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:
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.
It’s very very cool, but I’m just not sure I can ever commit to the premise of slide-outs. Is their slide-out system and seals superior to the garbage that you get from most US manufacturers? Probably. But I just can’t shake the idea that I’m going to get absolutely boned on a long distance road trip by this design.
I’m going to assume that they managed to make it impossible to crush anyone when putting it back together?
Or, you can, you know, stay at a hotel. $35,000 gets you at least 150 nights at a reasonably nice Marriott or Hilton property.
Using the 4% rule, $35,000 gives you $1400/year to spend on hotel rooms perpetually.
Or… $35,000 paid off over 10 years at 10% is $552/month a.k.a. $66,240.
Alright, this is a totally valid argument made on every camper article, and it’s totally fair to keep making them. Campers are weird. They are an absolutely terrible value. But obviously this appeals to people who don’t like hotels. Personally? I love a GOOD hotel. But sometimes hotels are freaking gross, even the ones that are supposed to be solid.
There are a few, somewhat rare cases that they make sense. Young(ish) retirees that travel for months a year. A coworker that uses his camper for a couple months a year for travelling to his kid’s sports tournaments (weird but fair I guess). Extra space for family vacation properties (a very very common use case around here, where nobody other than the wealthy can afford to expand or improve family camp properties, so everyone just sets up a camper for extra interior space, which doesn’t impact insane property taxes). And then of course people that just enjoy the experience relative to bopping around from cookie cutter hotel to hotel.
TLDR; there’s a case for campers, even if on paper they seem extraordinarily stupid.
This is a very cool design, and the size and amenities would be great for my wife and I. That price tag though… oof.
When I joked about how nobody was interested in my telescoping camper that features a gun range or bowling alley a couple of years ago, I did not realize someone was already building it.
In Europe you can’t plop down your camper anywhere you want.
You will have to go to a camping site (or what we call a camping) that will usually have all the anemities you may need (in many case up to and including washing machines and dryers).
Even what we call natural camping areas will have basic anemities (toilets are a given, maybe a shower or two, and a few sink)
So the cassette toilet and the shower are not going to be used a lot here as 99.99999% of the time you will have a building with larger and better amenities at hand.
They are mostly there in case of emergency.
I’m curious why so many campers include a shower. Is it an American thing? How long are you spending out there where a wet washcloth is not enough? Or is it a case of “We’re designing a sterile space, so we might as well put a spray head and a drain.”?
Or do people have a LOT of sex while camping? Okay, I’ll go with that.
I feel like “A shower AND a grower” is a missed opportunity for a headline here.
That’s a neat little camper!
I remember when they first started doing the power slide-out thing on RVs, and I thought to myself, like the airplane industry and black boxes, why they didn’t just make the whole camper slide out. 13-year-old me is very happy right now.
I was gonna say, “OOPS! All slide-outs!”
What happens if you are inside when someone closes it?
A friend of mine closed one of his slide-outs while the bathroom door was ajar, the results were pretty expensive. So, I guess, picture yourself as his bathroom wall
I’d buy the bigger one, but the fact that you can’t get into the small one without it being expanded is a deal breaker for me. We stop at rest areas when we drive and cook meals and take naps in the trailer. It needs to be accessible when it’s folded, even if it’s just for a table and kitchen.
You can’t wait 60 seconds to expand it? Or worried you can’t find the space to expand it?
It expands laterally?.. Why are you assuming there’s 3 free parking spots in a row to take up, and that doing so wouldn’t instantly label you an asshole to everyone nearby?
Right! It opens sideways!
commonly stop a rest areas on long trips for meals and naps… can’t go wider than a normal trailer parking space at such a place
Cool trailer. it’s a grow-er, not a show-er.
What’s this, a camper for ants?! It must be at least THREE TIMES BIGGER
<Makes it three times bigger>
Yeah, just like that.
One awkward feature is that the switch to expand it is a weirdly-long haptic pad that you have to stroke several times before it expands.
(Okay, my head is in a weird place this morning.)
Need one for the the tailgate. drive it into the lot pop it open and have an air-conditioned place to chill for those September football games in Texas
You’ll need to reserve three parking spaces.
Over the past 20 years, the Honda Civic has grown three times its size as well.
I wonder about the weight. Just because it is physically smaller than a normal trailer, doesn’t mean it doesn’t weight as much as a normal trailer that has the same stuff inside.
Also being a short distance from the hitch to the wheels might make it unstable, especially when backing up. It’s a lot easier to jack-knife a short trailer than a long one.
With that being said, it’s pretty damn cool.
Empty weight of 2,094 pounds, so it’s not too bad! As for the hitch to wheel distance, that’s because European standards are like that. The average Euro camper is designed to put less weight on the tongue than its American counterpart.
Basically: Europeans can tow campers with small cars, but they can’t tow those campers very fast. Americans can tow huge campers at high speed, but generally require bigger vehicles to do it.
Edit: Added that context to the story. Thank you!
Thanks for the reply. There two joke pictures I like to send around when talking about the difference between US and EU towing expectations. One is a Smartcar hooked up to a giant cabin cruiser boat that likely would take a F-350 to tow. The other is a Peterbilt Semi hooked up to a 10-15′ pop up trailer.
But having a speed limitation makes sense.
I’ve driven across America twice. I’ve been over the high passes on I-90 over the Rockies. I’ve watched HD trucks lug 40′ long trailers up a 6% grade that goes on forever at 70+ mph to high altitudes and then descend safely without any drama.
Also decades ago, I spent a summer mainly in Southern Germany. On the weekends I would watch Polos go down the autobahn and up into the Alps towing trailers than Americans would wonder if a medium or full sized truck would be needed. They were going slow as anything, but shockingly didn’t seem to have problems with the Alps.
I figured the slow speed was that these small cars were overloaded, but I guess it is the rules on maximum speed.
Very strict regulations on towing speed. Also why horse-vans are popular there – they can drive full speed, instead of slowly towing a Brenderup style horse trailer.
Seems at least in the UK, the ‘horse-van’is called a ‘Horse Box’.
Amd they are very cool looking vehicles. Kind of like a short class A motor home with usually a small bathroom + galley kitchen (on the nice ones) + a small.table ro sit down & eat inside and the back (majority of the space) is for horses and horses stuff (food/tact,etc…)
Yeah, a US-spec one is on my “won the jackpot” list.
100% same here.
bc they are purpose built to haul horses they are built very stout
I think the basic concept is neat, but it needs further development. I don’t like the complete inability to access the interior when collapsed (it appears the large model is accessible.) If you park it on the side of your house, or in a 1-lane driveway, there’s no way to load your stuff inside. I’d also be concerned about the long-term durability of the weather seals between the sections.
My general sense of all of these low-production campers is that if the idea was good, and sensible, and profitable, one or more of the major RV companies with more R&D skills/money would “borrow” the concept and take it to mass production.
yeah, but from what I’ve heard, the major RV companies would absolutely screw up the seals. They can’t make the non-moving seals on a lot of trailers hold out sunlight.
They solve the not-being-able-to-load-your-stuff problem by not providing any space to load your stuff.
Kidding, sort of. It would be nice to be able to access the interior, however I’m guessing with whatever space there is, you’re load time is going to be 60 seconds. Yes, it’s annoying to have to back it out of the garage, park it on the street, open it up just to do that, however if that’s the biggest compromise, still seems worth it. Longevity is another issue, but there’s no way it’s built worse than what’s coming out of Indiana.
I can picture setting this up, enjoying 5 gallons of camping and then packing to leave, only to find out that the sides won’t retract.
It reminds me of the Top Gear special about camping where Hammond makes this giant tent thing that is all cool.. until the winds pick up.
This sure does look like a barbecue smoker. You sure it’s not an alien trap?
Combination smoker and compactor. It’s a way to make smoked meat cubes for easy snacks to sell at the intergalactic Bucky’s rest stop.
Thanks for the idea
Okay, well-played Lizardman! (Took me a minute.)