Lack of Variety and Choice in RV Design
For the past several years, as we’ve been traveling about the country, I’ve been hearing some rumblings among RV-ers, especially those with motorhomes, regarding the lack of choices in RVs. I don’t mean that there aren’t enough motorhomes to choose from, I mean the ones we have to choose from are all the same. (That’s not really having a choice.) Whether you are looking at Class A’s, Class B’s, or Class C’s – your choices within each group are pretty limited. Want an example? Take a look at the small Class C Sprinter Chassis Motorhomes: Winnebago View, Itasca Navion, Thor Citation, Thor Chateau, Thor Four Winds, Thor Siesta, Thor Synergy, the brand new Tiffin Wayfarer, and the Forest River Sunseeker. If the branding on the exterior of these motorhomes was removed, could you tell them apart? (Click on the gallery to open the images)
(All images are from manufacturer’s websites)
The good thing about the Mercedes Sprinter Chassis Class C’s is that there is at least some variety in interior styling. The Tiffin, Winnebago and Itasca interiors offer a modern design option, while the Sunseeker and others are more traditional, so that’s a bonus that you don’t get in other classes. What you don’t get in the Class C Sprinters though is variety in floor plans. Almost all of the motorhomes in this category come in the same two or three floor plans. Sigh. I get it – the chassis and smaller size restrictions limit what they can do, but even the Class B vans like the Airstream Interstate and Pleasure-Way models are offering more variety and more creative design solutions these days. Many of these Sprinter Chassis Class C’s can be found all over Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and their floor plan options are more varied and flexible that what is offered here in the US (some even include bunks which is a floor plan that’s no longer offered here).
(Sunseeker and Navion interior pics from the manufacturer's websites)
Next let’s look at the Class A’s. Again, when we look at Class A’s from several major manufacturers, can you tell the difference without looking at the branding? Here, we’re looking at Class A’s from Fleetwood, Holiday Rambler, Winnebago, Forest River, Tiffin, and a direct-to-consumer manufacturer, Nexus. (Click on the gallery to open the images.)
(All images are from manufacturer’s websites)
Without even considering gas vs. diesel, you can see that very little difference exists among the exterior look of the Class A’s – even when you compare vastly different lengths, the Class A’s all look similar – too similar. Why do we need so many of the same things flooding the market? Even when you consider the interiors, and you compare coaches of similar lengths you get floor plans and décor choices that are strikingly similar. Again, I get it – floor plans and layouts are largely dictated by the chassis, and everyone seems to be using the same chassis. (Hey, maybe I should be writing this article to Freightliner?) However, I don’t understand why not a single Class A manufacturer will take the leap and consider offering something other than the ultra-cheesy, over the top traditional décor. Most of the time when I walk into a Class A coach, I literally want to vomit. (Hold up. What makes me think my opinion on décor matters? Well, I’ve got three college degrees and one of them is a Bachelor’s of Interior Design and another is a Master’s of Architecture. I’ve been a nationally-certified professional Interior Designer for over 20 years and a sustainable building designer and consultant for over 10 years. I’ve also been a professor and program administrator in an accredited Bachelor’s Interior Design program for almost 15 years – so you could say, I’m kind of an expert, or at least very qualified to be giving this critique.) Not only do I see some floor plans and layouts that are completely non-functional – plans that I would fail if a student submitted them to me for a project – but I also see some of the most hideous décor combinations I could imagine. While I agree, some of the décor assessment can be subjective and open to personal opinion – why can’t one, single manufacturer step up and give consumers something with a clean and sophisticated style? As it is currently in the industry, we have only a few choices if we’re hoping for a modern RV:
Abandon the idea of purchasing a Class A and either purchase a Class B, Class C Sprinter, or a Travel Trailer (I’m looking at you, Airstream! Thank you for your quality design, functional floor plans and attention to detail. Now, can you please go back to making Class A’s? Pretty please? I need a slightly larger motorhome than a Class B van if I’m going to live in it full time.)
Buy a used coach and do a complete overhaul renovation.(See my next article about this fantastic Holiday Rambler Trip renovation.)
Resign to settling on the least vomit-inducing option you can find and just go with it.
We Are Not Alone
I’m not the only one who feels this way. Way back in early 2016, Jason and Nikki Wynn from Gone with the Wynns convinced Fleetwood to let them customize their Class A gas Bounder. Holiday Rambler, who is owned by the same parent company as Fleetwood, offers an almost identical model to the Bounder, the Vacationer/Vacationer XE. (Check the specs for differences). The Wynns were able to make some modern design and décor changes and technology mods that were steps in the right direction, but the result would be considered “Transitional Design” at best – nothing along the lines of the modern Airstream interiors or those of the Itasca Navion. However, in doing their Fleetwood Bounder customization, the Wynns documented the entire process and included several polls on their website as “back-up” when making their requests to Fleetwood. Many of the polls had over 6000 RV consumer/enthusiast responses, and the results were overwhelmingly in favor of having at least an option for modern design choices. You can see their website, complete with videos and poll results, here. This is a great article that asks the same thing we're asking: Why do manufacturers make all RVs to look exactly the same? From the Wynn's poll results, I was particularly pleased to see that 59% of the 6076 respondents felt that the perfect RV size was between 28 and 36 feet. (We want National Park-friendly rigs, please!) Also, 79% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay $5000 for a “wild camping” or boon-docking package – heck yes. As for the design style, 66% said that they preferred a modern design exterior like the Wynn's Monaco Vesta (we’ll talk about that in a bit and you can read more about "Windy" on their site), 43% of respondents identified “modern” as their design style, 57% said they needed a desk or working area, and 50% said that an option for modern cabinets (no raised panel doors), no carpet, and simpler exterior paint should be available. (Again, all of this data and research was compiled by the Wynns, so a huge shout-out to them – go visit their site and say hello. Sadly, they are no longer living in their RV full-time, having traded it in for a sailboat, but if you follow them on Twitter or YouTube, you’ll see they’re having a blast! They still have a section on their website dedicated to their RV-ing days, and it’s full of TONS of RV info – so check it out!
Someone, Please Give Us What We Want
“So what exactly do you want?” you ask. Well, we want a choice – we’ll start with just one - one brave manufacturer who will take a chance, go out on a limb and try to understand a few points:
According to a 2011 University of Michigan study, the largest growing segment of RV consumers and full-time RV-ers is no longer retirees. It’s younger, 34-60 year-old professionals who are working (and raising families) from the road. We don’t have the same wants and needs in our RV selection as a retiree has. We need coaches that have built-in workstations in the passenger dash area and coaches that have options to be pre-wired for solar, and cellular and wifi boosters. And we want the design to be a reflection of who we are, not our parents and grandparents.
Regardless of age, there is a significant population in the US and abroad who desire a modern coach – interior and exterior. We like clean, efficient, functional, and sophisticated spaces.We’re not looking for overly ornamented moldings, busy fabrics, raised panel doors on our cabinetry, tassels, wall sconces, or 35 accent pillows on our beds.We’re looking for sleek, high-end looking exteriors free from the swoops, swirls, and gag-me graphics.
We want floor plans and layouts that make sense.We want manufacturers to realize that if you give us a TV, we’re going to want to turn it on and watch it sometimes.And if it’s above the kitchen counter, or above the dinette table (especially if we’re traveling with young kids) – that TV is going to get trashed.It’s going to get peanut butter fingerprints on the screen, it’s going to get water and food splashed on it, and that’s just gross.We also want a TV that’s viewable from more than two seats in the house. (Yeah, that means you, Thor Palazzo 33.2. The TV at the dinette is the absolute worst location we’ve ever seen. If you’re not sitting on the sofa directly across from the dinette, you can’t see the TV – and if there’s anyone sitting at the dinette, even from the sofa you can’t see the TV because those people sitting at the dinette will be in your way! And if you’re sitting at the dinette watching TV, you’re going to need a chiropractor.)Even if there’s only two of us living in the coach, if we invite guests over to watch a game, it’s safe to say, everyone wants to be able to see the game.Outdoor TVs are awesome – especially for watching the game, but you know, sometimes it rains and we need to take the party inside.(True story.)We just want floor plans that make sense and are functional.One of the reasons we have a motorhome is so that I can go back and make a sandwich while we’re driving down the road.If the kitchen sink and half the kitchen disappears behind a slide when we’re driving, how is that possibly functional? Slides being in should not take away function from a space – instead they should just create more circulation space when pushed out.Take a listen to the review I did of the Fleetwood Bounder 33C floor plan below. (Just to clarify - in the audio, when I talk about "curb-side slides" I"m referring to slides on the curbside of the living area, not the bedroom, just in case that's a little unclear.)
A Functional Example, But Far From Perfect
Ok, now Fleetwood, we’ve been giving you some love, right? Holiday Rambler, you too. We really like the Vacationer 33C / Vacationer XE 32A floor plans that are so similar to the Bounder 33C . . . . but . . . why is there no 2-way (or better yet, 3-way) RV refrigerator option on the 33C? (The Vacationer XE 32A does offer the RV fridge, but it has much smaller holding tanks than the 33C and no 2000W PSW inverter – which makes it less ideal for dry camping. The Vacationer 33C has larger holding tanks and the PSW inverter, but no RV fridge option.) Anyway, no RV fridge option is huge for people who dry-camp. I like that I can opt to pre-wire for solar and get the 2000W PSW inverter, but the RV fridge would be ideal – especially a 3-way (DC/AC/LP). Also, Fleetwood and Holiday Rambler – why is there no 33C floor plan or similar available on the diesel pushers? For lots of reasons, we’d prefer a diesel, but you can’t beat the functionality of the 33C. The diesel 35M plan isn’t bad, but it’s unnecessarily larger / longer than the 33C, it has less bedroom storage, and still has no RV fridge option. In my perfect world, Fleetwood/Holiday Rambler would let us make the Bounder in a diesel (the Bounder used to be available in a diesel by the way), with a 3-way RV fridge, with a modern interior that looks like the Itasca Navion or Airstream travel trailers.
So, What Are We To Do?
Alas, I’m not optimistic that my perfect world will ever exist, so we might be forced to move on to plan B, C, or D. From the options I stated at the beginning of this article, my least favorite option is to go with the least vomit-inducing option and learn to live with it, so, I’m left searching for a compromise. The idea of finding a used Class A and renovating it to our desired design aesthetics is one option that I’ll explore in my next article. Another option is to settle for an Airstream travel trailer, but for very specific reasons, we’ve decided on a motorhome rather than a travel trailer or a fifth-wheel. We also could go with a modern-styled Class C Mercedes Sprinter Chassis, but for living full-time, we’d like just a bit more space and storage than they’ve been able to fit on the Sprinters.
(Okay, maybe we need to move on to plan E, F, or G?) We could of course, go with a used Class A like the Front Engine Diesel Monaco Vesta or Holiday Rambler Trip, both of which offer modern interiors and exteriors and superior fuel efficiency, but are no longer manufactured because the Roadmaster Chassis they were built on is no longer in production. The latest production year for either of these coaches was 2012 – which makes them pretty “used” by the time we’ll need one in 2019 or 2020. . . still it’s an option to consider.
Given that we have a few more years before our kids are off to college and we plan on going full-time, we’ve decided to wait it out and see what happens in the industry over the next few years. I’ve been more optimistic lately than I have been in years with the introduction of this year’s ultra-modern-styled Tiffin Wayfarer. Even though it’s a Class C Sprinter, the fact that it’s made by Tiffin, the exclusively Class A powerhouse up until now, is exciting to me. I have half a mind to drive down to their facility in Alabama and say, “Hey, can you just build me an Allegro Breeze with a Wayfarer interior?” Given that the Allegro Class A’s are UBER-traditional with ornately carved moldings, wall sconces, and tassels included, I’m pretty sure I can guess their answer, but it may be my game plan to simply keep asking for it until I wear them down. However, just to see a company like Tiffin move forward with a modern interior like the Wayfarer is great news to me! Kudos to you Tiffin, and please keep those modern interior options coming. (Give me a call if you need someone to work on it!)
Nexus is another promising manufacturer. They are a direct-to-the-consumer manufacturer that let's buyers do a lot more customization than the larger manufacturers. I'm hopeful that within the next few years they might offer a modern cabinet style and interior decor options for their 34-foot Nexus Bentley diesel pusher - which is a great coach, but still slightly over the top in traditional fluff on the interior and swoops and swirls on the exterior. Mirrored walls and ceiling medallions are pretty much a deal-breaker for us!
Well, if you've made it to the end of this article, congratulations! I know it was a long one, but I had to put a lot of info out there to set up the next article or two. If you are a representative of a manufacturer, I hope I haven't offended you. I know my words may seem harsh, but it's time. For too many years we consumers have waited for the Class A RV industry to address our needs. Like I wrote above - the needs of the new generation of full-time RV-ers are different than the needs of retirees, and we need RVs that will work for us, and make us happy to be in. I know there is a way for at least one of you manufacturers to come up with a cost-effective way to offer a modern option for us. We're ready.
"If you build it, they will come."
(Check out Part II of this article - an interview with the owner of a Holiday Rambler Trip that underwent a magazine-worthy modern renovation.)
