Rav4 Sleeping Platform
Context:
My husband and I often go car camping to rock climb outside. Nowadays, we rarely set up a tent and instead will sleep inside the car on top of our climbing pad.
Problem to Solve:
The rear seats of most Toyota vehicles don’t fold flat, which means we end up sleeping on an angle with our feet sliding into the trunk door all night. In addition, from the inside of the drunk door to the tops of the seats (when they’re folded down) is about 5 feet so my husband (6’) and me (5’6”) both end up curled into little balls while sleeping which is not very comfortable.
Solution:
Build a platform for my car that flattens out the angle of the seats and extends the sleeping area. Some requirements for this design were:
Fits in the trunk when not in use.
Relatively easy for 1 person to move and setup the platform.
Maximize the platform length.
Any extension that would require the driver seat to be moved forward be optional or easy to remove (in the case that we need to switch from sleeping to driving unexpectedly).
Keep the cost as low as possible.
Results:
The platform fulfilled all of the requirements and was super comfy to sleep on with our dog Gibbs! The main downside is that the platform reduces our headspace quite a bit so it’s harder to change clothes in the car etc. We could get a thinner sleeping pad to account for this, but we love packing efficiently and having the climbing pad be dual purpose as our sleeping pad at night. Things I would change for a second version:
I might consider making the trunk section of the platform wider to fill the entire trunk. Mostly, this change would be so that Gibbs has more room to sleep at our feet and so that any things we want accessible during the night (like water bottles or shoes) are easier to find and don’t have the option to roll under the platform. I landed on this width because it was the maximum width I could do with the wood I already had on hand and it allowed the platform to fold up neatly on itself within the wheel well width.
I might consider using thicker wood and screwing the folding feet directly into wood rather than the thin plywood I had on hand plus the 2x3/4in reinforcement pieces.
I’d screw the feet in just a bit more towards the center of the reinforcement bars because I split some of the reinforcement bars by screwing the feet in too close to the edge on this version of the platform.
I’d consider integrating sliding drawers to the trunk part of the platform for storage.
I’d consider scrapping the whole platform, replacing the roof box with a pop tent and building bigger storage in the trunk that would stay in the trunk even when we’re not on trips. This would clearly be a much more expensive route to go, but the issues it would address are the reduced head space with the current platform and it would make the car always ready to drive during the night in case of emergency.