Zone reveals super lightweight canopy

Innovative Queensland caravan manufacturer Zone RV is about to reshape the ute canopy market with a new, full composite lightweight design.

Weighing just 165kg, Zone’s crew-cab canopy is up to two thirds the weight, and is claimed to be stronger and more thermally efficient than similar fabricated products currently on the market.

It's design also frees up more payload and allows undercover products from fridges to auxiliary batteries to function properly in climatic extremes.

The Zone canopy has been designed to accept and support all current roof racking and storage systems and in the case of Zone’s own application, the pop-top queen bed currently an option on its Expedition Series box camper.

The construction of the canopy draws directly on Zone RV’s background as a luxury boat-builder and its current cutting-edge caravan skillset, with full-thickness composite walls, a vacuum formed rear section, innovative ‘saddle bags’ and provision for an underfloor slide-out kitchen for cab-chassis applications.

“Canopies currently on the market have been developed by sheet metal specialists and have evolved to their present form,” Zone RV director, Dave  Biggar told caravancampingsales.

“Instead, we’ve started with a completely blank sheet and made the most of our design and composite expertise to come up with something new and different.”

After trialling a prototype canopy on Biggar’s personal LandCruiser 75 series, Zone’s first production canopies are currently being fitted to two new Toyotas HiLux cab-chassis vehicles for their major lithium battery and electrical system supplier, Enerdrive.

Biggar said one of the keys to the canopies' strength was its construction, that employs the same bonding glue used on Airbus planes.

“We started with an idea, not a price,” he said. “Obviously we'll be selling at the top end of the market, but there is a demand out there for a product like this.

“At present, I'd estimate that the majority of crew cab utes that tow Outback caravans are probably illegal in their GVMs because of the combination of their ball load and the things they are required to carry.”

As well as its crew cab canopies, Zone RV is currently working on a larger two-metre version designed to fit on a LandCruiser cab-chassis that Biggar plans to use in conjunction with an Expedition rooftop bed module on a planned Simpson Desert crossing later this month.

“We can also fit the bed on dual cab models by allowing the bed base to extend over the rear or front of the cab, like a Luton Peak on a motorhome,” he said.

Biggar says the Sunshine Coast-based company plans to release its canopy as a customer-specified model which will be available directly through the factory, but the company’s entry into the canopy market was not limited to the structure alone.

“We are rethinking everything,” he said. “For example, we are looking at the canopy's superior insulation to develop a new fridge concept and other ideas."