Tepui Tent RTT

[cruiseroutfit]

Just so there is no confusion. The MOAB is not a Springbar / Kirkhams product. It's a Compact Camping Concepts product were Kirkhams is the contract manufacturer for sewing the tents.

Gotcha, that makes sense. The owner of Kirkhams (Jack) is a Cruiserhead, a really neat guy. They make some great products

 

[Corey]

The Chinese are even copying my style of tent.
A member over on YotaTech posted this company.
http://autotoptent.com/

Their FAQ which they took down a short time back was word for word a copy of Mike's FAQ from the Autohome US site.
Pretty shameless if they can not come up with their own FAQ.

 

[Utah KJ]

Didn't see your link Paul, but we have found AT featured on some of these sites. When we ask them to remove the pictures they very courteously offer to sell us tents and trailers, often of our own design

I used to work for a major audio manufacturer and our product images showed up all over the place including ebay and sites for Chinese manufactures. What we did was copyright all our our images and had three levels of contact... the first was an email... second was a letter from in-house counsel and the third... well... we never had to declare DEFCON 3.

 

[UK4X4]

ooops sorry

http://www.made-in-china.com/products-search/hot-china-products/Roof_Top_Tent.html


203 of them

http://www.chinasuppliers.globalsources.com/china-suppliers/Roof-Top-Tent.htm

mmmm another 120 ish here

and yep it was your trailer Martyn !

http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/I/Camping-Trailers/p/sm/1036210480.htm

 

[kookulkan]

If he's making them in CA, then I tip my hat, and offer a formal apology for having spoken in haste. But as far as I can see, they look just the the tents on offer that I get several times a week in my inbox from various Chinese factories.
Again, if I'm wrong, I humbly apologize and retract my statement. And, I'm certainly not trying to dissuade anyone from buying it. Quite the contrary; if the price is right, and that's what you're looking for, go for it!

I actually got one of these but spoke with the owner before I made my purchase because I was a bit skeptical too. It turns out he and his wife began by selling the Anaconda brand from Venezuela first but because the country was so unstable and the owner would not entertain the idea of a webpage in English it was hard going so they decided to start their own brand. I think they are made in the US and the aluminum ladder seems to be exactly like the one you can order from Grainger online. Anyway the tent was very good quality and it seems like every corner was inspected before they shipped it. The only issue I had was they forgot the instruction manual. But he was super nice and had it overnighted the next day so no issue there. He also told me they offer distributor pricing for 4x4 clubs that become official partners. Our club, Santa Cruz 4Wheel Drive Club, decided to sign up and it is like $250 off the retail price for our members so a few others have gotten some tents to. They've been great on the Pismo runs if you don't have a trailer…...

“if you haven’t broke it you haven’t driven it”

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...I think they are made in the US...

Sorry, I don't own one but based on the pics alone and fact its a total carbon copy of the 3+ year old ARB Simpson II design which was re-designed to fix the issues this tent had (which has subsequently copied by handfuls of other Chinese manufactures), there isn't a doubt in my mind that these are Chinese made tents. In fact I'd be even more embarrassed to be a US based company that is manufacturing tents in the US exactly the same (ie knock-off) of a Chinese made tent.

 

[Martyn]

Due to the amount of speculation on this brand of tent I have invited the manufacture to comment on this thread.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Due to the amount of speculation on this brand of tent I have invited the manufacture to comment on this thread.

I'm not speculating

Did you invite the actual manufacture (i.e. Dongshun Tent in China or other) or the US distributor/retailer (Tepui)?

 

[INSAYN]

I actually got one of these but spoke with the owner before I made my purchase because I was a bit skeptical too. It turns out he and his wife began by selling the Anaconda brand from Venezuela first but because the country was so unstable and the owner would not entertain the idea of a webpage in English it was hard going so they decided to start their own brand. I think they are made in the US and the aluminum ladder seems to be exactly like the one you can order from Grainger online. Anyway the tent was very good quality and it seems like every corner was inspected before they shipped it. The only issue I had was they forgot the instruction manual. But he was super nice and had it overnighted the next day so no issue there. He also told me they offer distributor pricing for 4x4 clubs that become official partners. Our club, Santa Cruz 4Wheel Drive Club, decided to sign up and it is like $250 off the retail price for our members so a few others have gotten some tents to. They've been great on the Pismo runs if you don't have a trailer…...

“if you haven’t broke it you haven’t driven it”

Do you have any personal pictures of your's or buddies setups from your Santa Cruz club? I'd be interested in seeing some closeups of the details.

Do you still have your's?

 

[Martyn]

I'm not speculating

Did you invite the actual manufacture (i.e. Dongshun Tent in China or other) or the US distributor/retailer (Tepui)?

Kurt, you speculate, never!!

I wrote to Tepui, I guess it's up to them now.

 

[compactcamping]

cruiseroutfit, yes Kirkhams makes some great stuff!

Hmmm, based on the pictures from their web-site, I'll cover any bets that these are not US made

 

[kookulkan]

Wow you seem to be pretty aggressively knocking this brand. I only now realized that the thread was sponsored by Camping Lab also a roof top tent manufacture. Like a politician calling another politician a liar. Tons of the camping and off-road gear we use is either made in part or entirely in China and I'd bet a dime to the dollar that every tent canopy from ARB or all the other RTT guys is also made there. You just cannot get affordable industrial sewing done in the US. China or not I was impressed. I am not familiar with the ARB version but one of my friends has the Eezi-Awn Series 3 and he paid $2,700 for this tent. I paid half as much and it is easily better in quality and overall usefulness. They double stitched everything, reinforced all the corners with the 1200g travel cover material (whatever that is), triple bolted the straps to the frame so they don't tear. These guys are clearly campers. But hey bash away.

 

[bunduguy]

Wow you seem to be pretty aggressively knocking this brand. I only now realized that the thread was sponsored by Camping Lab also a roof top tent manufacture. Like a politician calling another politician a liar. Tons of the camping and off-road gear we use is either made in part or entirely in China and I’d bet a dime to the dollar that every tent canopy from ARB or all the other RTT guys is also made there. You just cannot get affordable industrial sewing done in the US. China or not I was impressed. I am not familiar with the ARB version but one of my friends has the Eezi-Awn Series 3 and he paid $2,700 for this tent. I paid half as much and it is easily better in quality and overall usefulness. They double stitched everything, reinforced all the corners with the 1200g travel cover material (whatever that is), triple bolted the straps to the frame so they don’t tear. These guys are clearly campers. But hey bash away.

I don't think anybody was bashing "this" brand. I think they/we were merely challenging the assertion by the OP that this brand is made in the US. Did I miss anything? And in defense of Fernando, a man who I have met only once, and whose products I know only as competition to my own; he had/has nothing to do with this and probably does not even know this thread exists. So, please, don't knock on Camping Labs as the sponsor of this segment.

 

[kookulkan]

Ok fair enough. Not trying to knock anyone just thought there were some pretty unfair statements about China too. I mean I know there is plenty of crap from China but I bet there is plenty of quality too. Just was giving my opinion on it.

 

[bunduguy]

Ok fair enough. Not trying to knock anyone just thought there were some pretty unfair statements about China too. I mean I know there is plenty of crap from China but I bet there is plenty of quality too. Just was giving my opinion on it.

There is plenty quality; hell, I trust my life to my 2 Chinese made Carbon bikes from high-end brands. It's just that in the case of RTT's, we're not so lucky because there are so many ways to cut corners to get a cheaper product to market. There are some that are better than others. I think we're in agreement, just from different angles.