Altra: the ultimate camper car

• 
• 
• 

Haven’t we all fantasized over our dream cars as little boys or girls? Very low and very fast, or very luxurious perhaps? One favourite theme with us was the camper with all the facilities thinkable. The great thing with such (childhood) fantasies is that these can really have everything you want. From bedroom to swimming pool, from refrigerator to gull wing doors. You were the designer. It was wonderful to find out, years later, that some of these features had actually made it to the automotive world. Some very serious, others fortunately not so much. On a lighter note the product of Altra Motors, as seen in Trafic by Jacques Tati of 1971, simply had to become a favourite.

The Altra was a Renault 4 based camper van that needed to be transported from Paris to Amsterdam, which the whole film was about. The bright Siata Spring of Maria - today's Friday Lady as seen above - also helped to make this a film to remember. But the Altra itself was of course the star of the show. It featured, among other things, an erecting tent from the back, swivelling seats from the rear bumpers and a table from the floor, coffee maker, sugar dispenser and lighter, clever barbecue in the radiator grille, electric razor in the horn push, a shower in the roof and a steam machine from the bonnet, magnetic pocket torch from the rear lights, water tap inside and the piece de resistance: an extendable body to give room to those retractable beds. See all the features demonstrated in the movie here.

(Words editor, picture Selenia Cinematografica)

Plaats een reactie...