Designed by Experience
Redtail Overland® is a boutique expedition vehicle manufacturer rooted in craftsmanship, innovation and a highly personal customer experience. We build only a small number of vehicles each year, allowing our team to obsess over the details, continually refine what we do and get to know the people we're building for.
Redtail Overland co-founder Ty Tatro brings more than two decades of experience designing and building expedition vehicles. Over the course of his career, he has helped create hundreds of vehicles, from million-dollar expedition trucks to some of the industry's most recognized off-road RVs. That experience—understanding not just how these vehicles are built, but how they perform in the real world—continues to shape Redtail's approach to engineering, design and innovation.
Our story began with a simple idea: rethink the rooftop tent.
Drawing on years of experience designing and building premium overland vehicles, our founders set out to solve the compromises inherent in traditional rooftop tents. The result was the Redtail Skyloft® - the world's first luxury, climate-controlled, hard-sided carbon fiber rooftop camper (Patent No. 11,130,437) .
We began sharing the Skyloft while it was still in development, and the response was extraordinary. The concept reached hundreds of millions of people around the world and generated a substantial waitlist before the first prototype was even complete.
But building the product to our standards proved considerably more expensive than originally anticipated. We explored outside investment, scaled production and outsourced manufacturing as potential paths forward, but each required compromises - to the product, to quality or to the way it would be made - that we weren't willing to make. Ultimately, we chose a different path.
Rethinking the Expedition Vehicle
The answer was hiding in the Skyloft itself.
Rather than treating it as an accessory, we began thinking about what could happen if the Skyloft became part of the architecture of an entire vehicle. Our background was in building luxury overland vehicles, and we knew firsthand both the advantages and the compromises of traditional expedition platforms.
The question became: Could we deliver the autonomy, capability and comfort of a high-end expedition vehicle in something considerably smaller, lighter and more maneuverable? That idea became the Skyloft® Van.
By integrating the climate-controlled Skyloft as a true second story, we could move the primary bedroom upstairs and dedicate the entire vehicle below to living space, amenities and storage. The result is an unusually spacious two-level expedition vehicle built on the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter platform, one designed to comfortably accommodate up to four people without requiring the size and weight of a traditional truck-based expedition vehicle.
Inside, every Skyloft Van includes two climate-controlled sleeping areas, an enclosed wet bath, full galley, large refrigerator and freezer, generous storage and a spacious rear lounge. Depending on the floorplan, four secure automotive seats allow a family to travel safely together, or additional cabinetry provides even more storage for extended travel.
But an expedition vehicle has to do far more than provide a beautiful place to live.
Redtail's roots are firmly in the overlanding world, so capability is engineered into the vehicle from the beginning. The Skyloft Van pairs its four-season living environment and robust off-grid systems with oversized all-terrain tires, upgraded suspension, underbody protection, front and rear recovery equipment and other purpose-built components designed for travel well beyond the pavement.
The philosophy behind it is simple: an expedition vehicle doesn't have to be enormous to be exceptionally capable.
Built Differently, by Choice
Remaining a small, low-volume manufacturer is intentional.
It allows us to build differently. Our vehicles aren't moving down an assembly line by the hundreds. Each Skyloft Van is built to order by a team that knows the vehicle, knows the customer and takes pride in the details that disappear when production becomes purely about scale.
It also allows us to continue innovating rather than designing around the limitations of mass production. From the patented Skyloft itself to the systems, cabinetry and details throughout the vehicle, we continually look for better ways to make extended travel more comfortable, capable and intuitive.
Just as importantly, we're committed to building responsibly. We're proud to provide good jobs and fair wages, and every Skyloft Van is handcrafted by our team in Boulder, Colorado. Keeping production close allows us to maintain the quality, working environment and level of craftsmanship we believe a vehicle of this caliber deserves.
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