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Now this is a boat caravan!

Posted: Wed, 03 Aug 2016, 9:49 pm
by Admin
There's a very old Chinese-whisper that keeps coming around that the roof of a Portafold was designed to be a boat, well I've had it confirmed straight from the horses-mouth that it was never considered. But, this is more of a boat/caravan:
Nomad Caravan advert 1963.jpg

Re: Now this is a boat caravan!

Posted: Mon, 22 Aug 2016, 6:17 am
by phunkie hiboy
The story I heard, it had been considered, but the idea was dismissed.

Re: Now this is a boat caravan!

Posted: Mon, 22 Aug 2016, 11:57 am
by Admin
Having re-asked the question to the last remaining designer of the Portafold, he confirmed that the 'roof as a boat' was very briefly thought about, but in the same way that almost every possible design tweak is talked about at some point when you're creating something from scratch.

The only reason it came up was that another manufacturer was producing a caravan with a roof boat, but they quickly dismissed any further thought along those lines as the height and weight of the caravan were paramount in their design plans. They needed to ensure that you could see over the top of it with normal rear-view mirrors and they needed to keep the weight at an absolute minimum to keep it viable for any 1960's car, and both of these would have been compromised.