Winnebago Once Sold A Sleek 22 MPG Camper With A Tiny Engine

For many car enthusiasts, the thought of driving a motorhome doesn’t elicit excitement. Motorhomes are often bulky with driving dynamics comparable to a U-Haul box truck and with the fuel economy to match. In the 1980s, when America was stressing about emissions and fuel economy, Winnebago introduced the LeSharo, a Renault Trafic van with a camper grafted onto the back. With it, Winnebago touted car-like handling and 22 mpg, frugal for something that you could live in. Let’s check it out!

If you’ve had any worries about the state of David Tracy since he arrived in California, you should know that he’s still the man you love. It seems like every day, David will drop some weird car for sale that he found on Facebook. Many of these vehicles have been old campers that he wants to buy, including a vintage Class C motorhome bolted to the cab of a Ford F-Series truck. That poor thing was in a sorry state with all kinds of water damage, which was a bit weird given its location in Arizona. One of David’s finds caught my eye and it was this worn, but still great Winnebago LeSharo. Bask in its weathered glory:

Now, I’ve seen these campers for sale here and there and there. Near me, there’s a collection of old RVs just sitting around on flat tires and I’m sure three of them are LeSharos. Yet, I never put too much thought into them other than “funky design.” Thanks to David’s curiosity, I’ve found another piece of oddball RV history.

Back To The Malaise Era

This journey takes us back to the 1980s. For car enthusiasts, this era is known as the Malaise Era. During this period, American car design and performance arguably took a backseat to the effects of oil crises, efforts to reduce tailpipe emissions, and increasing fuel economy. Malaise Era cars looked like a couple of refrigerator boxes stacked on top of each other and it was also a time when V8s struggled to make the kinds of power a four-cylinder could easily make today.

While all of this was happening with cars, motorhome manufacturers battled lower industry sales and high gas prices by experimenting with methods to achieve high fuel economy. In 1986, the Vixen Motor Company released its Vixen 21 TD, a motorhome that not only got good fuel economy but was designed to be the “driver’s motorhome.” Vixen did it by pairing a low-slung motorhome body with a low roof with a 2.4-liter inline-six turbodiesel sourced from BMW. The result was an expensive coach that got 30 mpg or could go 108.9 mph but was hard for tall people to stand up in while it went down the road.

This was also the era when Champion Home Builders decided to tackle the issue of motorhomes getting too tall and ungainly by building the Ultrastar. That motorhome was a coach that was still long but rode closer to the ground and featured better road manners than the typical Class A fare.

Over at Winnebago, the company decided to tackle the issues of the era by making a motorhome that was as easy to drive as a car, wasn’t much larger than a van, and got high fuel economy. Indeed, this sounds like a similar concept as the Vixen, but Winnebago did it earlier and in some regards, perhaps even better.

An American Motorhome With French Power

Winnebago’s exact reasoning isn’t explained, but the camper manufacturer looked to Europe for the bones to build the LeSharo on. Over there, Winnebago found the first generation Renault Trafic van. These vans featured a low floor thanks to their diesel front-wheel-drive powertrain. Winnebago struck a deal with Renault, allowing the former to create a different kind of motorhome. Renault shipped Trafic cabs, drivetrains, and rear axles to America, where Winnebago would build them out into the LeSharo motorhome. The first LeSharos started hitting the road in 1983 and Winnebago marketed them as something revolutionary:

Winnebago wasn’t far off; the LeSharo had a ton of good ideas going for it. By choosing the Trafic as a donor vehicle, the Winnebago LeSharo enjoyed a low and largely flat floor that sat just 10 inches above the ground. This is great for people who don’t quite have the mobility to climb stairs into a coach. It was also great for keeping the center of gravity low, which helped Winnebago’s objective to build a motorhome that drives like a car. The only places the floor steps up are in the cab and the dinette.

A Winnebago LeSharo was also a compact camper. The first-generation LeSharo was just 19 feet, 7 inches long, which makes it about the size of today’s camper vans. And with a gross vehicle weight rating of 5,770 pounds, it maxed out with a weight less than some of the trucks that you could buy today. Winnebago didn’t skimp out on quality in keeping the weight low, either. LeSharos have steel unibodies, fiberglass end caps, and aluminum is used in the roof.

In Winnebago’s brochures, the company brags about hanging its motorhomes from a crane and dropping them to evaluate structural integrity. It also taunts its competitors by talking about its optional 5 year/50,000-mile protection plan. A caption next to a picture of a motorhome in a repair shop reads “Most Manufacturers Don’t Offer 5 Year/50,000 Mile Protection. Maybe They Know Something You Don’t.”

If that’s not a corporate sick burn then I don’t know what is!

It gets even better from there. The first Winnebago LeSharos came with a 2.068-liter diesel four-cylinder borrowed from the Trafic. I love how oddly specific the brochure gets about the engine’s displacement. This engine was also used in the Renault Espace and Fuego. In its brochure, Winnebago says that a LeSharo prototype was driven 3,148 miles by the United States Auto Club. These miles weren’t in a lab, but on a road, and the prototype camper returned 24.11 mpg averaging over 50 mph for the trip. The prototype camper didn’t have a sink or kitchen and after adding those in, Winnebago said that the production version scored 22 mpg all while driving like a car.

Winnebago was so proud of the fact that the LeSharo drove like a car that in later brochures, the company said that you could use the LeSharo to go to the grocery store like your family car, to the lake like a van, and to the Grand Canyon like a motorhome. The innovations continued inside as well.

The 20 feet of space offered by the LeSharo or by a camper van doesn’t normally lend to a ton of room. Even a high-end Airstream Class B van can feel cramped. One trick feature was the bathroom. Remove a floor panel and open some latches, then the bathroom unit slides out from the camper’s wall. In it, you’ll find a marine toilet and a shower complete with a door for privacy. The bathroom does it using a sink that folds into the wall. Plus, the towel bar and shelves are molded into the door.

Winnebago built the LeSharo to have all of the features of a big motorhome, just in a smaller package. So, inside your LeSharo you got amenities like a galley kitchen, heated water, a house battery, heating, and holding tanks. The coach carried 22 gallons of fresh water and 13 gallons for waste.

Low And Very Slow

The LeSharo was built between 1983 and 1992 with the coach getting upgrades along the way. In 1987, the LeSharo got a second generation (above) where it got a foot longer and about a thousand pounds heavier. The interior got a cozy look and the coach also scored an air-conditioner. No matter the generation of LeSharo, you did get something that you didn’t get with a Vixen.

The interior height in these was 6 feet. Not ideal for tall people, but better than the 5.4 feet offered by a Vixen with a closed roof. At 5 feet, 6 inches tall, my head would definitely rub the roof of a Vixen unless the roof was popped.

Now, there’s a rather large elephant in the room. You’ve probably noticed that I skipped over the specs of the powertrain. Well, things don’t look great. The first-generation LeSharo’s 2.068-liter diesel was advertised as making 66 HP and 94 lb-ft torque. That’s less power than a Smart Fortwo, but nearly three times the weight. According to LeSharo owners, these coaches could muster 70 mph if you keep your foot to the floor for long enough.

Winnebago tried to rectify speed concerns with the addition of a Garrett T04 turbocharger in 1984. This kicked power up to 75 HP. A year later, a 2.2-liter gas engine would become an option and it would further bump the power up to 100 horses. When the second-generation LeSharo launched in 1987, this became the only engine and the LeSharo would use it until it was discontinued after 1992. LeSharo owners note that top speed is at best around 80 mph and hills will slow it down. Making matters worse were the transmission choices. You could fit your LeSharo with a four- or five-speed manual or a three-speed automatic.

Some owners fix the LeSharo’s speed problems by dropping in more powerful engines. I’ve seen the legendary Buick 3800 or Chrysler minivan engines suggested as replacement engines for these!

Enthusiasts estimate that 15,000 LeSharos were built over two generations. The camper also saw itself rebadged as the Itasca Phasar and Winnebago also sold a Renault Trafic-based conversion van called the Centuri. Winnebago would later try the concept again from 1995 to 2005 with the Rialta. That camper had a similar design brief as the LeSharo, but was built on the bones of the Volkswagen EuroVan with a VR6 engine, making it better suited for American highways.

If you’re looking for a vintage motorhome, it seems like a LeSharo is a decent option. You get rather distinctive looks and the amenities of a larger coach, but with van proportions. Just don’t expect to get where you’re going very fast.

(Photos: Winnebago, unless otherwise noted.)

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