Driving Force: Keep On Trucking with Tune Outdoor

Sean Kepler was always more of a tent guy. A wilderness junkie and an outdoor-industry vet, he was comfortable on the ground. He liked waking up far from the pavement—right below, say, the rocks he was setting out to climb. There’s just something soulful, he says, about opening his eyes in the backcountry.

But Kepler is also, fundamentally, a product guy. During a career that has included executive-level gigs at The North Face, Reef, and Crocs, he’s indulged a penchant for developing equipment that helps people grow their passion for the outdoors. “I wanted to work with products that bring people inspiration,” Kepler says. “It was imprinted on my brain.”

Photo Credit: Tune Outdoor

So his ears perked up around the turn of 2020 when his friend Kristian Arnold, a fabrication whiz, pitched him on the concept of a lightweight truck-bed camper designed for pickup drivers who pine for the backcountry. Arnold, a fellow outdoorsman, thought he’d identified a gap in the camper market, so the two of them recruited other designers to help build a prototype in a garage in Evergreen, Colorado. They invested in polymer molds and ran eight 3D printers almost nonstop for close to two weeks. When they finished, they equipped a Tacoma bed with the first plastic prototype of what would become the Tune M1.

Over the next couple of years, they grew their founding team and eventually raised enough capital to open a Denver warehouse and scale up manufacturing. And they didn’t get too frilly. “We really liked our build,” Kepler says. “Our whole driver was to create something that worked for people like us.”

Photo Credit: Benjamin Rasmussen

The Tune M1 attaches to a truck bed’s rails just like a topper, leaving the bed and tailgate uncompromised. The livable area is spartan: The truck bed still looks and functions like a truck bed. Pop the sturdy, marine-grade polyester canopy, however, and the space transforms into a roomy camper with well over 6 feet of headroom and—because the M1 extends a few inches beyond each side of the truck—a sleeping area wider than plenty of other truck-camper models. Perhaps more importantly, the Tune M1 is feather-light, a little under 400 pounds on a short-bed truck (compared to some slide-ins that weigh in at several thousand), so it’s practical for overland driving. And when an M1 owner is on the move; that pared-down living area leaves lots of room for stowing bikes, skis, and other gear.

Tune officially brought the M1 to market in February 2023, and some 200 of them are currently prowling the backcountry. The demand is there, Kepler predicts, to build another 1,000 this year. This winter, I took one mounted on a Ford Raptor for a weekend in Colorado’s Front Range. Bumping down a national forest road, I was barely aware of the camper (gas mileage impact: negligible). Popping the top took about two minutes. The model I tested included a battery, storage system, plug-in fridge, stove, and propane heater—all features that greatly enhance the interior but don’t come standard on an M1, which starts at $13,000. Ample T-slot tracks, integrated throughout, make it easy to build out and customize the space.

Photo Credit: Tune Outdoor

Sure, Kepler acknowledges, some truck camper consumers may be looking for more amenities—a kitchenette, say. And he does expect the M1 to evolve. But the rig was also designed to feel minimalist, not so unlike the tents in which he’s spent so many memorable nights. In the M1, he still feels that outdoor connection he’s spent much of his life chasing. “At its core,” Kepler says, “I call it a meditation-delivery device.”

This article originally appeared in Wildsam magazine. For more Wildsam content, sign up for our newsletter.

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