Eddie Haemmerle was behind thousands of others when he pre-ordered the Tesla Cybertruck on the day Elon Musk announced the model in 2019. But for the world’s first Tesla-specific pop-up camper, he was at the front of the line. “This isn’t your standard pickup truck, right? So it has to be designed specifically for this,” said the Boulder resident, who founded a New Jersey solar installation firm in the early 2000s and has since retired. Haemmerle contacted Phoenix Pop Up Campers, a Commerce City firm that’s been making attachable accessories since 1988. Months later, the Youtuber by the name of “CyberTruck One” was able to camp on top of the stainless steel machine in the comfort of a 10-by-6.5-foot fortress. “Eddie was really the catalyst for actually doing it,” Phoenix owner Rob Rowe said. “A whole bunch of people asked before, but finally Eddie wanted to do it.” Ed Haemmerle was the world’s first owner of a Cybertruck-specific pop-up camper. (Hayden Kim/BusinessDen) Rowe, who has built campers for “every truck under the sun,” said it took a month of trial and error to nail down a design. The vehicle doesn’t have a standard rectangular bed, but instead is trapezoidal, getting wider as it goes from front to back. Haemmerle lent his vehicle during the development process. The completed “CyberPhoenix” camper cost $80,000 and has a nearly-queen size bed on one end, with a sleep-convertible dinette and kitchen closer to the other. There’s a makeshift shower on both the inside and outside and a compostable toilet, and space for 20 gallons of fresh water. At the push of a button, the height extends with the help of a 12-volt battery and 400 watts of rooftop solar. That allows the camper to effectively run its own, impeding little, if any, of the truck’s 300-mile range. Another big difference with the CyberPhoenix is in the material. Instead of using composite – a mash of fiberglass, plastic and other non-wood matter – on the inside of the camper, as typical pop ups do, he put it on the outside to blend better with the truck’s silver look. “We kind of whittled it out of nothingness into somethingness,” Rowe said. “The shape and the configuration of it is really unique in that the seats (in the camper) are super high compared to the main floor, and that’s all because they have to be at the height of the really high angled bed.” The 10-by-6.5-foot CyberPhoenix has a bed, dinette, kitchen and makeshift bathroom. (Hayden Kim/BusinessDen) That design leaves room for ample storage space — under the bed, seats and in various cupboards — while being able to fit in most garages and all drive-thrus. Haemmerle said he recently had seven people inside, enjoying cocktails before a show at Red Rocks. “This thing has every comfort of home and what you would see in a typical truck camper,” Rowe said. “It doesn’t really stop you from using the vehicle like you normally would, it complements the vehicle instead of burdens it.” Rowe said Phoenix, which he started alongside his father in 1988, has had annual revenue of about $2 million in recent years and has two or three more CyberPhoenixes in production. Because the business only makes about 20 campers a year, he’s considering opening up a separate assembly line to accommodate the uniqueness of the build and help his team of five standardize production. Haemmerle gets a commission check from each sale, though neither party disclosed the amount. “My wife and I get to go on vacation and promote the truck and so that’s my job, going on vacation. Everywhere we go, every time we stop at a charging station, I’m (giving) three tours,” Haemmerle said. Facebook