Bombel Threat: Cold Start

I think one of my favorite tiny sub-categories of car is the rear-engined small delivery vehicle. Especially ones adapted from small, rear-engined cars. These are different from rear-engined vans, like the Volkswagen Type 2, which were designed to be cargo vehicles from the start; I’m thinking more like adapted vehicles. I like these because of the inherent challenges of adapting a rear-engined car into something made to haul cargo. It can be done, of course, and the usual solution is generally the one you’d think of first: slap a box on the back, above the engine. I want to look at one of these solutions this morning, the Fiat 126 Bombel.

I was trying to think of all the adapted rear-engine small car cargo vehicles I could think of, and there’s really not all that many. Remember, I’m not counting total van body re-designs on rear-engined platforms like the Subaru Sambar trucks and vans or even the VW Fridolin. I’m talking production rear-engine small car hacked into a cargo vehicle of some sort.

In this category, I can think of just a few. First, there were the Volkswagen Reichpost vans made during and just after WWII, first on Kübelwagen bodies, then on Beetle bodies:

These were very much in the hack-0ff-the-back-and-stick-on-a-box category. Subaru actually managed to show that you can do a version without the box, just by hacking off the back and making all the hacked-off parts into doors:

That Subaru 360 Commercial up there may be the strangest of these conversions. You’d think it’d almost be easier and cheaper to just shove a box on the back there than hinging those rear quarter windows, right? They eventually made the Sambar on the same platform, so clearly the 360 Commerical was just a stopgap measure.

There’s one other one of these I really like, a version of a very charming little rear-engined car, the Fiat 126. This version of the 126 comes from Poland, the place where the 126 had the most success, being built in Poland and becoming that country’s peoples’ car, where it got the nickname “Maluch” which means “the little one.”

The 126 was a genuine pop culture staple in Poland, with tributes like this one about it:

…and it would show up in children’s cartoons – or, in this case, stop-motion animations:

As you can tell, these were very loved little machines. But back to the cargo variant!

There was a design institute in Poland called BOSMAL, an acronym that translates to Small Car Research and Developement Center. They did a lot of very clever design studies with the 126, including one called Bombel from 1974, which roughly translates to “bubble.” Which made sense, because this transformation of the 126 into a cargo vehicle relied on the use of a fiberglass “bubble” stuck on the back.

It was a pretty clever solution, and versions were built with windows and rear seats, and without, for cargo-only use. Sixteen prototypes were made and shown, and while they got a positive response from the public, the Bombel never went into production.

In fact, none of the prototypes seem to have survived, though people have re-created them. Here’s a great video of one very careful re-creation.I’m not sure if it may use original parts? It’s honestly so good I do wonder if this could have been built from some surviving prototype parts:

If you watch that, pay special attention to this part, where the host shows how the seat folds and a corrugated metal panel can be moved into a position to make a full-length flat load floor. It’s very clever!

Sure, the high load height to clear the engine isn’t great, but if only Bombel had caught on, that could have been improved. That’s because in 1987 a new version of the 126 called the 126Bis was released, which laid the engine on its side, making for a greatly lowered cargo floor and a lot more room.

This version of the 126 got a nice big hatch, too, and was much more useful. A Bombel version on the 126Bis platform could have been so much better!

Alas, it never got to happen. Which is a shame, I think, because I find these Bombel 126s cool as hell.

Oh well.