A Rooftop Tent Just Feels Right on a Land Rover Defender—So We Tried One Out

Setting Up and Striking the Land Rover Defender’s Autohome Tent
Ladder Woes
Sleeping in the Defender
How Did the Defender Handle the Tent?
Autohome-Land Rover Defender Rooftop Tent Pros and Cons:

land-rover defender Full Overview

When we found out we were getting a long-term 2021 Land Rover Defender 110, we knew we had to try out the Autohome Rooftop Tent (RTT) from the official Land Rover accessory catalog. It’s pricey at $5,999, so we borrowed one from Land Rover for a few weeks, mounted it to our Defender’s expedition roof rack (via four U-shaped clamps and eight bolts), and hit the highway to see if it might justify the cost. The destination: camping spots in Moab, Utah, and Sedona, Arizona.

Setting Up and Striking the Land Rover Defender’s Autohome Tent

The great part of the Autohome clamshell-type rooftop tent is that once you set up your sleeping bags, you can just leave them inside when you close the shell. This makes setting up and breaking down camp extremely quick and painless. The clamshell opens with a single latch, so setup is as easy as undoing the latch and letting the gas struts inside tilt the upper portion of the tent until it is fully open.

Closing the tent is almost as easy. It involves grabbing a pull strap attached to the top of the tent and lowering the clamshell back down. You then go around and tuck the edges of the tent into the shell before latching it. This can be slightly frustrating, and more than once we accidentally opened the tent back up while trying to tuck in a section of the tent’s side, causing a restart of the process. That being said, this was by far the easiest rooftop tent we’ve ever used—and that includes the Rivian tent we spent many nights with on the Trans-America Trail.

a rooftop tent just feels right on a land rover defender—so we tried one out

Ladder Woes

When it comes to setup, the only negative is with the included ladder. Unlike some RTTs, the ladder is not attached to the tent; it loosely hooks onto the sides. That allows the ladder to slide side to side but also makes it all too easy to accidentally kick it off the tent’s edge, leaving you to climb down the spare tire. We were so concerned about that scenario we secured the ladder with a shoelace tied to the top rung to make sure it didn’t fall in the middle of the night. (Not to mention the sliding can also mean it takes a beat or two to check where it exactly is when you want to descend.) The ladder is also quite flimsy-feeling with very narrow rungs. We know the ladder is capable and rated to hold this author’s hefty 250-pound frame, but it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence when the ladder flexes toward the fender and windows as you climb.

Had it been installed on our Defender at the time, it would have been better to use our new deployable accessory roof ladder; it’s hard-mounted to the Land Rover’s driver’s side and is much sturdier. The flimsy Autohome ladder would have then been relegated to, “oh no—it’s three in the morning and I have to pee, and I don’t want to climb over the other person!” duties.

Sleeping in the Defender

The mattress Autohome includes with the tent is comfortable and insulates well enough, although it’s not as comfortable as that in Rivian’s rooftop tent. Our trip took place during the winter, and nighttime temperatures dipped below freezing. The mattress and the thick tent sides were more than enough to keep the temperatures pleasant enough inside, but we still needed a 0-degree sleeping bag to stay warm.

Although the mattress was very comfortable, we found the tent’s overall size a little small for my liking. I’m a pretty big guy, and although a full-size mattress is big enough for me and my wife, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room to be comfortable. Autohome makes larger versions of the same tent, and if we were in the market, we’d probably opt for one of those instead of dropping $6K on the Land Rover-branded tent.

How Did the Defender Handle the Tent?

As for our Defender itself, it didn’t seem to notice the extra weight on the roof. We expected the tent to also make the cabin noisier, but it was possibly even quieter on the road because the roof rack was no longer the roof’s leading edge. That said, our Defender’s cabin is so noisy to begin with (thanks to that expedition roof rack) that a 10 to 15 percent noise difference in either direction doesn’t really matter.

One cool thing we discovered while setting up camp is that you can use the air suspension adjustment buttons in the back of the Defender to level the vehicle and subsequently the tent if I parked on a slight incline or decline. I was a little concerned the suspension would revert back to normal height overnight, but it always kept the position, making for a nice, level sleep surface.

Overall, the trip went well, and we enjoyed our time in the Defender and tent. After seven days on the road, it’s hard to think about messing around with tent poles ever again.