Impreza Wagon Weekender

[SnowDozerCJ5]

A friend of mine needs some ideas for winter camping with his wagon
I'm thinking the best thing to do is to make a shallow sleeping platform to level out the floor, then a slide out platform under the rear hatch for legroom, add a wall from a tent and have an instant shelter. a duffel bag on the roof for soft, light items. he wants an air mattress, but I think he will need a sleeping pad for headroom.

he asked me to start this thread for pro suggestions, it needs to sleep 2, and be a temporary so his lady doesn't hurt him.
Here is the starting point:

 

[Herbie]

I have camped a few nights in my '02 WRX Wagon. Main question is: How tall is your friend (and his lady)? That will limit sleeping arrangements.

I'm 5'6", so here's what I did:

Slide front seats forward and incline them as far forward as possible. Flip the rear-seat headrests around backwards. Now drop the seats. The headrests are now in a position to support a board to extend the bed area slightly. (Mine was 3/4" MDF about 8" wide by the width of the car, IIRC).
Using a cheap (Coleman?) twin size inflatable mattress, it fits between the interior humps for the strut towers. Inflate the mattress and wedge it down in place (tight fit.) You'll need the air mattress to smooth over the floor: In particular the backs of the seats have a weird "lip" that sticks up when folded down.

Fill up the corners with your soft luggage (clothing, etc.) anything hard will have to go on the roof if it doesn't fit in the front seats. With the air mattress, headroom was "cozy" but livable. You won't be sitting up in bed (comfortably), but you don't be whacking your elbows on the roof when you roll over either, which is better than I can say about some places I've slept. It WILL be cozy for two people - hopefully they like each other.

I sewed a set of curtains that stretched from the front visor mounts down the sides and across the back windows - nylon cords sewn into the top of the curtains hang everything nicely. I used S-hooks to catch the front visor mount and the rear strut mounts at the top. A little hook-side of velcro sewn onto the bottom of the curtains has just enough grab with that weird interior trim that Subaru uses in the hatch area to keep things secured at the bottom. I might have also used S-hooks to attach the bottom of the curtains into the front dash air vents, can't remember for sure. Combined with a regular front window shade it was more than dark enough to sleep, even when sleeping in a lighted parking lot (MakerFaire '08, for example.)

One nicety: I was able to "hack" the rear hatch release with an extra "pull" so that I could open the hatch from inside the car, making ingress/egress a lot easier. Find the mechanism and attach a thin pull-cable and run it out through the hatch trim.

For winter camping - Get a good sleeping bag, the car won't offer enough insulation by itself, but it'll keep you out of the wind. In humid climates you may need to crack a window to avoid massive condensation (trade against temperature concerns.)

Hope that helps.

 

[SnowDozerCJ5]

I'm not much help but He is shorter than me, I'm 6'
plans are to watch the 100 acre woods rally, and camp overnight in the Mark Twain national Forest... or a parking lot (good call on the curtains)
Did you use a twin mattress? the rear door hack might be doable if it is a clean mod.
I'm meeting him there with my S-15, sporting a topper shell, air mattress, and half dozen sleeping bags for myself,
hopefully he'll get some pics up, he does have a sub that I'm concerned about working around.

 

[02SubaruWagon]

Hey, thanks for the pointers! Thanks Joe for making a thread for me! I'm 5'9 or 5'10 on a good day. it will only be me in the back of the car, and i like the idea of sleeping in the back. Did you happen to have room to stretch out? i have crap back there right now, otherwise i would try and lay back there. lol. I just have a fiberglass sub box back there, its pretty flush to the driver side. so storage may have to move to the roof.

 

[Herbie]

Hey, thanks for the pointers! Thanks Joe for making a thread for me! I'm 5'9 or 5'10 on a good day. it will only be me in the back of the car, and i like the idea of sleeping in the back. Did you happen to have room to stretch out? i have crap back there right now, otherwise i would try and lay back there. lol. I just have a fiberglass sub box back there, its pretty flush to the driver side. so storage may have to move to the roof.

Yes, at 5'6", I can stretch out fully with room to put my hands over my head (I tend to sleep on my wide with arms under pillow, etc.)

Sub box might be in the way - is it something that can be easily removed for the occasional trip when you'll need to camp? A locking roof box would let you put pretty much everything up top any way.

The mattress I used I think was a twin. I measured between the rear wheel wells (tightest spot) and found a coleman mattress at Big-5 sporting goods that was within an inch or two. Inflated the mattress with battery-powered pump and shoved it in between - very stable. Like I said earlier, fill the corners with "soft" stuff.

The mod to make the hatch open from the inside was pretty steathy, just drilled a very small hole in the plastic on the extreme passenger side and ran some 1/8" threaded rod through and put a knob on the end. You could go even lower-tech and probably just use string with a loop on the end or some aircraft cable! If you take the hatch trim off, it's pretty easy to see how the lever moves the latch to open the hatch. You just have to attach something to that latching mechanism that you can pull sideways from inside the car. If I recall correctly, I used a thin piece of the metal part of a windshield wiper blade, but coat-hanger wire would probably work too.