The typical American Class A motorhome is a fascinating symbol of excess. These rigs often stretch out beyond 40 feet long, weigh tens of thousands of pounds, and require skill to drive, even if they might not require a special license. An increasing number of American RV buyers are demanding smaller, easier-to-drive motorhomes with designs a bit more snazzy than what a bored 5-year-old pens. Finally, RV manufacturers are doing just that. Meet the Coachmen Euro, a so-called “crossover” motorhome with the compact body and design of a European motorhome and the features of an American motorhome. Finally, Americans are getting some forbidden fruit.
One of my favorite things to do during an RV show is ask existing RV owners what they’d like to see in the future. In 2022 and 2023, I was surprised to witness a growing trend. A number of RV buyers are no longer interested in the gigantic Class A coach bus-style motorhomes that, for many, symbolize RVing in America. Those people told me that they didn’t want to hustle a 45-foot-long, 40,000-pound rig down the highway. They don’t want to pay extravagant prices to buy one of those beasts, pay the high costs to keep them going, or pay the high costs to store them. Buyers of towable RVs sometimes have similar complaints.
Instead, an increasing number of RV buyers are gravitating toward European-style coaches that place a focus on doing more with less. European motorhomes tend to be shorter, narrower, and lighter than their American counterparts while placing a focus on design. That’s why companies like Wingamm, a producer of coaches that are shorter than some full-size pickup trucks, are seeing an explosion of American interest.
The large American RV companies have off and on flirted with European designs. In the 1980s, Americans got to drive Renault RVs by way of the Winnebago LeSharo. The smallest Forest River R-Pod designs from the 2010s also had some European flair. Smaller firms like nüCamp have long offered European designs like the T@b and now the Barefoot. But now, even the large firms are responding to this uptick in interest with another round of Euro-style RVs. In 2022, the folks of Jayco rolled out the 2023 Jayco Jay Feather Volare, a Euro-style travel trailer for Americans.
That’s why I was curious when I saw the Coachmen Euro pop up in my feed. From what I see, this new motorhome is exactly what so many people have been begging for.
Euro Trip
Coachmen has been around since 1964 and its original focus was on travel trailers, truck campers, and truck bed caps. The company, which was acquired by RV mega-conglomerate Forest River in 2008, says it has a history of building reliable RVs with exceptional value. In my experience, the reliability claim varies, but Coachmen RVs do tend to be on the more affordable side.
Coachmen, which sells everything from the tiniest towables to titanic motorhomes, has correctly identified that there are buyers that want a Class A motorhome, but don’t need it to be so big that the bumpers are in different time zones. This year, it has responded with the Coachmen Euro, a motorhome that many are calling a crossover.
The highlight of the Coachmen Euro is its body. It measures just 28’4″ long, 11’1″ tall, and 99″ wide. When loaded up, it weighs a maximum of just 16,000 pounds. There are a few states where drivers of RVs have to have a driver’s license in the proper weight class. One of them is my home state of Illinois. The driver of a Coachmen Euro doesn’t need to get a higher-weight endorsement.
This is a sharp contrast to even Coachmen’s other motorhomes (below), which get as long as 41’1″, as tall as 12’10”, as wide as 102″, and as heavy as 32,000 pounds. As I said earlier, motorhomes by other brands get even longer and even heavier than that.
Then there’s the design itself. The coach features an aerodynamic body featuring Noble Select composite outer sheeting, Azdel composite inner wall, a laminated fiberglass roof, and fiberglass end caps. All of it is covered in automotive paint with a clear coat. You’ll note that the roof doesn’t even have an air-conditioner on it. I love RV roofs with as few holes as possible in them because that’s one less place you have to worry about water intrusion.
Coachmen also says that the base floor structure is steel and the underbody of the coach features galvanized steel panels. Coachmen says that’s good for aero, but also keeps out critters better than plastic belly panels when the coach is being stored. It looks like some wood is present in the form of the floor on top of the metal, but there’s a welcoming lack of wood in the overall construction.
Coachmen says it went with Euro-style mirrors that come down from the roof rather than sprout up from the body. Supposedly, this was done for better visibility as the company believes more American bus-style mirrors (which you can see on Coachmen’s other motorhomes) hamper visibility.
The Euro inspiration continues inside, where the motorhome seems to take on a bit of a camper van layout, but scaled up to 25 feet of interior space. The front includes the driver area plus a small living room. Directly behind there is your kitchen, which features an induction cooktop, a sink, an oven, and a stainless steel refrigerator. Something interesting noted by Coachmen is the fact that the Euro-style cabinetry is not made in-house, but is outsourced to a cabinetmaking company so that the quality is consistent.
Moving back from there is the bathroom, which has what appears to be a spacious walk-in shower and a step-down to use the sink. Further back from there is the coach’s bedroom. You step up a couple of steps into the bed and you can either sleep in it as-is or move the cushion to create a wall-to-wall king bed.
In terms of equipment, you’re also looking at an air-conditioner with a heat pump, a furnace, a 5.5kW generator, a 50-gallon fresh tank, and 31 gallons for both the grey tank and the waste tank.
This interior is part of why this is being hailed as a crossover. Coachmen has copied a lot of the interior design of a European motorhome but added that American flair in the form of the huge bed and big shower. The other “crossover” factor comes from the underlying platform.
Can Be Sold In California
Unlike previous efforts to bring the spice of Europe to America, this coach isn’t hiding a Volkswagen or a Renault underneath. Instead, you’re getting a Ford F53 motorhome chassis. Power comes from the Godzilla 7.3-liter gasoline V8, which makes 335 HP and 468 lb-ft of torque in this application. This is great news for repairability. It’s also good news for people who live in California and in the five other states that may kneecap Class A motorhome sales come January 2025. The Ford F53 will be able to be sold in those states next year!
That alone may be a deciding factor for some buyers. However, Coachmen says that it doesn’t really want this coach to compete with other Class A RVs. It’s way too small for that. Instead, Coachmen wants you to consider the Euro over something like a Class B camper van or a compact Class C motorhome. The idea here is that the Coachmen Euro is cheaper than a camper van without being nearly as cramped. At the same time, the Euro gives you the best of a Class A, but in a package the size of a Class C that doesn’t force you to drive a Chevy Express with a growth on the back.
The pricing seems to reflect this. The Coachmen Euro costs about $140,000 depending on the exact configuration. Some dealerships are selling them for a little less while some are selling them for a lot more. I won’t pretend that $140,000 is cheap because it isn’t. However, it is significantly cheaper than a huge swath of smaller camper vans based on worse platforms. Remember the Airstream Rangeline? Yeah, that starts at $154,900 now and for that price, you’re driving a Ram ProMaster. I can see why Coachmen sees itself trying to steal some camper van sales.
I’m not sure if sales will work that way, but in theory, this is the exact kind of coach that RV owners have been telling me that they want to buy. It’s still a Class A, but it’s significantly smaller and lighter than the typical coach. It doesn’t cost a million bucks and it doesn’t have boring swoops, either. Time will tell if the market responds well, but at the very least, I do like to see the big RV industry at least trying to do some things differently.
I freakin LOVE this. I am not in a position to purchase anything like this anytime soon. But this is a “Goldilocks” of RVs. It’s not to small, it’s not too big. It’s “juuuuuust riiiiight” Hopefully this class takes off and more options come in. More competition will hopefully mean better pricing. Plus pricing in general seems to be coming back down to pre-pandemic levels. Now if overall quality could go back up on newer models that would be great.
If you’re an RV person I could see this being a compelling product. I’m fine tent camping in the backcountry but at some point I won’t be a single male and no guarantee I’ll find a wife that’s comfortable digging a hole for bowel relief. Been just keeping an eye on the market for what would seem acceptable and while this won’t let you get anywhere too crazy seems like you’re getting a lot here for the money in this space.
Nope. If it didn’t start out as a proper coach BUS (and schoolies need not apply, excepting maybe a Crown), I am not interested. Cardboard, sticks, tinfoil, and staples is no way to build a house, and I would like some room in the thing without dealing with slides that inevitably leak and break.
But reality is that you can stay in nice hotels with room service for YEARS for what a decent RV costs, so I don’t see much point in them to start with. Camping is SLOW room service.
The hotel thought is what has always gotten me. The only thing that flips that reasoning over is my friends who tent camp, that is genuinely inexpensive traveling.
And a genuinely uncomfortable one in my experience.
But as I said, my idea of “camping” is slow room service. The appeal of being so in “the great outdoors” is very, very lost on me. I love scenery – when I can view it from a climate-controlled bubble with no bugs.
Call me crazy but I like the 45′ mansion on wheels. Drive to location, park it, remove tow vehicle, stay a week.
This design is better than the Class B van as on person doesn’t have to exit to move around. Also it doesn’t have a shitcase.
I wouldn’t mind taking this for a spin. Seems perfect for a couple, assuming the living room area flips and flops into a bed for your occasional visitors.
I recall some small class A motorhomes on Sprinter chassis which would be even smaller and lighter but probably not cheaper.
I have my eye on a grey import. A basic van, like a Eurovan Weekender can be $10k on the dock in Tacoma and if you want fancier a class C with kitchen and bathroom is about $15k if you DIY or find a cheap dealer
No shitter in the weekender. This is a livable floorplan for less than most van conversions that make significant functional sacrifices to cram features into a small footprint.
Our thoughts are something for day trips, road trips and occasional overnights. Room to change clothes, make tea and sleep
So people are finally realizing Class As are stupid.
My question is, why is nobody making something the size of a Honda Element that doubles in width with slide-out sections? I’d think you’d sell a ton of those because a major reason why people don’t like RVs is because they’re a pain in the ass to store due to size. I don’t think people would be tricked if you marketed it as a daily driver, but surely somebody would use it as one.
I’m surprised more people haven’t gotten into the idea of tiny campers with slideouts. I built a Sprinter with a slideout and having a small (shorter than a Suburban) van with sleeping for four and a ton of interior space is fantastic. It’s my daily and a pretty solid place to hang out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/comments/17fglpw/continued_making_progress_on_my_diy_slideout/
I remember that Reddit post. Thought it was pretty genius. And of course someone that would have and execute an idea like that would hang out a place like here. Lol
What kind of garage / exterior storage space is available?
I’m curious about stashing a couple of e-bikes and a grill.
This looks like a hit to my eyes. A real Goldilocks. I think the price is even sane. Nice.
This is the first new motorhome I’ve seen that could steer me away from my plan to renovate a GMC motorhome.
I want to travel with my wife and the dogs. My dogs are over 50lbs and are of an undesired breed. They are not welcome at ‘dog friendly’ hotels where they have 30-40 lb weight limit. I could probably get into a migrant worker / domestic violence efficiency style hotel, but that’s not much of a vacation.
This is something I can load the dogs into and take a road trip, knowing they are safe while we’re away if we can’t bring them.
It’s much better than the vans that try to fit a full kitchen into space that could be used for anything else (even walking space would be more useful).
I need a space to sleep comfortably. a place to sit (work) comfortably, and a bathroom to do bathroom things in comfortably. I need just enough kitchen to maybe make a simple meal in, or to toast buns for dinner cooked on an outside grill.
My situation may be unique, but I will never need to sleep and feed six people in my van. I’ll gladly trade a little dining or cooking space for a comfortable bathroom. I certainly don’t want to add ten feet of length or 1000 pounds of pop-outs because the kitchen converts to sleep eight. Not to mention that having two axles saves a lot of money on tolls if you’re rolling out of the northeast.
Forgot to mention. Boarding the dogs around here will cost us $150-$200/night. We could find a nice hotel in much of the US for less than that, so losing that expense can make a difference in where we go and/or for how long we go.
Also forgot to add, this is something that can be used for day trips, where a larger RV may bring a lot more parking hassles and a van-based RV may not offer the facilities that make them worth bringing.
This can be a comfortable place to freshen-up or get out of the sun for a bit.
You’d still have to use it a lot to make up for the cost, but being able to take off for a day or two without planning every step around camper parking make it a lot more usable, imho.
We now have that 60 pound dog. She doesn’t play nicely with others but is delightful for us. We are looking at redone VW Westphalias. Jeebus the cost is crazy town. But the idea of being able to stop and cook and sleep without motels is a huge bonus. As birders even more so. Do the thought becomes that this adventure vehicle is a second home, vacation cottage. And those cost a shit ton of money and don’t move very well. Ok that may be a rationalization to up the ante, but maybe not
Just buy an old GMC Motorhome and have Cinnibar fully refit it for you.
Still leaves you with three axles at a toll booth vs two, and the difference can be significant.
Edit: They also can’t even present their projects in a reasonable way. Their website is crap for Web 1.0. Fine if I’m looking for someone to chisel my curbstones, less good for someone I want to install solar panels.
“Their website is crap for Web 1.0. Fine if I’m looking for someone to chisel my curbstones”
Is that what the kids call it these days?
I believe Web 1.0 is like static HTML.
Web 2.0 added the ability to buy everything everywhere with ads on every web page.
Web 3.0 pollutes all search results with ai-generated nonsense and adds the ability to lose all your money on Hawk Tuah coin.
I don’t know if any of that is accurate.
“Chisel your curbstones” sounds like something you’d find on the web you’d have to pay by the minute for.
I was talking about the masons who cut stone.
You’re thinking of the creepy secret ritual masons.
Or a great name for a rock band. I’ll find my own way out
This also has the 6 speed Ford automatic so you’re in better shape than the trouble prone 10 speed.
The slide out is the only thing I want to stay away from. If you don’t get the king slide out you get twin’s and what is that between the beds? Looks like you could get a queen and not slide out. They break/leak.
Liking the direction this is moving, but wondering why a hybrid drivetrain wouldn’t be a popular wish-list item for these coaches. Seems like you could squeeze more power and torque from a hybrid setup, perhaps even better mileage. Complexity may be a factor, I suppose, or maybe no platform producers offer a big hybrid setup. Just wondering.
They will get there when they’re forced to by regulations.
Unfortunately they’re buying their chassis and drivetrains from other manufacturers. Most of those packages go towards box trucks, where the hybrid may not be that much of an advantage or they’re worried about their techs being able to service them.
Hybrids would be great for RVs, especially with the ability to use the drive battery as a house battery. But that is an RV-specific use case, and RVs will be a small portion of the applications for this chassis. It’s not like the RV manufacturers can add a hybrid system to the chassis they buy. They’re essentially coach builders.
Box trucks should benefit from hybridization even more than RVs.
Probably, but down time costs operators money. I can see a trucking company assuming more complexity equals more maintenance or repair time, and possibly .
And they have been proven right on that, over and over again.
Impressive. Seems like it is not crazy over priced. The 7.3 is a great engine, great torque, but not the mpg of a diesel. Or the complications.
I’d be interested in one of these. Used, in ten years.
$140k would pay for quite a few hotel rooms, cottage rentals, and/or cabins in the woods.
And I wouldn’t have pay for any maintenance, storage, excessive fuel, nor would I have to drive this behemoth.
You know, someone says that in every article.
I love hotels, RVs, and some tents. They all have their place. I’ve taken RVs to incredible places where hotels and rental cabins just don’t exist. I’ve also been to hotels that make me scoff at the idea of sleeping in a tent or in an RV. There are no campfires or starry nights in front of a hotel room and you can’t park your rental cabin on top of a mountain, but there are no mosquitoes or worries about fuel economy in a hotel. Different strokes and all that…
I have some ski buddies that use a 33 footer. There is no way to stay at hotels in ski area’s for little $. Even SLC is getting pricer. So like most things if you don’t use it it’s not worth it. I was in my rig from Dec. to June last year, maybe 20 days in hotels during that period. It is a choice, hard to put a price being able to do what you want where you want.
Right, but despite its “budget price” and “small size”, it’s a hefty chunk of cash for something that has limited user, and still represents something that needs significant storage space (and potentially ongoing maintenance as it ages or is stored extensively). The list price is just the first foot of ownership costs.
“Potentially” – uh, no – RVs need *constant* maintenance from brand new, and you are both maintaining an overloaded (inevitably) HD (everything is $$$$) motor vehicle AND a flimsily built house that it getting constantly shaken and stirred. My folks were into this when I was in high school – noooope – I am far too cheap and lazy.
I do agree in general, but the price of new RVs is ridiculous considering the build quality / utility. There are many places in the US where $140k comes close to paying off the house.
I acknowledge that $140k is not what it was a few years ago, but it is still significant for a toy budget. There are plenty of people who could spend this without much thought, but that’s not a market segment you can really rely on unless these RVs become a status symbol.
I have to say that I’m interested at this price. Not sold, but they have my attention.
I am with you in general. The one thing that tilts me towards non-hotel accommodations is the ability to bring my dogs. This is the first thing I have seen in a long time that makes an RV a reasonable proposition.
I’d still want a diesel powered version, for better towing and hill climbing power. if I jump into the RV lifestyle I’ll want to tow a real car with me. That said, this is a terrific option. Beats every Sprinter-based RV I’ve seen, while still managing to be a reasonable size. King bed option? Decent size kitchen? Full bath? There’s a lot to like here.
I wouldn’t be too worried about using this without a car. It’s big, but it could be parked in two normal parking spots (given enough room to pull into them).
I feel like I see lots of the older v10 gas motorhomes towing, and this with the Godzilla and lighter weight should do better than those.
That said, definately depends what you want to tow. The people with wranglers (because they are easy to flat tow) dragging 4000+lbs behind their diesel pushers are ridiculous.
The website says 8000lb tow hitch, but not what it’s rated to tow (at least that I could find).
what’s with the hose for the shower hand-sprayer coming out of the drain? or is that AI trickery
It’s just looped with the bottom happening to be at the drain. Not sure why it’s laying on the floor rather than in the holder up at the top of the shower.
Oh, it’s just laying on the floor. It should be hanging from its holder, but whoever took the press imagery didn’t bother staging it well. 🙂
Yes, but can it safely tow my rusted-out Saturn Vue down to Florida every October? If it helps warn other drivers, I can get some fake Quebec license plates printed up. 🙂 Definitely a step in the right direction…when we were looking at some during- and post-Covid Class C RVs (eg Jayco Redhawk) the prices are all pushing beyond $150k so there’s definitely a market for it. Travel trailers are still a lot more bang for your buck, but you can’t take a dump or make a sandwich while driving. Maybe at the same time.
Nobody will know your Vue is rusty unless they look underneath….
LOL @ Quebec plates.
So true.
Spent 47 years living in Maine – can attest – those frogs are cray-cray behind the wheel.