Did You Know? The Cadillac of RV's: GMC Motorhome!
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- The Did You Know? Series is part of Ed's Auto Reviews Christmas 'Car'rol: an Automotive Advent!
In this short story we look at General Motors that suddenly out of nowhere decides to built a motorhome in an effort to enter the lucrative RV (recreational vehicle) business. It became the Cadillac AND Corvette of motorhomes, but why was it discontinued after six years?
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Back in the 70's I was vacationing with friends who owned one of these RV's. We were returning from our two week trip and I was the designated driver. In spite of it being daytime everyone in the back was taking an afternoon snooze. I remember looking up at the giant review mirror which displayed the interior of the camper and I noticed the mirror looked hazy. My first thought was the air conditioning was causing the mirror to fog. I reached up to wipe the mirror but it was dry, so I glanced back into the cabin and realized the cabin had filled with smoke. I immediately hollered FIRE! and everyone piled out of their bunks as I pulled the Leviathan to the side of the highway. We quickly found that the fire was inside the rear wall behind the wood paneling. A fellow motorist flagged down a Georgia State Trooper and the fire department soon showed up with their brand new fire truck. It was the first call they had ever made with their new truck and they were so proud of it. They got out their hatches and axes and chopped open the inside wall and soon put out the fire. It was determined the the cause was a broken exhaust pipe hanger that had broken and the tailpipe had inverted and was blowing exhaust gas against the undercarriage of the camper, causing the wood paneling to ignite. Long and short, everyone was fine and a week later an article was published in the local newspaper about how well spent the local tax dollars were spent on the new fire truck and how they saved the lives of four vacationers.
You left out the most important part: did the RV recover? ;)
Wow!! We have a celebrity here, lol
But seriously, glad you all are alright and glad that the fire fighter finally able to use their new toys, but the main question is, did the camper RV van survived?
I smell a screenplay!!
Dad made the five o'clock LA news in the same way, though with the RV a complete loss it's never been known what caused the fire. We thought it might have been an electricla issue, but dad shut down the Grapvine climb out of the San Fernando for a few hours. He was a lifelong mechanci and very thorough. He went back in to get papers and seemed somewhat disoriented, and got out thirty seconds before the RV blew up.
@@DwightStJohn-t7y
Whew!
That's a story and a half.
Maybe the best designed vehicle GM released in the 1970's. And about that interior; If you're gonna go 1970's....Go full out 70's.
Yes, but you should _never_ go full-out 70's...
Hah ha
Good one !
@@ksquine It had that great transaxle. A version of the one from the Cadillac El Dorado & Oldsmobile Toronado. The fuel crisis didn't affect it's sales as much as assumed. It didn't make sense, that they stopped making the GMC Camper. It got unfairly deleted along with the dinosaurs. Along with the Cadillac Seville, it was one of the few bright lights of the US motor industry of the 1970's.
Besides, would the US Army have fielded it as the famous EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle which helped bring Communist Eastern Europe to it's knees during the Cold War, with it's 1980 invasion of Czechoslavakia unless it was totally awesome?
@@sparky6086 Yes, the famous EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle! It is a _LEGEND!_
where was the disco ball???
A tale old as time. GM makes something amazing and kills it off immediately
😆
I've owned 6 and still have 4 of these. They made just under 13,000. And about half of them are still on the road. They pop up in movies, videos and commercials fairly often. Although most are now 50 years old the quality and styling have kept them popular with RV enthusiasts.
There is something, well, noble about keeping a quality idea alive.
Well done.
How challenging is getting parts? Any machine shops involved in crafting parts?
That’s an impressive number still on the road .
Your neighbors must love you.
@@nessie42786 😆what neighbor wouldn't want 6 RVs parked in the front yard ...😂
I've even seen that N.A.S.A has a few that they've customized to carry astronauts to the shuttle in.
It might not have sold well but lets all agree we all wanted one
Absolutely! The sleekest RV of all time.
Yeah. I was around 10yo when a neighbor got one. It has alot of the appeal of an Airstream. It obviously inspired some Scifi movie/tv vehicles. My stepdad bought one to restore about 10 years ago, but wound up just reselling it.
I still want one!
It's starring role on Ben 10 when I was a kid was my reason haha
@@lugnutlarry1764 Absolutely. I was just going to say "wanted? I STILL want one!"
Hard to believe that GM was once a great engineering company that also made buses, locomotives and refrigerators. Now they can't even make a decent car.
Their entire lineup is solid at the very least if not class leading
They CAN still make a decent car, they just have a company structure that frequently gets in the way of this by incentivizing the wrong things. Flagship products like Cadillacs and Corvettes are still fantastic, and their trucks aren't bad unless you ask a Ford guy. When GM puts their pride on a product, they make something incredible. When GM is trying to make a regular car to fill a gap in their model lineup, they make it cheap and cheaply built.
TBH, GM couldn't make a decent car in 1976.
@@molochinobody in the US market was making a decent car in 1976 lol. Barely adequate, even most of the luxury cars.
We can thank Mary Barra (CEO of GM) for that. For the life of me, I don't know why she wasn't terminated a long time ago. Their quality is abysmal.
I own one of these (a 1977 Palm Beach model). Everywhere we stop people come over and ask about it. Most don't believe it is almost 50 years old. The GMC motorhome has quite a cult following.
I own a 77 Eleganza.
The GMC Motorhome is so iconic and timeless, surprised GMC or GM haven't continue doing this or done a modern version of this tbh, imagine what it would look like if it was done now, lol
Checked out one of these at a car show a few years back. Damn it was cool!
It looks so good that Ben10's grandpa Max has one.
One was at a car show a few years ago. It was the star. Everyone wanted to see it, especially the interior.
The guy who owned it was the son of the original owner and was in the process of restoring it to all its original 1970's glory. So much avocado green, maze yellow, and different shades of brown.
Still the best looking RV ever was created...
The Citroën H Van WAS a work of art!
every citroen before the 90s was
@@john_barnett I will say before 2000, because the XM and the Xantia were good cars.
IS
@@Clement.V Some of us younger folk quite like the C6!
@@joshuanishanthchristian5217 i don't like the C6. But i recognize that the C6 was a real Citroën. Yet, i prefer the Xantia and the XM for their design.
it is the EM50 project, based out of Italy and it travels to Czechoslovakia to kick some Soviet ass!
Love that movie! EM50…. Urban Assault Vehicle!
Stripes is one of my favorite movies
I second, third and fourth that 😊
Sgt. Hulka would have been proud.
Cmon it's czechoslavakia. Like going to Wisconsin.
It's such a cool design, Mattel made one for Barbie in the mid 70's. The muscle car with plumbing.
1:17 When Ed mentioned 70s American vans, was waiting to see if he mentions this bit and he delivered 🤣. Dank u wel Ed, dank u wel.
Shaggin mafuckin wagon!
“If this van’s a-rockin’, don’t bother knockin’!”
I had a Cadillac RV! Back in the mid to late 1980s, I bought crappy $500 cars. A 1953 Cadillac Fleetwood sedan, 1973 VW Thing, 1975 VW Beetle, but the best cost-to-weight ratio car was a 1974 Cadillac ambulance bought around 1987. 6,000+ pounds of car for $500 (a little more than eight cents per pound) for an ultimate station wagon. Gigantic Cadillac front end holding a 472 cubic inch (7.7 L) engine. Huge humped roof where you can stand up in the back (48" headroom, 157.5" length). Bought it for an RV. Took the paramedic chair out and made a bedroom in the back with a mattress. Side and rear windows had pull-down blinds for privacy (that cops hated). Used it to move furniture and boxes for friends moving into places. Could haul tons of stuff in that cavernous rear compartment. I measured a first-gen 1991 Mazda Miata and it could fit in the back of that meat wagon with room to spare.
- 1974 Miller-Meteor Lifeliner ruclips.net/video/QOV36I0HIUk/видео.html
GMC discontinued the motorhome because they downsized the Toronado in 1979. The drivetrain was smaller.
"General Motor Homes!" I love it!
I love you just for the aluminium part
As someone who lived their childhood in the 2000s, I can recognize the Rustbucket silhouette anywhere.
It sucks that it never sold well in it's day, as it looks so well designed.
I was waiting for someone to say that
"The aerodynamics of a grainery!" 🤣🤣🤣
Agreed!
Good writing !
The GMC motorhome was actually quite aerodynamic, with a lower coefficient of drag than the contemporaneous Corvette (Vette guys did the SMC plastic). CD .216. Larger frontal area, though, and before all the rooftop accessories.
"…and aesthetics that made a Citroën H Van look more like an art piece!"…🤣
I just remember this vehicle as the "EM-50 Assault vehicle featured in the movie "Stripes" staring Bill Murry, Harold Ramis and John Candy! Good times!
1976 GMC Palm Beach motorhome.
@@BDUBZ49 Is that who made the Motor home that was featured in the movie?
@@joseyzadoria7815 Yep. Check out a channel called CarStarz. He does videos on vehicles from tv and film.
It could never compare to the Herkheimer Battle Jitney, the finest nonlethal military vehicle ever made! :)
The Urban Assault Vehicle, for when you need to extract hostages from a communist dictatorship.
Looked at one of these new at the dealer in the '70s. In Phoenix, AZ. In the summer. It was so hot inside the outgassing from the plastics and adhesives burned my eyes and made it hard to breathe. It really made an impression. But yeah, other than the carcinogens, it was really cool.
Perhaps that's why they had the twin air-cons...to remove the chemicals, not cool the air.
Other than the carcinogens.
Well done.
Hey, thanks Big Oil.
The interior furniture was not done by GM. For 73 and 74, the interiors were done by Gemini, a well know RV specialist. Later models were sold as "Transmodes" to be outfitted by "coach builders". Some were built as airport limos, news rooms, ambulances and Civil Defense HQs etc.
i think as much as anything the discontinued full size 455 toronado after 1978 probably killed of the GMC motorhome. at that time, there wasn't anything in GM's wheelhouse, so to speak, to take over. love these, and they have a huge following
GM was still producing HD V-8s for the truck market and I believe the final year they switched from the Olds to a Cadillac V-8.
@@Primus54 I own one of the last 455s put in a coach. GM switched to the Olds 403 for the final production run of coaches. Olds and other GM brands stopped using the 455 before the motor home stopped using them.
@ Thanks for the correction! And lucky you!
The TH 425 front-drive automatic also ceased production in 1978. It is a modified TH 400 with a chain-drive to support a transfer case.
@@Primus54 A popular engine swap has been the Cadillac 500 cid V8. Nothing wrong with the original Olds Rocket 455 cid V8. It a torque MONSTER!
Budget Builds spent quite a few episodes dedicated restoring on of these. Thanks Ed!
looking forward to the next one for sure
Can’t express how much I’ve enjoyed this series Ed! Mind you, I enjoy everything you do. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Most of us will remember this vehicle as Max Tennyson's RV
Fun fact: this RV made a cameo appearance in the Breaking Bad episode "Over" in the famous "stay out of my territory" scene.
I saw one of these as a small child in the early 2000s. It was parked in the camping area at Oulton Park Circuit in Cheshire and was owned by an old Californian couple. Being in the UK I had never seen one before, and found it absolutely fascinating. They were very friendly and showed me all around it. I forgot what the vehicle was for years until I saw a video on this maybe 2 years ago. A very fond childhood memory of mine.
A business opened near me for a couple years that found and rehabilitated these gm front drive motorhomes. I always thought they were cool myself. And I watched the techs at that shop doing big smokey burnouts with half disassembled motor homes one night while out for a beer run, and I just had to go say hi and watch the show. Coolest RVs ever, 455 oldsmobile and front drive from a tornado, genius.
Heh, my ex and I nearly bought one of those or maybe something similar, perhaps twenty years ago, details are a bit fuzzy, but the interior kinda felt more 80s, ...like resembling Picard's Enterprise -D 80s. Which was kind of cool to us actually. I want to say the powertrain was something more familiar to me than Toronado stuff though, but it ended up a different gig turned up for said ex than 'Science Nomads' :)
Was that Jim Bounds Motorhome Rehab Ranch, near Orlando?
Aside from the brilliant engineering, these were the best looking motor homes of all time.
I just saw one of these at a rest stop in Illinois along I-70 a few weeks ago. It still looks current.
I'm surprised they sold so many. I remember the gasoline shortages, the price shock as gasoline went above a dollar a gallon, the angst of wondering if you'd be able to fill up your tank.
If you could afford one of these in the first place, you weren't worrying about putting gas in it. These were *expensive* compared to the usual Winnebago Brave or whatnot.
A nice subject related to this would be the Ultra Van motorhome that used the Chevrolet Corvair power train and Power Glide transmission. The Ultra Van was built in Hutchinson, Kansas, not far from Cessna and Beechcraft's home in Wichita.
The Ultra Van's construction was based on light aircraft materials and assembly processes. In fact, legend says, it was designed by a California aircraft designer.
The Ultra Van was quite popular in the early to mid sixties with more than 1,200 built, as I recall. As you can imagine, this motorhome was slow and later versions had a 327 cubic inch small block Chevy V8 engine attached to the Power Glide.
These vehicles were rather sturdy and resistant to corrosion. Many made it into the 21st Century. A type club supplies parts.
My neighbor had one of these for years and years, I always admired it as a kid. It was covered in lichen and was hardly used anymore.. but man, I wanted it.
3:12 ah yes, back when avocado was just a colour! 😉 Makes a difference from the usual Browns and Oranges
Please, "Harvest Gold". 😁
“My eyes!”
Welcome to the 1970s in America Ed. For the worst color ever look up Fender guitar’s original “Antigua” finish.
My uncle had one new. I’m 52 and remember it vividly. Very 70’s color. Orange shag, seats, and countertops with bamboo shades.
I still have one of these as a HESS truck!
Ed, you have been delivering the people some decent presents this year. I'm almost sorry I didn't beait until you were done in order to say that.
There are two versions. A shorter and a longer wheelbase version. Thanks Ed!
Yes, 23 foot "hot rods", and more commonly, 26 foot. Easiest way to tell the difference is by the placement of the single door located on the passenger, or camp side. If the door is directly behind the passenger, it's 23 ft. If 3-4 ft back, it's a 26 ft.
I love the 1970s style. Boxy,square, phowood, green, orange, brown,yellow, and floral print and lots and lots of chrome.👌
Hey nice! My dad's family used to rent these for their summer vacations back when he was a kid! Grandpa apparently once spent several minutes arguing with a toll booth worker that it was NOT a three-axle vehicle to try and save a dime. The guy in the booth was uncompromising, but Grandpa was absolutely and technically correct. Ah well!
I firmly believe this is the only great motorhome. It was built by an automaker, not some weird 3rd party. If I remember, something like 70% of the 13,000 built are still roadworthy. Which is insane for any vehicle, not just a motorhome of the 70s!
I own a 77 26' Eleganza.
I own a '74 Glacier 26 ft. Built the last week of November '73.
These were extremely well built, very comfortable, and a huge number are still cruising the country. There is a serious market for these beauties.
My stepfather restored one of these in the late 90s-early 2000's. GMC Eleganza 2, and it was a pretty fun RV to take trips with them in. Definitely got a lot of attention at the campgrounds.
I’ve also read that GM needed more factory capacity to build vehicles for the fast-growing and highly profitable pick-up market.
Love the series Ed 🎄
The Winnebagel Cheif was really nice also ❤
Oddly enough, I saw one today. It appeared to be still in use.
Thanks Ed for the trip down memory lane.
I love RV history, so thanks for the video. One of the options available for the GMC Motorhome was a system called Thermasan that disposed of the black water in the engine exhaust.
These things are genuinely so cool! I’ve been searching for a nice one for several years, always liked these over the airstream that was built on a GM Chassis
Airstream did build some on the GM front wheel drive platform, as well as some rear wheel drive units.
I would love to have one. Don't know what I would do with it. But I still want it 😊
Park it in the living room, good conversation piece!
😉
Car shows they’re not that big at least compared to modern RVs
Upgrade it with Plumber tech
1:47 My folks had one just like that, same colour too with green shag baby!
Really enjoying this series 😊 , keep it going after the holidays
One of these days I hope to have one of those classics .. So well done ..!!
Wow, that was some impressive handling! 👍🏻
I saw one of these out in the wild. They take it to various car related swap meets. It’s common for vendors to spend the night in campers and RVs right where they sell. A few months ago I actually looked to see how much they go for. They are pretty affordable as far as RVs go, and many have been remodeled.
Love the interiors! Groovy. 👍
Glad to be reminded of this lol. Relative of a neighbor had one of these when I was younger and for weeks at a time would park it out front of their house and live in it. Always tried to look inside it when I could. Super cool!
"Veiny" Vidi Vici. Lmao! You got jokes today Ed!
3:32 that sure looks a lot like the 1976 GMC Palm Beach from *STRIPES* aka the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle.
"General Motorhomes" - great line :D
There was a Barbie Motorhome of the period that looked like a GMC Motorhome.
I loved it but by the end, it seemed you were just getting started. I want to hear much more about this sleek, modern-looking motorhome. I love the design. What it really is lacking is pullouts, which we started seeing in the industry around 1990.
Not gonna lie, I love those things.
I’ve been SO many of these beauties practically all over the place, and that’s why many of them have survived, even today.
Thank you Ed, for explaining what the hell that was parked on the side of the Marcil's house down the street from us. We knew that it had a motor. We saw it heading down to the Richfield* station for gas once.
Back when the dinosaurs were finally dying off so we could all have gas for our model Ts, Mr. Marcil must have decided, "Why not?"
(*Richfield, little pups was what they called ARCO and/or BP and/or AMPM before they got all fancy and you could buy junk food and rolling papers).
My big brother told me that all the dads just figured that a GMC couldn't find anyone to buy the damn things.
They looked too fancy for the Marcil's, who really seemed to think that they were royalty living on Wilson Street. Anyone else could have told you was the crap side of town. It lived there on the side of their house for years, until all the fiberglass on the motorhome faded and then cracked. After that it was that weird banana colored thing covered with blue tarps and sat on flat tires well after I graduated high school.
Pity, though. GMC comes out with something straight off the assembly line that worked or didn't blow up? Very rare indeed.
The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia acquired one of these for the ambassador to use at the summer capital, Taif. It was a combined residential/office unit. Of course, it hardly left the compound in Jeddah. I transferred from the embassy in 1978 and this thing was still there. I wonder whatever happened to it. A great example of wasting the taxpayers' money.
Thanks Ed!
The green interior appeals to me. I also decorated my living room in shades of green (curtains, carpet, furniture).
These are so cool and highly sought after here in the US. My dream motorhome.
3:23 It's the HESS training van.
I often got a HESS truck for christmas. My fave was the GMC RV with working head and tail lights.
These were so cool - especially the factory optional black water tank smokescreen! Yes, you could dump the poo in to the hot exhaust and have your rv smell like raw sewage. And you thought getting stuck behind a slow rv up a hill was bad before!
These motorhomes are best remembered today from their appearance in the 1981 film “Stripes,” where it was supposed to be a disguised armored personnel carrier.
I think I've seen one of those in the RV community in North Vancouver, being lived in. Its a very attractive design even with all the wear and tear and moss streaks.
I saw one of these in the wild in my town last year. Seemed to run fine, and looked sharp.
My uncle had one and loved it. But he warned me, if I ever got one, never park it on grass without planks under the tires. His was only parked overnight on very firm turf. Tires didn’t sink much. Being front wheel driven however, the dew on the grass was enough to anchor the beast.
When I was a child, my father took my whole on a test drive of one of these in 1973. He wanted one so badly. I think I remember that the sales price was 16,000 bucks for the 23 footer…a FORTUNE back then
Hey Ed! You forgot to mention that those RV's burn the poop throug the exhaust pipe to empty the poop tank 😂.
Thermosan was an option. I'm glad mine doesn't have one.
I’ve been loving these videos! Yay Ed!
Merry Merry!
These are so cool, I almost bought one, and I HATE RVs. The green interior is just so super cool.
"with aerodynamics of a granary" 🤣
classic Ed-ism
One of the best and toughest drivetrains ever put in an RV.
Panel vans with a mattress in the back were very popular in Australia in my youth.
I hoped it would be this one and it was- Ed you've made my Christmas 👍
There was a guy in Florida who was a fan of these so he made a business of buying and selling used parts for them, and he rebuilt several to sell. He had anything you needed for these at very fair prices. Sadly he closed up shop a couple years ago and sold off everything he had which has made it hard to find parts now. IIRC the final drive gears were different than the cars, don't interchange, and there are no usable replacements anymore. There's a few other design issues where trouble always happens too, but overall it's one of the best motorhomes ever made and was well ahead of it's time.
There are still Guys who deal with parts and accessories. Firestone no longer make the airbags for the rear suspension, but there are several modifications to use commonly available bags.
@wilfredvanvalkenburgh2874 I figured that someone would pick up the job afterward as there are still many of these in use. All I know is that I've always wanted one myself, and I don't really care for motorhomes!
I remember seeing those on the road regularly. It looks like something from the American television series Lost in Space
To date, still the most attractive camper vehicles ever.
My neighbor a few blocks away still has one in his driveway. AND is still used......
Ed... The H Van IS an art piece!
Your videos brings a lot of joy!
someone in my home town used to own one of these. it was permanently parked on the side of the street and i never saw it move for years. it’s gone today but you can still see it on old Google Street view pictures
Coolest RV ever! I remember when they came out.
I have to say, i love the design of the GMC Motorhome, so iconic and such, shame GM never continued it or see what a modern looks like yet, hope they revisit this tbh, so yeah
Thank you Ed
These were amazing! My grandparents had a '74 23 foot Canyon Lands... I couldn't wait til I was old enough to talk my Grampa into selling it to me... sadly, the t-boning of it by a '76 Electra took care of that :-(
The Revcon was the first I had a 1971 model / prototype, and in 1972, they were sold to the public.
Fabulous
What. Someone used Citroen and "art piece" in the same sentence? Lol. Absolutely hilarity!
Oh, Lordy, you don't know 😆😅😂
@billh230 fill me in please. I'm just a dumb American!
@@joshuagibson2520 I am, too, Joshua. I've just been involved with Citroën for a number of years.
I've seen H vans as art cars (the ones with all sorts of eclectic pieces attached), coffee trucks, campers, motorcycle haulers(!), yard art, you name it, I've either seen it or know someone who has. Slow, lumbering, but they put in a day of work. Kinda cheerful when painted in colors brighter than the usual gray, tan, or bronze.
Citroen made the beautiful, amazing SM! The '73 Motor Trend magazine " Car of The Year, had a Maserati engine, hydro pneumatic suspension! A real work of art! Looks like an alien spaceship from the future! And before then, the DS. And the 30's Traction Avant. Good looking cars IMHO.
In my hometown, one of these sat and rotted at a closed down gas station on main Street for about 20 years and I think might have been lived in. I'm fairly certain that despite that it's in relatively good condition because they rolled it (or maybe drove it) down the road and put it behind the drive in.
I remember seeing the rare one or two. Sadly, it’s another example of GM not seeing the market and making the right vehicle but at the wrong time.
Luck is a major factor.
Sadly, for all their talent and all their money, GM tends to do a lot of right car/wrong time.