DIY or Ready-Made Car Camping Platform? How to Decide

We sell platforms, so read this knowing that. What follows is still the fair version, because a badly judged DIY build and a badly judged purchase both end the same way: the gear sits in the garage and you stop going.

What DIY actually costs

The material bill is the part everyone quotes, and it's genuinely low. It's also about a third of the real cost. Here's the full line-up, with the items that blow budgets marked.

Line item	What it's for	Commonly forgotten?
Sheet material	Bed top, sides, any internal ribs	No — but a second sheet often is
Framing timber	Ribs and rails that stop the top flexing	Sometimes — and skipping it is why beds sag
Load-rated drawer runners	A drawer that holds gear and locks in place	Yes. The single biggest surprise line
Gas struts	Lifting the bed top and holding it up	Yes — and they must be force-matched to the lid weight
Hinges and fasteners	The folding mechanism, joints	Underestimated — cheap hinges develop slop fast
Adjustable feet	Taking the slope out of the boot floor	Yes — most builds omit these entirely
Sealant or finish	Stopping the ply drinking moisture	Yes — and it's what decides whether it lasts
Straps and anchor points	Keeping it still while you drive	Yes — and it's the safety-critical one
Tools	Track or circular saw, drill, clamps	Hiring or buying changes the maths entirely
Your hours	Template, cut, fit, adjust, re-cut	The real cost. Most first builds run a few weekends

Two structural things worth knowing before you price it up:

• A boot is not rectangular. Wheel arches, tapering sides and a floor that slopes mean waste, and waste means a second sheet. Template in cardboard first — cardboard is cheap and plywood is not.
• Weight is a design constraint, not an afterthought. Overbuild it and you have a bed you don't want to lift out, which means it never comes out. Underbuild it and it flexes under two adults. The target is "one person can lift it alone, without planning to".

The three things DIY builds usually get wrong

These aren't skill failures. They're all cases where the obvious solution is the wrong one.

1. Flat, but not level

Nearly every boot floor tilts toward the tailgate. Build a rigid box to sit on that floor and the box inherits the floor's angle exactly — you've made a flat bed on a slope, and you spend the night sliding downhill towards your feet.

The obvious fix is legs. The non-obvious part is that four fixed legs on an uneven floor will always rock, because three points define a plane and the fourth has to be somewhere. So you need legs that adjust independently, and enough of them that the top doesn't flex between them. Getting that stable, repeatable and quick to set up is a mechanism design job, not a cutting job.

Gap and slope are two separate problems, and a home build usually solves only the first.

2. Drawers that move when the car doesn't

Park on a slope and gravity now acts along the slide axis. A drawer on ordinary runners rolls open on its own, then rolls shut on your fingers while you're kneeling in front of it.

Two things most builds miss. Runners need to lock in both the open and the closed position, not just have a soft-close. And they need a load rating for the weight you'll actually put in, because a drawer full of water, tools and tinned food is heavier than a kitchen drawer by a long way — for reference, our PRO main drawer is rated to 80 kg and the LEVEL drawer to 50 kg. Runners that hold that and detent at both ends are a meaningful part of the parts bill. Skipping them is the single most common regret we hear.

3. It never folds away

This is the big one, and it's a geometry problem.

A one-piece build has to come out in one piece and live somewhere — a garage wall, if you have one. But the constraint people miss is that the folded package has to pass through the tailgate aperture, which is always smaller than the space inside the boot. A platform can fit beautifully in the car and still be a wrestling match to get out of it.

Because getting it in and out is a job, it stays in the car. And then the boot is gone for good: the weekly shop, the airport run and the school pickup all happen around a bed. A platform that folds into its own footprint and back out in about a minute is the difference between a camping car and a car you also camp in.

Three tests before you trust your build

Do these in the driveway, not on the first trip. Each one catches a failure that's cheap to fix now and miserable to discover at 11pm.

Materials: what not to use

• Not MDF. It's flat, cheap and machines beautifully, and it swells irreversibly the first time it gets damp. A car boot sees condensation, wet boots and spilled drinks.
• Not untreated interior plywood left bare. Seal or coat every face and, importantly, every cut edge — edges are where ply drinks moisture fastest.
• Careful with carpet finishes. They look factory-made and they hold damp against the timber underneath. If you use one, make sure the ply beneath it is already sealed.
• Mind the edges you'll touch. Round over anything at shin or hand height. You'll be moving around it in the dark.

Where DIY is genuinely the better answer

Not a courtesy paragraph. There are cases where we'd tell you to build it.

• You want a specific layout. A slide-out kitchen on the left, a dog crate on the right, a battery box in the middle. Nobody sells your exact arrangement, and a compromise you didn't choose is worse than one you built.
• The vehicle is unusual. An old van, a ute canopy, a boot nobody makes parts for. We don't build for everything.
• You can repair it anywhere. A home build is fixable with a saw and a hardware store, on the road, in a country where nobody has heard of your brand. That's a real advantage on a long trip.
• The build is part of the fun. Legitimate reason on its own, and the finished thing means more.
• Budget is the binding constraint. If the honest choice is a home build or no trips, build it. Go camping.

Where buying is the better answer

• You want to use it, not make it. It arrives, and the next free weekend is a trip rather than a project.
• Two adults, regularly. Full-width load, night after night, is where sizing and fixings stop being guesswork.
• The car has to stay a car. Folding away completely is the hardest thing on this page to retrofit.
• You don't have a workshop — or anywhere to store a large plywood box between trips.
• You'd be building it once and living with the mistakes. Every design here has been through several versions in real cars. First builds rarely get the fold right.

Scored by what you're optimising for

If your priority is…	Build it	Buy it
Lowest possible cost	Yes, clearly	No
Being out this weekend	No	Yes
An exact custom layout	Yes	Only via a custom build
A level bed, not just flat	Possible, but it's the hard part	Yes — adjustable legs
Keeping the boot usable mid-week	Rarely achieved	Yes — folds fully away
Roadside repairability	Yes	Depends on parts
Enjoying the process	Yes	Not the point

What you're paying for when you buy ours

Not the timber. The parts that are annoying to solve:

• Built to your vehicle — we work from the actual boot shape, so the arches and the taper get used rather than wasted.
• Adjustable legs on LEVEL, across 210–315 mm and up to 414 mm with extension legs — so the bed is level rather than merely flat, in this car and the next one.
• Runners that stop in both positions — the drawer stays where you left it on uneven ground. 80 kg on the PRO, 50 kg on LEVEL.
• Gas lifts — the bed top lifts and stays up, so you reach the storage and the sub-trunk without stripping the bed.
• Folds fully into the boot, and back out through the aperture, in about a minute. No drilling, nothing permanent, rear seats free for passengers.
• Arrives assembled, in LEVEL's case — unbox it and go.

The middle path, and what to learn from it

Build a rough plywood box for around $60 and use it for a season. Not as a compromise — as research. Keep notes on four things:

1. How many nights you actually went. The honest number, not the planned one. It decides whether any of this is worth spending on.
2. How much storage you really used. Most people carry less than they packed, and it changes which bed height suits you.
3. Whether the slope in your boot bothers you. Some floors are nearly flat. Yours might be, and then levelling matters less.
4. How often the box came out of the car. If the answer is never, folding away is worth more to you than you think.

Then buy — or don't, and keep the box. Either outcome is money well spent, and you'll be choosing with data instead of opinions.

FAQ

Is it cheaper to build your own car camping platform?

On materials, clearly yes. Once you count tools, wasted sheet material, load-rated drawer runners, gas struts, adjustable feet and the hours, the gap narrows a lot — and a home build rarely folds away completely, which is the part that decides whether your boot stays usable during the week.

What's the hardest part of a DIY build?

Levelling against a sloping floor, drawer runners that lock in both positions, and making the whole thing fold small enough to pass back out through the tailgate. Cutting plywood is the easy part.

How thick should the plywood be?

Wrong question, in a useful way. Deflection depends far more on the unsupported span than on thickness — roughly with the cube of the span — so adding a rib to halve the span beats adding millimetres, and it adds less weight. Test your actual span under load before building the whole bed on it.

What material should I avoid?

MDF, because it swells permanently once damp, and bare interior plywood with unsealed cut edges. Seal every face and every edge. If you carpet it, seal the timber underneath first.

Do I need to drill into my car?

No, and you shouldn't. A platform should sit on existing points and strap in place. Anything that needs holes in the vehicle affects resale and, in some cases, insurance.

How do I know if my build is good enough?

Three tests in the driveway. Put a level on the sleeping surface and lie on it for ten minutes. Load the middle of the span with more than the heaviest sleeper and watch for sag. Then fold it, carry it ten metres and put it back — if that needs two people, it will never leave the car.

Related reads

• All five options compared: tent, roof tent, mattress, van, platform
• How to choose a platform — what to look for in any brand
• How much weight can a platform hold? Tested figures
• Flat is not the same as level — the gap and the slope
• What to pack for a weekend of car camping

Important: Costs in this article are indicative and vary by market, materials and vehicle. This article is for general information only. It is not legal, technical, safety, medical, or campsite advice, and it is not a recommendation for your specific vehicle, location, or conditions. If you build your own platform, you are responsible for its strength, fixing and safe use, including how it is secured while driving. Always check the latest official information, your vehicle manual, and product instructions before travelling, staying overnight, or using any setup. Nothing in this article limits any rights you may have under applicable consumer law.