This Is The ‘Crossover SUV’ Of New RVs And It’s A Great Idea With One Big Problem

One of the growing trends in American recreational vehicles today is the rise of the European-style coach. Americans are voting with their voices and their wallets that they want smaller, easier to drive RVs. Those people now have surprisingly good choice in the market with even large players entering into this niche. One of those brands is RV giant Coachmen, and its new Euro motorhome tries to be the best of both worlds. It’s smaller, narrower, and more aerodynamic like a European RV, but has the platform, luxuries, and power of an American RV. It’s being marketed as a “crossover” and like the crossover SUV it’s a great idea, only the RV version of it has quite a problem.

I wrote about the Coachmen Euro last month, but that article hinged largely on what my eyes could see through press photos. The great thing about RV shows is that I can get on the ground and dig around the RVs that I write about. Then, I can see if they live up to the promise of their marketing copy. To be clear, I never want to bash a company or its products. I deliver to you what my eyes see and what my hands feel. RVs are the second largest (if not the largest) purchase you can make. I want to help people make informed decisions and maybe there’s the off-chance that a manufacturer might make a positive change. Or at least that’s what a woman can hope.

In the car world, the crossover is a vehicle that combines traits of a car with traits of an SUV. Usually, this means you get a big vehicle that looks like an SUV and rides high like one, too, but based on a car platform so it drives more like a big wagon rather than a truck.

Europe Meets America

The Coachmen Euro, which launched last year, is pitched as more or less the crossover of motorhomes. But that has a different meaning here. American motorhomes are big on power, luxury, and sheer size while European units are smaller, sleeker, more aerodynamic, and lighter. In theory, if you combined the two together you’d get the kind of RV people have been asking for lately.

The Coachmen Euro is substantially smaller than many Class A coaches. Here’s what I said last month:

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.

But this coach isn’t just smaller. Coachmen decided to copy the aerodynamic style of European motorhomes. I continue:

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.

When I saw the Euro in person, I was happy to see that most of this was present and of pretty good quality. The Euro is painted in a fantastic glossy finish that I wish more coaches came in. I also loved the metal underbody and the removal of equipment from the roof that would have one day potentially provided an entry point for water.

However, the exterior was also where I first started noticing some sloppy work. For example, take a look at this passenger window, which is made by RV supplier Lippert.

The window sits a handful of millimeters off the body. When the sun shines on it, you notice that the frit (the black border), sometimes doesn’t actually terminate at the end of the glass. If you look at it from 10 feet away or so it looks like a seal was applied poorly or something.

I noticed that this issue was present on the other Coachmen Euro at the show. I’m sure this won’t be a problem in the long run, but if I noticed it, I’m sure you would too. Thankfully, I think you could fix it with a little bit of black paint from AutoZone.

The first real problem occurred when I attempted to enter the white coach. I opened the door and annoyingly, the screen door stayed behind. No matter what I did I couldn’t convince the screen door to move with the main door like every other modern RV on the planet. This gets extra annoying because the coach’s motorized steps don’t deploy unless both the screen door and the main door are open.

The screen door was so consistently stuck shut that I found it hard to believe nobody did anything about it before displaying the unit at an RV show. To be sure, I checked out the black unit and it didn’t have this problem, so something was wrong with the door on the white unit.

Something I found neat on both units was their manufacturing plates. The chassis of the white one was finished in January 2024, but it wasn’t completed into a motorhome until late November.

Once I did get inside, I was amused at what Coachmen did. So, the whole idea with this interior layout is that it’s like a European motorhome. What this means in practice is that the interior has the same layout as a camper van, but scaled up by 50 percent.

Coachmen says that one of the other European traits of the Euro is its use of mirrors mounted to its roof rather than mirrors mounted just below the window line. The brand says that putting the mirror bases above your line of sight improves visibility over the “transit-style” mirrors and I agree. However, this isn’t a feature unique to the Coachmen Euro. I found other Class As at the RV show with the same kind of roof-mounted mirrors. Still, it’s a neat touch.

Moving back from the cab I noticed my next big issue with the Euro. Where the heck do you even eat in this thing? There’s a dashboard-based tray for the front passenger and the kitchen counter. That’s it. This is supposed to be a family coach but where is the family supposed to eat? I guess Coachmen expects them to sit at that sofa with their meal. There aren’t even cupholders where the sofa is.

I asked some Class A owners in case I was missing something and they did a double-take when they realized the same thing I did.

That aside, the kitchen does look pretty neat, featuring a gently flowing design with curves. In Coachmen’s press copy it mentioned that the company outsources the Euro’s cabinets to a third-party cabinetmaker to ensure consistent quality. On one hand, the cabinetry did seem to be a cut above the normal stuff that comes out of Indiana. On the other hand, the cabinetry still had ugly cosmetic flaws.

Here’s more just weird cosmetic damage on a cheap piece of floor trim. Remember, all of the stuff I’m showing you is on an RV that left the factory a little over a month ago.

To further clarify, this is also not an RV show unit, but a unit provided by a dealership and intended for sale to a customer. The pictures I took were from before the public was unleashed into the show.

Moving to the bathroom, I am pleased to report that while it isn’t huge, it is larger than you’d find in many small rigs. I feel like I could use the shower with some comfort, which I can’t say about most RVs.

Finally, we reach the rear, where you step up into a weird lounge sort of thing that fully converts into a king bed. I have no real notes about the rear end of the coach. It’s plenty big enough for a couple and small kids to sleep in with room to spread out. Or maybe the kids can take the sofa, which also transforms into a bed.

Once I got my fill of the white unit, I moved to the black unit. This was largely the same as the white one, but this one comes with a slide. It does add some floorspace, but not really enough that I’d want to spend extra to get the slide. Weirdly, the sofa is now gone and in its place is look, a table! The table is still too small, but at least the option is there.

Apparently, there’s another floorplan out there that offers seats and belts for six people, but a table for just two of those people. Am I missing something here?

I walked out of both of the motorhomes a bit disappointed. I love the idea of blending the size of a European coach with the power and luxury of an American motorhome.

You get a Ford F53 motorhome chassis with power from the Godzilla 7.3-liter gasoline V8, which makes 335 HP and 468 lb-ft of torque. You’ll have no problem finding parts compared to if this were a real European motorhome with some engine no small-town shop’s ever heard of. The Ford F53 is also able to be sold in the states where many large diesels cannot be sold. Oh yeah, and did I mention that when loaded at its heaviest the Euro is just 16,000 pounds?

Unfortunately, it seems as though Coachmen didn’t copy European quality, instead leaving that very American. The interiors of the brand-new Coachmen Euros at the 2025 Florida RV SuperShow had what I felt were too many imperfections for month-old rigs. I also felt that the interior materials didn’t match what Coachmen was trying to go for here. Sure, none of my complaints impact the coach’s day-to-day operations, but I’d be properly annoyed if the screen door failed to open every single time I tried opening the main door.

So, I love this idea, but wish it had better execution. The Coachmen Euro can be had for roughly $140,000, but that price is highly dependent on options, location, and the dealer selling it to you. Personally, if I were dropping more than the value of a decent first-generation Audi R8 V10 on a rig, I’d want the materials to be at least a bit better.

That all being said, I still like the concept. This is the low-riding, smaller, and lighter motorhome that people have been asking for. Plus it’s backed by reliable Ford power. Now, Coachmen just needs to import the fit and finish of a European coach.