The Colim Detachable Camper Dreams of a Bright, Compact and Mobile Future

The Colim doesn’t exist, though not for lack of trying. It was presented as a concept way back in 2008, when Austria-based Christian Susana introduced it at the FH Joanneum Graz Degree Show, and has remained a concept all these years. The study was never elaborated any further and, despite initial reports saying that Susana was in talks with several companies to bring the concept into reality, it never happened.

It’s a shame, really. To this day, Colim remains one of the most creative and practical campers, because it does (in theory only) so much with so little space, while sacrificing neither comfort nor safety. It is practical and comfortable, it offers unlimited freedom, and it’s cute to boot.

Colim actually stands for “Colors of Life in Motion.” It’s a cheesy name, but we reckon it must have struck a chord back in the day. It was designed with the goal of offering complete freedom to the owner, whether they wanted to go out and explore or use it as an occasional RV. The big idea behind it was that the camper could detach from the cabin, and thus you’d still have a passenger car to use in the city, while you stored the camper in your garage, since it was tiny.

However, when put together, Colim looked like a single unit. The idea is not new, and we’ve seen it both in concepts and in real-life builds. Colim has the futuristic, slightly boxy and overly cute aesthetic working in its favor, and it seeps into the interior, into the finishes and the furniture, and the driver cab. No wonder then that it has been able to survive the passage of time, emerging every few years to get people oooh-ing and aaah-ing.

Essentially, Colim is a cabover camper, with the bedroom located over the cab – a two-person bed, with some storage. The interior of the camper is cramped but it can still sleep two people in comfort, or four in an even more cramped scenario. In the latter case, the secondary bed is the dining area, where the table and the couch convert into a two-person cot. You also get a kitchenette and a bathroom, but the biggest plus is that Susana imagined the layout modular. That is to say, he did not settle on a specific configuration, but assumed each interior could be configured exactly as the future owner needed it.

Regardless of layout, all interiors would share certain common features: the similar styling, the same color schemes as the exterior, and minimalist furniture. You could almost say that the goal wasn’t to create a particularly cozy home, but a space that could serve virtually any purpose, whether it was a vacation, work, or more serious exploring. That’s why Susana referred to it as a “lifestyle motor home.”

“[Colim] is an intelligent mobility concept which stretches primarily the bridge between caravans, camper, lifestyle and business,” Susana explained at the time. “The cockpit can be disconnected from the usable living space. The livable area is flexible, with individually applicable multi function modules. Designed for two people (max. four persons), the motor home offers the possibility to personalize its four mobile ‘walls’ according to the present life situation of the user. This flexibility is not only limited to the living area, but also features in the cockpit.”

Moreover, Colim had solar panels and a hybrid powertrain, smart technology, and unspecified “modern amenities.” Top speed was of just 90 mph (145 kph), but then again, in a mobile home like this, what reason would there be to rush to be someplace else?

Colim was able to show that you could have your cake and eat it: that you could pack so much functionality in such a tiny space. Too bad it only did it on paper.