He turned his car into a stealthy micro camper…?

Reset A− A+ This is the story of an anonymous reader who turned his Toyota Echo car into a stealthy micro camper. I suppose you could even call it a tiny motor camper. Have you ever thought of converting your car into a stealthy car camper so you can easily sleep in it while traveling without being noticed??

So you could get to places and travel farther without having to pay for hotels and such every night. Or maybe even camping out of State Parks, campgrounds, and such. ⛺️ So I wanted to show you this.?

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Man Turns his Toyota Car into Micro Motorcamper for Stealthy Car Camping

Of course, it’s considerably smaller than your average tiny house so I’m not sure if you’re still with me but even if you’re not…

Isn’t it fascinating what can be done to make an economy size car a comfortable place to camp out for the night if you ever really needed to?

I hope you don’t ever have to, but if you do, or you end up just wanting to, here’s a really good way to get by like this.

Because who would guess this unassuming Toyota Echo would be able to sleep 2 people (even if a little too cozily)?

I thought you might be kind of awed by the simplicity of this car conversion so if you would please read the rest of the story and see the tour this tiny little motor camper car conversion below:

When we make cross country drives it can get expensive to stay in a motel every night.

So for less than the price of one night’s hotel stay I converted our little 2001 Toyota Echo into a stealth camper.

I already had some of the materials on hand so really all it cost was the price of a sheet of plywood and a 6’x8′ piece of indoor/outdoor carpet.

Above is the back seat in its day-to-day mode. Those are camping pads strapped to the front of the seat. We very rarely use the back seat to transport passengers but it’s still possible although not very comfortable at this point. I plan to add some cushions soon.

Above and below is the trunk area deck. There’s a cut out on the left to securely hold a 5-gallon water bottle in place.

Under the deck, there’s room to store a wooden folding table, camp stove, a laptop, and a few other small things. A plastic dishpan will hold our kitchen stuff.

Above and below the transformation to the sleeping deck is taking place. Front seats are slid all the way forward and seat backs are tilted toward the front of the car. The bottom of the rear seat has come off and is placed securely over the transmission hump. Three pins along the edge of the seat will fit into corresponding holes on the underside of the deck so everything locks securely in place.

Two views of the fully extended sleeping platform. Just over 6 feet of space with your feet extending into the trunk area. With the self-inflating sleeping pads, it’s a comfy but firm bed.

Notice the two white U-shaped things protruding just below the rear deck. They were there to hold the back of the original seat in place. One of my goals in designing this was not to permanently alter any part of the car so that everything can be put back to stock should we decide to sell it. So I built this little folding table that fits onto those things.

Voila! With the addition of my laptop and a couple of speakers, the car is transformed into a media room to watch DVDs or listen to CDs.  I’m reclining on the back side of the forward tilted front seats. With a couple of pillows, it’s actually quite comfortable.

And we even have storage space for it, check it out below:

Here’s the trunk fully loaded for a trip. With 2 of those super comfortable reclining outdoor chairs it’s a pretty nice camping rig if you like to spend time in the great outdoors. It takes us less than 5 minutes to pull everything out and set everything up. I still need to address having some kind of system for privacy though. I’m thinking that one of those old-fashioned roll up shades attached to the rear deck could pull over the entire sleeping area and no one would even know you are there.

I discovered these great alternate compact camping chairs at Amazon. They hold 300 lbs. and fold into a 4″x4″x14″ case which will allow me to store them under the back deck and eliminate the large amount of space taken up by my current folding chairs (shown above). I plan to have all camping equipment in the car at all times so all we have to do is pack a bag of clothes and go.

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Alex

Alex Pino is the founder of Tiny House Talk, a leading resource on tiny homes and simple living since 2009. He helps readers discover unique homes, connect with builders, and explore alternative living.

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