Based on an already-popular compact three-wheeled vehicle (the Piaggio), this may be the world’s
tiniest portable home – a kind of car, camper, trailer and tent hybrid all packed into an ultra-small frame. Best of all, it takes the elements it needs and innovates where required – all to avoid reinventing the wheel, so to speak.
Crammed into the tiny space of the Bufalino are an amazing array of things you would expect to find only in a super-sized mobile home, including full cooking gear, wash basin, ample storage, sleeping space, lounge chair and more.
In front there is room for the driver, bicycle-like handlebar wheel and a small flip-down desk that can fit a little laptop computer – cozy, compact, but still spacious enough to serve its purposes.
The driver’s seat then folds down to become the lower half of a bed that makes full use of the limited space inside and extends virtually from front to back. Interior drawers are secured via flexible bands, as is common in work vehicles.
When the back flips up it can serve us a hanging space for drying clothes or other odds and ends.
The top doubles as a place to lie down under the stars. The idea is to make the little camper car a miniature mobile home base from which to explore and have adventures on a road trip, not a full-time place to hang your hat or sit inside each night alongside the highway.
Basically, each element of the design serves multiple functions if at all possible, and the overall concept blends together the best aspects of portable workshop trucks, traditional mobile homes, classic VW camper vans, pop-up, pick up and other ‘living vehicle’ design paradigms.
