There's never enough storage space in a Samurai. The rear "bed" area measures just 35½" x 35½" x 13½" (between the wheel wells) and that's without the rear seat. There's no center console, a tiny glove box and no trunk.

Packing up for a long trip--whether on-road on the way to a run, or off-road for places like the Rubicon--is an exercise in creative packaging. You learn early to minimize, minimize, minimize, sometimes to the point of forgetting or foregoing things that later prove to have been pretty important.

For my purposes, a roof rack (there are a few out there to choose from) wasn't a great choice. If loaded with things that are at all heavy, it can greatly change the vehicle's center of gravity (for the worse), on a soft top a roof rack is (necessarily) relatively short and it's always exposed to the weather. It would make my SunPort less than useful as well, since loading the rack would make taking off the front half of the top pretty impossible (and useless).

"Jamboree" racks also didn't fit my idea of what I wanted. Hitch receiver mounted jamboree racks keep your CG low, but reduce your departure angle severely. Those that mount higher trade CG effects for better departure angle and all of them are constantly exposed to weather as the roof racks are.

I'd been kicking around the idea of making some sort of rear internal rack when Petroworks solved the problem for me. Their Cargo Rack (38" x 22¾" x 5" inside dimensions and raised 5" vertically from the bed rails) easily mounts to the rear of your Samurai, inside the top.

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