially if you might have
to back out, with a huge fifth wheel or motorhome. Even getting gas, or diesel, can
be interesting. Everything comes with a price tag. The point of this camper is to not
know it is there, really, as you wander backroads or worse.

BIG Bed Pulls Out, Four Inch Cushions

This camper can be left on the bed of the truck. If it is mounted, you get a small
'office' if you carry some sort of table. The furnace will work with the top
down. It's a good place to carry stuff. You can stop to eat lunch or use a
portable potty, top down. The dry system PETT toilet might be a good choice.

For any group larger than two, the additional members should be fairly
small. This camper is a pretty good way to go for one or two. A twenty
foot travel trailer will have a bath and holding tanks. It will probably
have a standing bed, which accounts for 6 feet of the length, a dinette,
which probably isn't all that comfortable, and decent storage. For this you
may be towing almost two tons. There are 'light' trailers. You can do internet
searches and find a lot of problems with new trailers, and especially motorhomes.
The complexity comes at a price. A Taco towing a two ton trailer will not perform
well, and it might get 10MPG. I can get 16MPG with this camper, a shell with extras.
Comfort is nice, but what do you really want? How often do you move around?

This camper is more of a minimalist concept. How minimal? Well, music players are small,
as are portable DVD players and laptops. It's not like you can't lug along some
entertainment. I have a basic solar panel and an Engel DC fridge. These items
work very well together. An electrical system and a sealed AGM battery is a option.
It does add some weight. ATC wires the panel for a small fee. It makes it very simple.

Generally, the light weight of the Bobcat is the best feature. It isn't much
of an issue on a Taco. The fact that the pop-up works well is the second best
feature. There's a lot of room, the windows are at eye level when you are standing.
Everything is simple. You can add cabinets or racks, whatever works best to carry stuff
and do essential things. You could keep it really simple, but the options are nice.
The ATC has a decent electrical system. The furnace works very well. The pop
is a nice system, if not terribly fancy looking. If you want to explore the
wilds that are essentially free, wherever you can pull over, this is a great
choice.



I don't plan to explore the offroad capabilities. I just wanted
something the Taco could handle, and trailers looked like too much
the more I looked at them. Maybe the new Tundra. The Bobcat lets you
eat, sleep, and relax. It is more like a nice tent than a motorhome,
but there are many advantages. You can pitch it 'anywhere' in a minute.
A lot of people tow Tacos behind their motorhomes, which is a lot of length.
It might be easier to just take the Taco with a reasonable RV capability?


How do you get by with a basic RV? The PETT dry toilet might help. It uses a bag
with dry powder to gel and neutralize wastes. Then you have a trash bag inside a
Zip bag, which you toss in a trash can. There are "No Rinse" wash and shampoo
products. These items do not take up much space, and they help to offset the
lack of a water system. The DC Engel fridges are quite efficient, and there
are good coolers with a lot better insulation than a few years ago.

RV's have gotten quite large, over the years. The idea of vehicle
camping is not really what you get with a motorhome or fifth wheel,
generally. Some people live in these RV's, in which case you can
argue they are very small homes. Tents can be unstable. The pop-up trailer
can provide a lot of beds for a low cost. Small trailers are efficient,
but towing is towing. If you don't want to tow, and you don't think a
tent is right, this is a pretty good option.

With crank jacks, the mounting and dismounting is fairly simple.
The Taco has flared fenders, so you need extensions for the standard
camper jacks. The fiberglass bed on the Taco makes using
frame mounted turnbuckles (Torklift) almost essential.

Of course, it is advertised as an 'off road' camper
for serious four wheeling. I haven't noticed
anything to the contrary. On the Internet, I haven't seen
people saying they will fall apart if you push them
too hard. With the high quality turnbuckle system,
the camper is very stable on the bed.
The turnbuckles, especially the rear ones, loosen up over time.
A bed mat (not a liner) is said to immobilize the camper even more.
I guess ATV is a new old company. The people at ATV have
been in the business a long time, even though the company
is new


SIX MONTH UPDATE

If you want to look at the Bobcat as an RV, you accept
that there are huge compromises. I can buy a nice Dodge
Sprinter and do it as a simple camper. The diesel version
will get great mileage. But, it has a very limited amount of
space. The thing with a Bobcat is to use the space as well
as you possibly can.

The options I have are use about 60% of the shell space. On one
side, the sofa takes up all the space. The sofa is a place to sit
and I now use the sofa as a bed. There is a lot of storage under
the sofa, but it is a little annoying to get at. Another chunk of space
is taken by the furnace. The furnace is too loud and blowy to use all
night. I will camp to about 20 degrees. If I wake up and it is in the
20's, the furnace will heat things up in a couple of minutes to where
you can function. It takes a while to really heat the cabin, but there
is a lot of warm air once you turn the furnace on.

If you look at how the sofa is made, it's clear people could do some
simpler version based on the same premise. I don't 'care' enough to
toss what I have and start from scratch. The sofa is basically a box that
is attached to the frame with corner braces. There are three cushion pieces.
Two of the cushions are for the lower area, and there is a vertical 'back' that
goes all the way across. Everything is held in place by what I would call
friction. There are wooden stops on the lower parts that lock into the sofa
box. The back pushed into the lower pieces and pivots on the body of the
shell.

When you covert the sofa into a bed, you basically flip the back
piece down. A half flip brings the back onto the lower cushions,
and exposes the brackets. You flip the brackets out, and that
supports the back when it rests horizontally. The lower cushions then
go back in the box area, and the back is the front part of the bed.
Unfortunately, the friction of the wood stops and thesupports is not
solid enough for me, and I made wood pieces that hold the
brackets in place. I also run a bungee over the cushion to pull it in. This is
very solid, and easy enough to set up.

Given the simple nature of the bed, could someone do something
with more room or something that was easier to set up? Sure, why
not. I could make a box, have a hinged plywood piece, and fold it all
down for the bed, angled for a sofa. Now I'd need cushions and
probably other supports. It's hard to engineer
this stuff if you are just buying a camper and want to use it. But, if
I really want to use every inch of space and have a good bed
and have a little more comfortable sofa, I might try. Still, it is probably
not worth it. This design is simple, provide ample storage, and it works
as bed and sofa, at least with some mods.

On the side across from the sofa is a furnace and then a kind
of plywood step. This reflects the fact that the bed of the truck
is one dimension, and then the camper steps over the wheel wells,
and also over the sidewall. The double step is pretty handy
because it lets you create storage spaces. ATC suggested
building cabinets to store things but this seems like much more
trouble than it would be worth. If you sit in the sofa, the top
of the first step become the footrest of choice. I put a 4 foot
strip of aluminum on top of this, the corner kind that covers two
surfaces. It looks nice, and the plywood does not splinter off.
The aluminum pieces are available at Home Depot.

I simply use the 'steps' as storage levels. There is a dry toilet,
a PETT toilet, and a wooden box below this. There is a box for
electronic stuff, and I mounter computer speakers to the outside of
the box. The speakers are wired into the electrical system.
I use a storage box to hold a gallon of
water, the standard bottle you get anywhere.
Screw the boxes down with washers, of course

There is a lot of storage space behind the sofa. You have to find
plastic boxes that fit, or small bags,
like duffle bags. You don't want things that get
in the way of the use as a sofa, so you can only go
so high or you hit your neck. Still there is a lot of room here, if you work it out.
I put two carpet runners on the floor. The vinyl is not very
durable. These were from Walmart and are 20 inches wide. They
fit between the sofa and the furnace cabinet. I use a one burner Coleman
stove, usually on top of the furnace. Cooking odors can be a
problem. A full kitchen in something
like this might be a bit much.

I find I need some of the overhead space where the bed is.
Unfortunately, the included cushions fill
the area, and more, if you use them for the bed. It's
possible to get some kind of inflatable mattress,
but I haven't found a great one. The idea is to have the
mattress and the bedding all closed in the
overhead when the top is down, not using any space.
If you can keep it really simple, other items can
go overhead. A computer in the enclosed overhead is fairly
safe, given the complexity of raising the top.

The Bobcat is great for moving vacations. Do stuff during the
day, have a place to sit, eat, semi-cook, and sleep, in the
evening and overnight. The setup is simple and fool proof.
The electrical system is fine for the furnace, a basic sound
system working off an MP3 player, and a DVD player. The DVD
also uses the sound system. I also have run an Engel DC fridge
but it helps to be travelling during the day, so all batteries get
charged and stay charged. A solor panel tops the system off
and keeps things fully charged if the camper sits, unused.

I've used NoRinse shampoos and soaps. They work pretty
well. I've known people who 'had to' stop at motels for a decent
shower. I guess it depends. There are solar showers. The dry
toilet is OK, but I generally choose basic campgrounds so there
is a toilet of some kind. A toilet and holding tank system makes an
RV heavy and expensive. If you want that complexity, fork over the cash
and get it.

I like the fact I rarely level. I carry some blocks if the thing is terrible.
But with any 'real' RV you generally level for the sake of the fridge.
The setup time with this camper is around 2 minutes. Since I leave
stuff out and exposed, I can do whatever I want almost instantly.
The DVD player is not 'built in', but I grab it, plug it into the speaker
system, and watch. There is one jack, the input to the speaker, which
is always on, generally.

I haven't had any leaks. The vent blew up in a bad storm, and water
got inside and inside the ceiling. I dabbed vinegar and some stain
stuff for doing laundry. Nothing showed, when it dried. The vents
are not that strong, but I've noticed this on other RV's. Park across
the wind. The popup sides really impress me. I put the 303 on them, but
it's clear this is a good system and this is good material. The windows
are cumbersome but you need the light and ventilation. I need a
small step to work the outside panel of the windows.

The attachment system has been flawless. I see no signs of wear
on the bed. The brunt of the movement is absorbed by the fancy
front shock system. I go up bad dirt roads, but I don't crawl over
rocks much.

These days, even cheap travel trailers are sold on luxury. I often park
next to million dollar buses. If the idea is to move around and have a
convenient place to sleep, the bus is overkill. There is a lot to see
out there. You may need to plan a lot. I've switched a lot of things
around. A 50 liter 'fishing' icebox, very strong, with three 12 pound
blocks of ice seems to work, but it has to be in the truck for the
sofa to be a bed. So, little things mean a lot, getting the thing
to work right. There's no added stress, driving down the highway
with this thing. The mileage does drop, especially in wind and hill country,
or above 65 mph. But, overall, it does a nice job.