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IPFS News Link • Transportation

BMW and The North Face team up on cutting edge teardrop tent trailer

• https://newatlas.com, C.C. Weiss

But that's not how it played out, as a collaboration between BMW Designworks and The North Face brought the collapsible Futurelight teardrop trailer to Las Vegas. The concept highlights TNF's rugged, new ultra-breathable fabric and features a unique design with a tent-style canopy, non-pneumatic tires and staggered beds.

To create the unique Futurelight trailer, Designworks and TNF looked closely at the 2008 BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, a shapeshifting concept roadster skinned in stretch fabric. Using that versatile skin and a movable substructure, the GINA could change its shape, either in response to driving conditions or at the command of the driver. 

The Futurelight concept trailer doesn't feature the shapeshifting capability of the GINA, but it does have a fabric skin with integrated stretch supported by an exoskeleton frame. We'd imagine that skin will be louder and less stable in high wind than the average hard-sided trailer body, but it also promises to cut weight and allow the body to collapse down like a tent for easier towing and storage. 

Though The North Face says that response to the trailer has been strong, we can't say we're anticipating a TNF/BMW-badged production trailer. Instead, the concept serves as an attention-grabbing way of relating the story about TNF's Futurelight fabric, which debuted at CES and will launch in waterproof-breathable outerwear later this year. Starting in 2020, the fabric will also find use in TNF tent construction, moving closer to its role on the concept trailer. 


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