I Spent 7 Nights In The Pontiac Aztek Tent And Discovered An Engineering Masterpiece

I always figured the Pontiac Aztek tent was a bit of a gimmick. It’s an official General Motors tent that just hangs off the back of what many consider the company’s most hideous SUV ever. Very few of these tents ever existed, and it, along with the official Aztek air mattress, always seemed a bit inelegant to me. But in April, as part of a drive to get more Autopian readers signing up for membership, I agreed to buy an Aztek, a tent, and a mattress so I could sleep in GM’s most aesthetically-challenged SUV for an entire week. What I learned during those seven nights was that the Pontiac Aztek tent and its self-inflating air mattress are a truly magical combination, and closer to an engineering marvel than a gimmick. Here, let me show you what I mean.

“If 200 People Become Autopian Members In April I Will Purchase A Pontiac Aztek, Daily-Drive It For A Month, And Live In It,” my article from April of this year read. Three weeks later, you all delivered, and seven weeks after that I bought an Aztek for just $3,604. At that price, I wasn’t expecting much, but the vehicle that was delivered to me was in phenomenal shape (other than an unintended acceleration issue). We took it to Pebble Beach, where it was an absolute star, and I used it for all sorts of errands, concluding in my Unironic Review that the two-row, sliding door-less minivan is actually a great-riding, practical machine.

I even daily-drove the Aztek for a month, though it took me a while to find seven consecutive days to actually sleep in the car. But I did last month, and, well, here’s how that went:

I’ve already described my first three nights in the Aztek in my article “I’ve Slept Three Nights In The Pontiac Aztek Tent. Here’s What I Think About It So Far.” The short summary is that, initially, I wasn’t a fan of the tent. Night one at my workplace parking lot was rather windy, and watching and listening to the tent — whose rear arch is stiffened by a tent pole that isn’t held down to anything — just blow loudly all over the place was rough. Between all that tent motion and the fact that the Aztek’s rear cargo floor is far from flat, I came away rather disappointed.

 

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But in time, I started to notice the Aztent’s brilliance. I spent the second night sleeping in my Fiancee’s parents’ driveway, and on the third night, I returned to my workplace’s lot. I was surprised by how quickly and easily I could set the tent up all on my own. The process took only a few steps:

1. Open the rear door
2. Either install the factory plastic hatch stops or attach a Vice Grip to keep the hatch from falling
3. Drape the tent over the hatch and pull the rear of it over the dropped tailgate
4. Hook the straps at the top of the tent (which is now on the Aztek’s roof) to the coat hangers inside the rear doors; shut the doors on the straps
5. Hook the lower Aztent straps to the holes in the chassis
6. Slide in the pole and insert its ends into the nylon loops at the ten’s rear corners

That’s it. From start to finish, the job took three minutes, max.

Well, technically, there’s a seventh step involving staking the rear section of the tent into the ground via some long strings, but I was parked on concrete, so this wasn’t possible (and it explains why the rear flopped all over the place in the wind).

But it wasn’t just the ease with which I was able to install the tent that impressed me: There were other niceties, too. For one, there are plenty of great hidden storage bins:

And the window sills act as great nightstands:

And that always-on 12-volt outlet is perfect for phone charging:

By night three, my appreciation for the Aztent had increased, but the vehicle was still deeply uncomfortable to sleep in, as you can see by this face:

Night four was a low point. I had reserved a campsite just off the beach in Malibu, but by the time I arrived around midnight, the gates were closed! This meant I found myself struggling to find a place to sleep at 1:30 in the morning. Parking spot after parking spot said: “NO PARKING: 12AM to 6AM” and so I had to trudge on through a remarkably empty version of a city that hustles and bustles the other 20 hours a day.

Running around searching for a place to just put my head down and sleep gave me a new appreciation for the many Angelinos who have no choice but to sleep in their vehicles. It became clear to me that nobody wants folks sleeping near them; the “NO PARKING: 12AM to 6AM” signs were everywhere.

I eventually turned off the Pacific Coast Highway onto Mulholland Drive. I’d figured I could find a place to pull over, and indeed I did:

Unfortunately, I had no cell phone reception, so if something were to have happened to me (i.e. if a serial killer had stopped by for a visit), I’d have had no way to get help. Former-me wouldn’t care about this, but I’m getting married soon, so I have to be careful these days. Elise (Not Her Real Name) would be quite upset, and I can’t have that. So I moved on.

Mulholland Drive is an absolutely amazing canyon road, and at 2 a.m. there are zero other cars on it. But when you’re in a softly-sprung minivan with an unintended-acceleration problem that tends to cook brakes on downhills, and you’re extremely tired, it’s probably the worst road out there. Because its twists and turns seem to just go on and on.

I was able to finally limp the Aztek back to the Galpin employee parking lot, but I had absolutely no energy to inflate the factory air mattress. And so I slept on this tiny pool floaty-sized one that I had blown up earlier. It helped even out the Aztek’s lumpy floor, but it wasn’t great:

But night five was different. To prepare for it, I unboxed the factory-original Pontiac Aztek air mattress. Behold this glorious moment:

I hadn’t planned out a campsite for that night, but I figured I’d be able to find one somewhere, right? I mean, empty campsites are all over the place, aren’t they?

Unconcerned, I headed to a Porsche Macan EV party I had been invited to at Porsche Santa Clarita. It turns out, Porsche wanted dealers around the country to host events for the launch of its new EV crossover, and the shindig at PSC was an absolute banger, with all things purple as a nod to the nice purple color on the Macan EV. There were purple trees, purple ube tarts, purple ballerinas, and even purple mashed potatoes! I had a great time eating more crab than I could deal with, hanging out with Beau, and absolutely wolfing down those tarts as everyone watched the rather anticlimactic Tyson/Paul fight.

Anyway, it turns out that you can’t just show up at a campsite in the LA area, you have to reserve everything beforehand, and you have to show up at a reasonable hour. I thought the Malibu campsite had been an anomaly, but instead it ended up being the rule.

Luckily, Beau had suggested I sleep in the Porsche Santa Clarita parking lot, so that’s exactly what I did. It was here that I witnessed the glory that is the Pontiac Aztek’s self-inflating mattress.

The Rarest General Motors Part Of All Time

Type in the GM part number “88959212” anywhere on the internet, and you will find nothing. Zilch. Nada. According to the internet, this part does not exist.

And yet, it does.

Included with the rare Pontiac Aztek air mattress, it’s called the Seat Spring Cap, and the job of the four 3/8-inch long plastic sleeves in each package is to slide over the springs underneath the second-row seat. Why? Because those springs represent a potential puncture point for the air mattress, as indicated by the triangular exclamation signs on the instruction manual:

“To minimize the chance of mattress puncture, use enclosed seat spring caps,” the instructions read. Here’s a look at one of the four little Seat Spring Caps in the rare, hyper-desirable package:

“Insert a small screwdriver between spring end and bar. Apply pressure downward. Insert cap onto seat spring once it is separated from the seat hardware,” the instructions continue.

I didn’t use a screwdriver, but rather my cameraperson Griffin’s multi-tool [Ed note from a multi-tool geek: looks like a Leatherman Wingman, nice – Pete]. I just grabbed each spring-end, pulled it away from the seat bracket, and then shoved the little red part number 88959212 over the end:

Here’s a look at another beautifully installed Spring End Cap:

This, we can all probably agree, is the pinnacle of General Motors Engineering. Truly masterful.

The Self-Inflating Mattress

But just when you thought the Spring End Cap was the greatest bit of engineering GM could possibly have devised for its mattress, there’s the mattress itself: The “Model 3100 airbed,” GM part number 12489568. It is incredible.

We’ve all probably seen self-inflating air mattresses. They typically have an electric pump built in, and either a cord that stores in a little built-in bin or just a socket for you to plug a USB cable into. The Pontiac Aztek mattress, though, doesn’t rely on a potentially problematic electric pump. No, its “Built-in pump” is entirely mechanical.

The mattress has a bit of heft to it because there’s a solid “ring” built in. On the back side of that “ring” is a strap and a rubber flap/valve, which you can see below:

It turns out that all you have to do is pull on that strap while keeping the other side of the mattress on the ground (I just held that in place with my other hand), and once the mattress has a bit of air in it, you just push on the top of the mattress like you’re doing CPR and pull on the strap, and that will — via the aforementioned valve/diaphragm — inflate the mattress! Yes, you don’t have to blow into this mattress with your mouth at all, and there are no dastardly cords to worry about!

Anyway, with the amazing air mattress fitting perfectly between the Aztek’s rear wheel wells, and those spring end caps doing a phenomenal job at preventing puncture, night five was by far my best night of sleep despite the fact that temperatures reached 37 degrees and I wish I’d worn a warmer sweater.

For night six, I was back in the Galpin parking lot, and while it was warmer, I did manage to have a bit of an incident.

This strap holding onto the wheel (Pontiac suggests I attach this into the body, but I didn’t want to stretch the brand new tent) slipped and hit me right in the face:

Luckily, I was wearing my glasses, which are now broken and held together with duct tape. I’ve ordered some new glasses, and I really, really hope they arrive before my wedding next weekend.

But night seven — my final night — is the one that made me fall in love.

The Pontiac Aztek Air Mattress Is Incredible

I spent night seven at Thornhill Broom Campground right on the Pacific Ocean. Just look at how beautiful this is:

It was there that I began to truly understand the Aztent’s appeal. I pulled up to the beach, opened the hatch, threw up the tent in three minutes, and before you knew it (and thanks to that amazing mattress) I had a supremely comfortable, spacious, well-ventilated place to sleep, with a sensational view of the Pacific Ocean.

The tent, which fits extremely tightly around the Aztek’s body, kept the breeze out, but wasn’t stuffy at all. The storage bins were great for my valuables, the 12-volt outlet kept my phone charged, and those Spring End Caps and that self-inflating mattress: They were a game changer.

The Aztent improves upon a typical SUV in that it not only allows ventilation (which I suppose you could get by sliding socks over open windows), but it leverages the car’s tailgate to add another 18 inches of length, meaning even a tall person can fit in comfort without having to remove the rear seat.

I woke up Monday morning feeling rejuvenated, having listened to the crashing waves of the Pacific and the lovely beach stones clicking and clacking as the ocean tried to pull them in.

The Pontiac Aztek tent is no gimmick, it’s a masterpiece. Not only does the accessory work well, with its 3-minute setup time, its tight fit, and its amazing mattress that includes the rarest GM part ever and a self-inflator, but more importantly, it helps define a vehicle that’s already so soulful on its own. The Pontiac Aztek alone is extremely interesting, but it is not truly complete without its marvelous tent.

 

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