The Bear situation here in Romania seems to be out of control. We have more than 6.000 bears in the Carpatian Mountains - the largest population of bears in Europe. There are more and more bear incidents and encounters reported in the media. And given that I experienced a few encounters myself in my adventures, camping in the woods seems unsafe and is no longer an option for me. At least not when I go by myself or in small groups. And since the bears won’t be going anywhere any time soon and I still want to enjoy camping, rock climbing and mountaineering, I have to be creative. A hard metal box seems like a safer place to spend the night in than in a tent.

And as much as I wish that I had a comfortable camper or at least a small van, I decided to give car camping a try and do the best I can with what I have. And what I have is this Mercedes_Benz A Class from 1998.

Turns out Mercedes had a few more tricks up their sleeves when they designed this brilliant car. One of which is the easy click-clack removal of the back seats and another one being the perfectly flat surface of the floor; let’s not forget the high interior. Even though this is a tiny car, all those features make the old A-Class one great candidate for car camping.

I haven't made any changes to the car for this experiment. No holes, no screws and I didn’t take too much time crafting anything special for this trip. I only improvised a few things that I imagined would be useful. It is a test run after all, and if all goes well, I will take what I’ve learned and invest more time in optimizing the car for an even better experience.

Supplies

Scissors

Tubular Wrench with E12 tubular key / also works with E14 and normal tubular wrench size 10

Textile material for covering windows

Magnets / I used GEOMAG magnets

Camping gear / sleeping foam / sleeping bag /

Step 1: Discretion and Privacy

I don’t know where we’ll be spending the night but I don't want to be waking up to people watching me sleep through the windows so the first thing I want to do is to find a solution to be able to cover up all the windows in the car whenever it’s time to sleep.

The thing I started with first was the window coverings for which I think that I found a fast and easy to make solution. Remember: what you are seeing now it’s only improvising or prototyping. It’s a proof of concept that can be refined in the future. So no criticism ok? What I came up with is a piece of black material mounted on the metal frame of each door with GEOMAG magnets. GEOMAG is a magnetic construction game based on two main pieces: a metallic ball and a rubber bar with a magnet on each side. You can easily buy this game from amazon or ebay or maybe your local toy store. I will add a link or two in the description if you don’t know what I am talking about. The best thing about geomag is the rubber around the magnets that prevent any metal parts from being scratched.
I didn’t hand pick the material for this project, it is something I had around the house. I think it is used in tapestry for covering the frame under the sofas. I cut the material with scissors to fit the frame of each window and that was it. The black material is very thin and it allows me to see from the inside out but blocks the visibility from the outside which is exactly what I want. Everything is easy and fast to mount and unmount and it takes very little space when not being used. Also it allows me to open the windows for fresh air without getting any mosquitos inside the car. The windshield and back window don’t have any metal frames so I can’t rely on the same method for covering those up. I used some coins to fix the material on the rear window and figured out I can use a sleeping foam to cover the front side. Those ideas definitely have to be revised in the future.

Step 2: Flat Surface to Sleep on / Removing the Unnecessary Seats

Because the front seats of my car don't have the click-clack fast removal system and instead are bolted in place, I decided to remove the front passenger seat and the right side of the back seats which is also the larger one, and keep the back seat behind the driver for my companion. I did this for two reasons: the back seat is easy to remove when it is time to sleep and is smaller than the front seat so I can store it for the night right on the driver seat which would be tricky to do with the front passenger seat which is way bigger.

The click’a-di-clack on the back seats works with a 3 lever system and it is fairly easy to use once you figure out where those levers are. The front seats are bolted in place with 4 special screws and you will need an E-type tubular wrench to remove them, size 12 I think. I didn’t have that size but I managed to unscrew them with a normal tubular wrench size 10 and a second time with a special E14 tubular wrench. If you have this car and wish to remove the front seats, check first the way they are mounted, because you might have the pleasant surprise to also have a fast removal system on your front seats as well.

With the seats removed I have an amazing 240cm space on the right side which gives me 50 or 60cm of storage space and 160cm on the left side which can accommodate a small person.

Step 3: Conclusions

I have to say i had a great experience sleeping in my car. I've learned that I love car camping. Other than safety, you can save a lot of money and you can sleep almost anywhere you want as long as you can get the car there.

You can sleep very comfortably in this tiny car. Micro Camping in this car is great for one person. It’s doable for two if the second person is small in height (around 160cm) but a bit crowded if you don’t pack light. A roof mounted storage space would definitely solve this problem making the A-Class a great Micro Camper for two people. For a longer trip in this configuration we will need to camp in a place with showers from time to time. You need space to store the removed seats and they are kind of heavy so if you have a garage it should be no problem but if you live in a small apartment and you have to carry them up the stairs for a few floors, this can be a drag specially if you will have to take them out and put them back in the car each time you go on a trip.