Most of the Overland Expo team has known Bobby Culpepper for over a decade now, and many of us have owned one of his tents. When he announced earlier this week that he is once again the owner of Cascadia Vehicle Tents, we knew we had to reach out to congratulate him and to find out what’s next for a storied brand amongst the Overland Expo community.
OE: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Bobby. First off, congratulations on the recent announcement. While most of the Overland Expo team has known you for a decade or closer to two, can you give us a brief introduction?
BC: I’m Bobby Culpepper, founder of Cascadia Vehicle Tents. I’ve spent a big part of my life in the outdoor and overland industry, but more than anything, I’ve always been an entrepreneur who loves building things and bringing people together.
We sold CVT in 2022, and later I started Cloud Nine Camping Company, which gave me the opportunity to get back into product development and the camping industry again. But CVT has always been personal to me. It was never just another company or logo.
Recently, I had the opportunity to bring CVT back home and own the brand again. I didn’t expect that chapter of my life to reopen, but when the opportunity came, I knew I wanted to do it. I’m incredibly excited about what comes next.
OE: We’re excited to! CVT Tents have been a mainstay in the overland community and at Overland Expo for decades. Can you give us a timeline or history of the company leading up to your recent announcement?
BC: CVT really started from a simple idea: sleep comfortably on top of your vehicle with a quick, easy setup—making camping simpler and more accessible. We founded Cascadia Vehicle Tents in early 2010. At the time, rooftop tents were still relatively unknown in the U.S., so a big part of our early work was simply educating people about what a rooftop tent was and why they would want one.
We traveled across the country introducing people to rooftop camping, attending events, meeting customers, and helping build awareness of a product category that was still brand new to most Americans. From there, CVT grew quickly. We expanded the product line, opened locations, built a dealer network, and developed an incredible community around the brand.
One thing I’m especially proud of is that CVT became more than a rooftop tent company. Customers became friends. Families grew up camping in our tents. People would come back years later and tell us about the places their CVT had taken them and even update their tents to match family size or individual needs. #CVTFAMILY
Eventually, my wife and I sold the company. Afterward, CVT continued under new ownership while I moved on to other projects. Then, in 2026, the opportunity came up for me to reacquire the CVT brand and assets. After a lot of conversations and work behind the scenes, we completed the deal. So when I recently said, “CVT is home,” I meant that literally. I own the brand again, and we now get the opportunity to write the next chapter.
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OE: That’s great and definitely resonates with me. Our first rooftop tent, and we had a lot of adventures in it. Then we passed it along to some friends just getting into overlanding, and they’re still using it. Now that you’re back at the helm, what is the next step for CVT?
BC: The first step is rebuilding the foundation. I’m not interested in rushing out brand-new products just so we can say we have something new. We’re going to focus first on great rooftop tents, strong customer service, competitive pricing, reliable parts support, and rebuilding the relationship between CVT and the people who made this brand what it is.
We’ll also expand our retail and camp counselor presence and make it easier for customers to see tents in person. Long term, I want CVT to once again become one of those brands where people know exactly what it stands for: quality products, fair pricing, adventure, and a company that continually cares about its customers.
OE: What are you most excited about in terms of where you plan to take the brand?
BC: Honestly, I’m most excited about reconnecting with the CVT community. There are customers out there who bought tents from us 10 or 15 years ago and still have them. There are people who remember the original stores, events, trucks, and trailers, and even some of the crazy things we did in the early years.
Now we get to take that history and build on it instead of starting over. Product-wise, I’m excited about simplifying the lineup and concentrating on tents that solve real problems—lighter designs, slimmer profiles, and features people actually use.
I also want to make CVT accessible again. The outdoor industry has gotten incredibly expensive. I believe you can build premium products without making customers feel like they need a second mortgage to go camping. That combination—our history, our community, better products and fair pricing—is what excites me most.
OE: You have a broad-ranging POV on the overlanding community and the market. How have you seen the overland community and lifestyle shift since the early days?
BC: It has changed tremendously. In the early days, overlanding in the U.S. was a pretty small community. At events, everybody seemed to know one another. People were building rigs themselves, sharing ideas and figuring things out as they went, and rooftop tents were still something people stopped you in a parking lot to ask about.
Today, overlanding is an industry. There are thousands of products, purpose-built vehicles, incredible suspension systems, trailers, electronics, kitchens—almost anything you can imagine. Some of that growth is great because it has brought so many new people outdoors, but I also think it is easy to overcomplicate camping.
One thing I still believe strongly is that you don’t need a ton of money to have an adventure. Sometimes you just need your vehicle, a CVT, and a place you haven’t been before. That was really the spirit behind our original saying, “Camp Is Where You Park It.”
I think that message is every bit as relevant today as it was when we started.
OE: Can you give us any first looks or sneak peeks at upcoming developments from CVT?
BC: Absolutely—although I’m not going to give everything away yet.
We’re working on the next generation of CVT rooftop tents right now. You’ll see some updated hard-shell designs with lower profiles, improved mattresses and sleeping comfort, cleaner accessory integration, and features based on things customers have been asking for. We’re also working on rebuilding the broader CVT ecosystem—awnings, accessories, replacement parts, and products that make the entire campsite work better. And there are a few ideas I’ve wanted to do for years that I finally have the opportunity to explore under CVT again, but the biggest thing people should expect is this: we’re not trying to reinvent CVT into something customers don’t recognize. We’re taking what made CVT special in the first place, improving the products, and bringing that spirit back.
CVT is home. And we’re just getting started.
