Miguel Sánchez
PHOTOS 1955 MIKAFA/PORSCHE SPORT CAMPER: MECUM / PHOTOS VOLKSWAGEN/PORSCHE T1: MISHA CHAROUDIN
Wanting to carry the house on one's back is an impulse that comes from afar. Aware of this, motorhomes have always been on offer in the motoring industry. More or less equipped these act as a mobile home in which to settle. And well, although many times they have been associated with nomadic professions or homeless people ... The truth is that there are high-end motorhomes that they look like luxury rooms.
A transformation that came with the boom in tourism after World War II. Moment when urban middle classes discover the healthy act of country Sunday. Something providential for companies like Mikafa, which could be converted to the manufacture of motorhomes after having worked in the aeronautics of the III Reich.
This acted as a body and assembler, mounting their bodies on the chassis of the Tempo Matador trucks. A mixture that was initially powered by Austin engines, but later became the protagonist of mills bought from Volkswagen and BMW. Of course, within all this change of engines they sneaked 3 units equipped by Porsche. We are talking about the 1955 Porsche Tempo Mikafa Sport Camper.
MIKAFA SPORT CAMPER. POWERED BY THE HEART OF A 356A 1600
Removing a brief start with Austin engines, Mikafa turned to the Volkswagen Beetle's 4-cylinder boxer just like Tempo did with his Matador van. A wise decision as their motorhomes moved in less luxurious parameters than those achieved years later. And it is that, despite the fact that Mikafa manufactured the aluminum bodies, their campervans were around three tons. Imagine what it is like to move that with an engine of only 25CV!
Aware of this, Mikafa's men began to search for new suppliers, closing an experimental pact with Porsche in 1955. The "experimental"We say it because only three engines were supplied, the same as those that would later mount the 356A 1600 from 1956. Capable of delivering about 60CV, these new blocks pushed the Mikafa Camper in a more cheerful way.
However, more than those three units were never produced. A strange decision since, at least from Porsche, the idea had full approval. In fact, many catalogs consider the Mikafa Porsche Sport Camper as an authorized model by the Stuttgart brand. A project in which we have gone hand in hand with Mikafa, just as happened with Volkswagen when developing the 914.
ONE OF THE THREE CONSERVED UNITS. ALTHOUGH ... THERE IS A TRICK
To date we have not been able to find truthful details about why the pact between the two brands did not work, but what is clear is that everything was in the units mentioned. Of them this is the one that maintains a state more similar to the original. Although that requires a serious qualification. A nuance that takes us to the rear, right where the Mikafa Sport Camper's engine is housed.
And the Porsche engine is no longer there! This was replaced by a Volkswagen Beetle, just the one that came to replace the Porsche. An irony of fate, marked by the ease of breakage of the 356 compared to that of the Beetle, much less powerful but much more robust.
Still, this unit was sold by Mecum last August during the Monterey auctions. Something that can help the fact that in the United States there is a whole culture of the motorhome, within which we find fans willing to get hold of classic rarities regardless of the figure in which the deck is going to drop.
DISAPPOINTED? SO LOOK AT THIS VOLKSWAGEN WITH PORSCHE ENGINE
Okay, the fact that this Mikafa Sport Camper no longer has its Porsche engine is something that deflates history. But anyway, stop and think that as much as it still had the original 356A 1600 engine ... 60CV is not that they give much moving about three tons. So we've looked for a really beast Porsche engine-van hybrid. And yes, we have found it.
Specifically among the bizarre creations that usually appear on the Nürburgring. Around there it usually rolls a Volkswagen T1 to which the six-cylinder of a 911 has been incorporated. What an invention! With the driver and passenger sitting in front of the steering axle and the engine hanging behind the rear axle ... The handling of the inertia has to be the most curious going with the thrust that a six-cylinder Porsche gives.
Fortunately, a roll cage has been incorporated, as well as new tires and a drastic reduction in height in the shock absorbers. In short, if the Mikafa Sport Camper did not renounce the tranquility of a motorhome to travel while looking at the landscape ... It is clear that This Volkswagen / Porsche T1 was born so you can't take your eyes off the road.
