This Big RV Company Is Finally Building The Motorhome You’ve Been Begging For

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.