This Tiny Camper Is Smaller Than A Honda Civic And Grows To Three Times Its Size

There is a growing number of people who are eschewing the gigantic buses and massive travel trailers that the RV industry is known for in exchange for smaller, cozier fare. But what if you could have the best of both worlds? A camper that’s easy to maneuver and store, but is also large when you want it to be. This is the Beauer 3X, a tiny camper that’s smaller than a Honda Civic when it’s on the road, but grows to be a decent living space when it’s parked. Amazingly, you can buy one in America, too!

The transforming camper has been a fascinating niche to watch over the past few years. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the weird W2 Romotow T8, a camper that rotates open like a USB drive to give itself a patio. Then there’s the AC Future Ai-Transformable Home, a bizarre expanding motorhome that was once pitched as a solution to America’s housing crisis. Oh, and don’t forget the silly Chinese camper vans that double their space using an expandable second floor. Most campers don’t try to reinvent the wheel and instead use simple slides as they have for decades. But some companies try to take the idea further.

The Beauer 3X has actually been around for more than a decade, and it’s one of those campers that always seems to go viral. Granted, it’s easy to see why, because the Beauer 3X is more or less the camper equivalent of a Matryoshka doll, and that’s great for short-form content. The Beauer 3X has gone viral again, but this time there’s a good reason. Beauer just updated the camper’s design, and now it’s even cooler.

A What?

Beauer is not a recognizable name in America, but it has been carving out a little market for itself in Europe. The company, which is based in France, says it all started in 2010:

It was while admiring the small caravans of the sixties (Sologne, Georges et Jacques, Baillou, Escargot…) that Eric BEAU decided in 2010 to design a small caravan with a sixties look, together with his father.

“It has to be small, easy to install, quick to manufacture and modern,” he says.

To meet his specifications, Eric BEAU came up with the idea of designing a nesting caravan using telescopic sliding modules, for which he registered a patent. Strangely, no one had thought of it. On the road, you tow a small caravan that doesn’t take up much space when parked, and when you arrive, you get a comfortable 12m2 space thanks to 3 modules that fit into one: the 3X is born.

After a first prototype was made in the family garden, friends and neighbors asked if it was possible to buy one? The Beauer adventure was launched and the company created in 2012.

Beauer, which is a portmanteau of Eric Beau’s name, says that its 3X camper design won an award in France in 2017. In 2020, the company expanded by making a larger version of the 3X called the 3XC, and then a concept motorhome version of the 3X. There’s now a smaller Beauer 2X, too, and as you can guess, that one doubles in size rather than triples.

Extendable Trailer

The founders of the company have sold Beauer to four investors, who are taking the company into its next generation. The company’s flagship product is still the 3X, and it has gotten a refresh in July of this year. Let’s take a look!

The heart of the Beauer 3X’s design is what made it go viral over a decade ago. When the camper is in travel mode, it’s just 12.6 feet long, or shorter than most of the smallest cars on the American market. It’s also just 6.4 feet wide in the travel position, too. Add in the rounded body, and this camper should be a cinch to tow for just about any car or small crossover with a trailer hitch. The tiny size is great for maneuverability and storage, too.

The Beauer 3X’s viral party trick is what it can do with its body. At the push of a button, the Beauer 3X fires up its electric-actuated cylinders to slide out both sides of the camper’s walls in about 60 seconds. It works sort of like how the slides do on an American camper, only the slides are the entire walls. Beauer says that the expansion process triples the Beauer 3X in size. When open, the camper measures 15.1 feet wide. It’s not exactly triple the width, but roughly triples interior volume from 43 square feet to 130 square feet.

I should note that you cannot access the trailer when it’s in travel mode. So it’s not like you can leave the camper folded up and sleep in the 43 square feet of space. This also means that, if you need to access something inside the camper or use the bathroom, you have to expand it, grab the object, and then fold it back up. Check out the opening sequence:

Another angle:

This camper is able to expand like this because each of the body cylinders is ever so slightly larger than the next. The furniture in the camper also automatically folds up or unfurls as the body slides move in or out.

Pretty much all of the changes for the 2026 model year are cosmetic. Previously, the Beauer 3X was designed to look like a classic camper from the 1960s. Now, Beauer is embracing a thoroughly modern aesthetic. The largest change is at the entryway, which has a new locking door and an external overhang.

When open, the three modules provide four distinct spaces and two rooms. On one end is a dinette that has seating for up to six people. This can also be used as a lounge or as a bed. In the middle is a galley kitchen, which features a refrigerator, a stove, a sink, and a microwave.

From there, you have the closet-sized bathroom in the middle, which features a wet bath setup with a shower and a cassette toilet. Finally, there is a bedroom on the other side of the bathroom with a permanent bed, separated by a door. Luxuries are few, but they do include a television, air-conditioning, and heat. Here’s what the bigger version looks like:

Beauer says that this camper can sleep up to four people, but it should also be noted that this is not a camper that you’ll use for long stays away from infrastructure. The water tank is a puny five gallons, and the camper sacrifices storage space for living space. You’ll note that it doesn’t have any basements or pass-through storage like a typical camper. Ideally, this is something that you plop down at an improved campground for no more than a weekend.

According to the spec sheet, the camper sports an aluminum frame, an AL-KO axle, and a polyester-insulated polyurethane shell. Polystyrene is also used in the build to keep weight down. The weight shaving measures seem to work, as the camper weighs just 2,094 pounds with a gross weight of 2,976 pounds.

Available To Americans!

The coolest part, to me at least, is that this is one of those European campers that you can buy in America. Beauer says it began shipments to America in 2024, and despite tariffs and whatnot, it’s still willing to sell campers to Americans. There are no U.S. dealers, but the company says it’s happy to roll its campers into cargo containers and ship them to America.

The price is pretty affordable, too. The Beauer 3X is 29.990 €, or $35,189 at current exchange rates. The smaller 2X is 24.990 €, or $29,323. Meanwhile, the plus-size 3XPlus, which is more than twice the size of the 3X, is 74.990 €, or $87,993. Of course, if you’re an American buyer, you will have to pay the 15 percent tariffs, plus shipping and other fees.

Update: Something to be aware of is that European campers are a bit weird in configuration compared to American ones. European campers tend to have their axles more centrally located, and only about five percent of their weight is on the tongue, compared to the common 10 percent to 15 percent distribution that you’ll find here in America. This different safety margin allows Europeans to tow campers with tiny cars, but they also tow at slower speeds. Conversely, Americans tow bigger and heavier trailers at faster speeds, and generally need bigger vehicles to do it. So, keep that in mind.

There’s also quite a bit of a wait. Beauer has a small team of about a dozen people, and it’s taken the company until about now to deliver 100 units since its inception. Apparently, the firm is ramping up production, but the waiting period is still about a year to get one of these.

The biggest problem, I think, is not the wait but the lack of a service network in America. I’m sure some RV shops will take a swing at fixing it, but I wouldn’t expect it to be the same as owning something that was built in Indiana.

But if you can live with that and the wait, the Beauer 3X looks like it can be a fun little way to camp. It’s weird, it’s different, and it’s bound to be the talk of the campground when you push the button and it blows up in size. Is Beauer reinventing the industry or changing the game? Not at all, but the trailer does look really fun, and that’s pretty much what RVing is about.