Arpenaz Base M Review (+ video) – a great budget car/tailgate tent
This website is supported by our visitors. I sometimes earn affiliate commissions when you click through the links to affiliate partners and products, that I have selected manually and would or have bought myself – at no cost to you.
One year later – it’s still the best car tent. I tested the Arpenaz Base M tailgate tent during our 11-day camping trip in Croatia with 2 days of rain and I’m very happy with it. If you consider its price ~130GBP / EUR, compared to other car tents (awnings) starting at 250 and going to several hundred, it’s a very good option if you want to test whether this kind of camping is for you. Here’s my experience & review.
Key information
- Tent type: CAMPING LIVING AREA – single layer
- Size: Square living room with an area of 6.25 sqm (2.5×2.5m floor) and a maximum height of 2.15 m
- Tailgate opening size: height: 1.4m, width bottom: 1,4m, width top: 0.9m (and it gets wider, 20cm lower it’s about 1,1m) + you can stretch it to some extent to fit the boot nicely – see images below
- Waterproof: Tropical rain laboratory test | Under shower: 200 L of water per hour per sqm
- Packed size & weight: 57 x 18 cm | 18 litres | 8 kg
- Openings: 3 (2 doors, 1 window) + each with a mosquito net + a cover (for privacy). Big opening fits a tailgate (1.7m height from the floor, 1.4m height of the opening)
- Assembly: two poles, best assembled by two people
Arpenaz Base M tailgate / car tent review
120 GBP / 120 EUR
I haven’t seen a tailgate tent that works better in this price range. Easy to carry, easy to assemble and does the job perfectly – you will gain a lot of storage / living room with mosquito nets and window covers for privacy / during rain. If you add a tarp to cover the tailgate for additional rain protection, there’s not much that this (unintended) car tent is missing. If you are considering testing car camping with a car tent, you should definitely try this one. And you might actually never need any other one unless your family starts to grow 🙂
How does the Arpenaz Base M fit the car for camping?
The Arpenaz Base M big opening measurements are:
- height: 140cm
- width bottom: 140cm
- width top: 90cm (and it gets wider, 20cm lower it’s about 110cm)
But you can stretch the materials a bit, so it’ll fit around the boot opening nicely.
It should fit any car / MPV / SUV with its tailgate (where the tent will “hang”) not taller than 180cm. Anything above that and the tent will hang so that the floor adjacent to the car will not touch the ground completely.
The main/big opening cover sheet also makes it possible to fit onto the side door and taller cars. The tailgate won’t be 100% inside but it will cover the entire roof & tailgate. You just need to make sure it’s protected from the sides. See ways to fit it below.
Need something bigger?
If you need something bigger or taller, you could give the Arpenaz Base Fresh (10 people) a try. Its opening is taller and wider so should fit pretty much anything – but you will have to ensure it’s protected against water and mozzies getting in.
There are three ways how you can fit the tent over your tailgate or side door:
The tailgate “full fit” where the tailgate is inside the tent (image 1) or tailgate outside the tent (image 2) or side/sliding door fit (image 3). I find the first (full fit) best as there are almost no gaps – keeps the water and mozzies out the best.
second image thanks to: WILL WALKLEY OUTDOORS, third image: Sweeper Liam
I tested it on my VW Sharan 2013 and it fits perfectly. There are some gaps that you might want to cover in heavy rain or rain with a side wind or to block every single hole for mozzies to enter. In normal rain, it holds very well – it rained twice for hours and the water didn’t get in through the tent.
🏆Best cars for camping 🏆
- Fiat Doblò camper XL, High Roof 🇪🇺 4.0/5
- Honda Odyssey 🇺🇸 4.0/5
- Volkswagen Sharan 🇪🇺 3.9/5
- Caddy Maxi Camper (Life) 🇪🇺 3.8/5
See all cars in our database, their boot dimensions and more ➡️
Where the water does get it is down the sides of the tailgate and then enters the tent by dripping from the rear bumper. It is designed to do this intentionally as car makers don’t expect you to stick the tailgate inside the tent… I wonder whether this would be a problem with a more expensive car tent too?
How to fix that? Easily – just add some kind of thin sheet to lead the dripping water outside of the tent just below the tailgate. I used a small camping mat to do just that:
Confirmed to fit these cars:
(based on this, it will likely fit any MPV tailgate as they tend to be about the same size)
Fellow campers have tested the Arpenaz Base M tent with their campers and shared their photos & experience in various forums. Therefore you can be sure that it will fit these cars. See the gallery at the bottom to see how it fits various of these cars.
- Sharan
- Touran
- Berlingo
- Caddy
- all estates / combis
- Kangoo
- Partner
- Opel Combo
- most SUVs
- based on above, should fit all MPVs too
If you need something bigger, you could give the Arpenaz Base Fresh (10 people) a try. It’s opening is taller and wider so should fit pretty much anything – but you will have to ensure it’s protected against water and mozzies getting in.
User testimonials
(I’ve collected these across various FB car camping groups)
How does the Arpenaz Base M tent work with barn doors?
If you have a Caddy Maxi, it is going to be a tighter fit, but here’s how one Caddy Maxi user describes it:
“I have one with a maxi and have taken the zip out so it fits better. It will go but it’s tight to close the doors. I’ve seen some not reverse into it as far and of course, it’s probably better on lowered suspension.”
Caddy Maxi is taller than a Berlingo, so this shouldn’t be such an issue with a Berlingo. Perhaps, reversing fully inside is doable, but closing the barn doors will probably require lifting the tent sheet hanging over the doors first (the one with the zipper).
But once open, it should be fine. Or you could pull the tarp over the barn doors and leave the car further away from the tent so that the tarp + open barn doors will create a corridor between the car and the tent.
And of course, you can always use the 2nd or 3rd way if you won’t like how it fits the barn doors – see both in my video:
Video walkthrough:
Arpenaz Base M tailgate tent & car camping gallery
Post author:
Lukas
Founder of NimbleCamper.com, avid traveler and outdoor enthusiast. Car camping and microcamping allows me to keep traveling and exploring with a much greater level of freedom & privacy – to go anywhere and sleep anywhere. I didn’t have 30K to buy a VW Multivan, so found my way to the world of everyday car camping conversions. Here I share my experiences and what I learn.
Hey Lukas,
Do you see any reason why this can’t be used as a glamping tent? Thanks for doing the review.
Best,
Ken
Hi Ken,
sorry, your comment slipped my attention. Not sure what you mean by “used as a glamping tent” – glamping tents are big, luxurious, heavy and not compact to carry around.
This is a cheap, single layer tent, so the only way to make it a glamping tent is to put a comfy sofa, lush carpet and a TV inside 🙂
Lukas
Could this be used with a vw caddy with barn doors,short wheel base .cheers jack
Hi Jack,
should work fine – the Caddys barn door is about 114cm tall and 118cm wide (https://www.vanguide.co.uk/vw-caddy-dimensions). As you an see on the arpenaz tent opening dimensions image, it’s 140cm tall and 140cm wide at the bottom / 110cm wide at the top.
The 8cm difference might stretch the top a bit but shouldn’t interfere with normal use.
Saying that, I haven’t tested it myself on a barn door. Have asked other campers and will update here once I know more.
Hi Jack,
some feedback from one user:
“I have one with a maxi and have taken the zip out so it fits better. It will go but it’s tight to close the doors. I’ve seen some not reverse into it as far and of course, it’s probably better on lowered suspension.”
Maybe something taller would be better, see:
https://nimblecamper.com/airsecondsbaseconnect
or
https://nimblecamper.com/basefreshtent
Do you think it would workm9n a Honda jazz , 5 door hatch back? I believe the height of the car is 155cm
Hi Mike, it should work fine – as you can see here, you will be able to reverse almost the entire Honda Jazz into it: https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/arpenas-base-m-big-opening-measurements-size.webp.
Here’s the tent on a Mazda 5 (about 166cm tall): https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/arpenaz-base-m-mazda.webp. Your Honda’s 10cm height difference shouldn’t matter.
I’m presuming that ground clearance is about 25cm, which is about the height of the bottom zip in the big opening.
You will be able to cover half or more of the car with the cover sheet just above the tent’s big opening.
Hi Lucas.
Do you know if this will fit around my Berlingo multispace. It’s a 71 plate so it may be a bit taller and wider than older Berlingos.
Regards Andrew.
Hi Andrew,
Yes, the 2021 Berlingo Multispace is around 186cm tall, compared to my Sharan 172cm, but you can see that people have used it with a Caddy Life here (about 180cm): https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/arpenaz-base-m-caddy-life2.webp and judging by the rear lights, a newer Berlingo too: https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/arpenaz-base-m-car-camping-berlingo3.webp and an NV200 (186cm) here: https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/arpenaz-base-m-mpv2.webp.
One user (the Caddy Life one) also suggested a hack – dig a hole for each rear wheel, so it’ll sit a bit lower 🙂 You can easily lose 10cm like that.
So I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. If anything, you will lift the end of the tent closer to the car slightly off the ground when you open the tailgate, but I had some wiggle room on my Sharan, so the additional 16cm won’t stretch it too much – or you let it slide up on the bumper, so it will hang on the tailgate basically.
Or – there’s always a bigger option:
https://nimblecamper.com/basefreshtent
https://nimblecamper.com/airsecondsbaseconnect
Worst case scenario, you can always use it like this: https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/arpenaz-base-m-camper-alternative-tailgate-fit.webp – regardless of the car height.
Let me know how it went should you decide to buy the Base M (or send some pics, I’ll add them for others as a reference).
Thanks Lukas.
Will let you know how it goes. Regards Andrew.
A question received via the contact form, but relevant for this page, so pasting it here:
——————————————-
Good evening, just stumbled across your site the other day looking for a car tent, I have a Peugeot 3008 on a 63 plate and was wondering if the Arpenaz Base M would fit the tail gate, the sizes in your site are a lot smaller than what my car is, I was under the impression that the car would go inside the tent but if I was to do that it would not fit. Is it a case of just putting the car against the tent and try sealing it up, I have checked my sizes and it would appear that my tailgate will not go inside the tent, in the past I have been using a 2mtr gazebo, but I don’t have a way of sealing up the side at the tailgate, any advice would be appreciated , thanking you Craig
—————————————————
Hi Craig,
thanks for reaching out!
It’s a Peugeot 3008 2013 right? Then it’s height should be 1.64 meters: https://www.automobiledimension.com/photos/peugeot-3008-2013.jpg
Then you shouldn’t have a problem as I’m using it with my Sharan, which is 1.72m: https://www.automobiledimension.com/photos/volkswagen-sharan-2015.jpg
You don’t need to fit the entire car into the main tent opening (1.4×1.4m) – only the boot opening + the open tailgate. The tent is 2.15m tall, so the tailgate has enough room to open up. Should your tailgate open higher than my Sharan one, you might need to stop it, so it won’t lift the tent up too much – either by weighing it down with something, or by using a string to stop it from opening all the way up.
But as you can see here, my car is taller than yours and it fits nicely: https://nimblecamper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/sharan-arpenaz-base-m2.webp + the tent is taller than the actual tent opening, so enough room for the tailgate.
Send some pics if you decide to go ahead with the Arpenaz Base M 🙂