The Shop Tundra.
2005 Toyota Tundra. Built for Baja.

The back of the truck is the part we're proudest of. A MITS Alloy half-tray / half-canopy in the mid-size truck spec — 6.5-foot tray, 1-meter canopy, stubby drop-down sideboards, headboard water tank, fenders sized to the 35s, an under-tray pull-out drawer that doubles as a kitchen prep table, plus a dedicated under-tray box for the ARB Twin compressor and a second box for engine fluids. (MITS Alloy stopped exporting to North America a few years back — we're now the SoCal dealer for Summit Expedition Trucks, an American manufacturer building the same kind of tray-and-canopy platform with similar specs and direct-fit truck mounts.) On top of the canopy sits a Go Fast Campers V2 XL pass-through rooftop tent — this is one of our favorite pieces of the build. Because it's the upper half of a GFC platform camper (not a standard GFC RTT), the floor has a removable panel that lets you climb up from inside the back of the canopy without going outside. We built custom canvas walls that zip down off the canopy edge to enclose the back deck, so in bad weather you can stand inside the canopy area, change out of wet wetsuits, and pass through up into the tent without ever stepping out. Twin full-size spares ride on custom mounts at the back of the tent, an ARB awning sits on the driver side, and a MITS Alloy ladder swings down from the rear when we want a quick standalone tent setup.

Inside the canopy is the kitchen and the power system. The kitchen has a 12-volt camp oven (cookies on the beach in Baja are a real thing), a 1,500-watt induction cooktop, a Nespresso machine, a slide-out vertical pantry, and a pots-and-pans drawer — all built in-house in aluminum because MITS doesn't build a North-American-spec internal fitout and we wanted to spec it our way. The fridge is an ARB Elements outdoor-rated unit with a keypad lock on the back deck. The power system is a REDARC RedVision setup centered on a 300 Ah ReliOn lithium house battery, a Manager 30 charger, a BCDC 1225 DC-to-DC charger, a 3,000-watt RedArc inverter, three RedVision screens (cab, kitchen, rear), and a 240-watt RedArc folding solar blanket — no roof solar because the surfboards live up there. A DC Power 270-amp alternator with a Big-3 wire upgrade keeps that bank charged on the move. The cab side has its own dual-battery setup (twin AGMs from Off-Grid Engineering with another BCDC 1225 and a REDARC SBI isolator for self-jump), a Switch-Pros 9100 controlling lighting, a Kenwood TM-D710 ham, an iPad Mini for nav, and the original RedVision screen up top. Out front, an ARB bumper (a modified 2nd gen Tacoma unit — there isn't much made for 1st gen Tundras, so the build is full of adapt-and-make-it-fit moments), a Warn Zeon 10 winch on Master Pull synthetic line, ARB Intensity V2 driving lights, Baja Designs Squadron SAE fogs, and a Baja Designs 40-inch ONX6+ light bar across the Rhino-Rack. A 100-Series Land Cruiser snorkel with a Centri pre-cleaner because Baja dust is real. A custom 24-gallon aluminum auxiliary fuel cell under the tray adds to the factory 29-gallon tank for ~50 gallons of usable range — set up as a transfer tank so you can leave it empty when you don't need the weight.

Built to do its job. Drives where we point it, stays out as long as we want, and gets us home.