Tried and Tested: Thule Force XT roofbox

What's the most essential thing you need when travelling around the country for five days in an SUV with six people? Storage space. The Thule roof box isn’t your average luggage carrier, it’s a sorted roof carrier that is durable, waterproof and looks sick. While we were out setting records in the Porsche Taycan around the Golden Quadrilateral this time, we used our long-term test Skoda Kodiaq as our trusted support car.

The Kodiaq was the photo and video crew’s steed around the G-Quad and ran for 5846km non-stop, except for fueling breaks. It does seat seven in reasonable comfort, but there’s very little space left for the camera equipment, let alone the bags of the crew. This is where the Thule roof box comes into play. Essential camera equipment found its place in the boot or the cabin during the run, while all other equipment went up into the roof box, which has a 400-litre storage capacity. Thule offers a variety of luggage carrier options–roof boxes, towbar cargo carriers and roof racks. The roof box can be installed on any car that has functional roof-rails with a loading capacity and can be opened from either side. Accessibility is pretty good, although you do have to hoist yourself on the door sill to open the roof box, unless you’re in the NBA, in which case you should be able to reach it from the ground. The roof box was installed by the guys down at 4 Seasons Auto in Mumbai and took about three hours, as they had to mount the bars first and align them with precision, place the roof box on them and then the locks, caps and other finishing touches.

The roof box is a hardshell, almost like your hard suitcase, in which you can pack stuff to the brim, but not so much that it can flex. Five duffel bags can fit tightly leaving just little space to keep smaller knick knacks independently. It is made out of hard ABS plastic that has gone through severe testing like crash tests and exposure tests to ensure its durability. They’re also made to be as aerodynamic as they could, ensuring great fuel efficiency and minimal wind noise inside the cabin. Byram Godrej, our technical editor said, “It was the first time I drove a car with this monster luggage carrier atop and I have to say it made itself quite inconspicuous. No additional bodyroll, no additional sounds and no wind buffeting.” We drove the Kodiaq with the roof box through extreme conditions with all our gear including food boxes, crew’s bags and camera equipment, which was completely dry and without any heat damage after. The photo and video crew were often so exhausted that they didn’t handle the roof box with care, but the structure proved durable and showed no wear. Removing the roof box after our record run was a simple 15-minute process. Despite the heavy price tag of nearly ₹1 lakh, if you need more space than your SUV already offers, there’s nothing more durable and aesthetic than the Thule roof box.