I put this together last week for a camping trip. I got a big cheap canvas tent on Craigslist, and wanted to be able to roll it up wet/dirty as needed and not have it in the cabin.
This is on my wife's 2012 escape. We'll be working on making it more family car camping friendly, certainly not going to be a go anywhere overlander, but it's got a lot more potential than my Accord.
The rails on this were so flexy I wasn't sure it would be worth anything, but the bars have stiffened it up nicely.
Tbolts slide in to the factory rails, hacked up bed frame angle to mount 3/4" conduit, all nylon lock nuts.
I left the conduit long, and I'll probably cut it down to about 3" overhang. Might seem a bit high for some, but the main goal was to have more secure tie down for light stuff, tent, sleeping bags and pads, kids bike, and get it out of the trunk where we can put coolers, stove, heavy stuff.
Next steps will be to round over all the corners a bit better (grinder gave up when I was cutting them 3 months ago, now replaced), and make it easier to get on and off.
I'm also on the hunt for used roof boxes.