Читать книгу RVs & Campers For Dummies - Christopher Hodapp - Страница 34

You’ve seen them on the highway: giant motorhomes the length of a Greyhound bus with a sparkling paint job, the driver sitting up high in a big, comfy, padded chair behind a giant picture-window windshield. These are the Class As, and the moniker is easy to remember. But this is only one classification of motorhome. Motorhomes actually come in all kinds of sizes and configurations.

Motorhomes (sometimes called motor coaches) are extremely popular, partly because you don’t need a separate vehicle to tow them with. The simplest way to think of a motorhome is an engine and transmission mounted on a chassis, with a complete trailer plopped on top. Motorhomes can be powered by gasoline or diesel engines, and both engine types have their cheerleaders and detractors (see the nearby sidebar). (Some manufacturers are working on electric coaches, but they’re in the infant phase of development.)

Motorhome manufacturers don’t actually build the engines for their vehicles, and few build the steel chassis they sit on. Instead, they buy parts from established consumer truck builders like Ford, Chevrolet/GMC, RAM, and Mercedes. Parts for larger and diesel units come from the makers of commercial trucks and buses, like Cummins, Freightliner, and Spartan.

One of the attractions of a motorhome is that passengers can get to everything easily while the vehicle is on the road. Safety experts agree that everybody should remain seated and belted in at all times when tooting down the highway, but the reality is that everybody (except the driver) can get up, move around, go to the bathroom, walk back and lie down in bed, raid the fridge, or watch a movie, all without stopping. That’s not the case with a towable trailer.