Who doesn’t love a family vacation? You pack the kids into the family truckster, plan a route to a tourist trap five states away, and set off into parts unknown, hopping between hotels and motels on the way. Of course, the erudite approach is to skip the truckster and the accommodations and roll them into one — the vaunted Recreational Vehicle. But RVs are slow, cumbersome, inconvenient. Right?
Well, not all of them. This 1977 GMC motorhome can top 193 km per hour in a straight line, provided you’ve got the room to let its nitrous-injected 700 horsepower V8 punch that squared-off body through the air. Oh, and you can buy it right now for $US95,000 ($AU142,481).
It may not be the quickest vehicle off the line, but it claims to be the fastest Class A motorhome in the world. That speed isn’t easy to get — the RV has been modified from tip to tail for its purpose. Aero mods, new suspension and drivetrain, upgraded brakes, even the interior’s been stripped out and replaced with race seats. Oh, and did I mention it has a roll cage?
You could argue that, since the home parts of this motorhome have been sacrificed at the altar of lightness, it’s no longer really a motorhome. I, however, would argue that going over 120 at Bonneville counts as recreation — making this still a recreational vehicle. Does this line of thinking also make a motorcycle an RV? Yes, but I’m sticking to my guns here.
If you think the RV content stops there, you’re very wrong.
In fact, Porsche recently partnered with Airstream to design a futuristic RV specially made to partner with the German automaker’s electric Taycan.
So, if you want to see that incredibly fancy design, check it out here.
Although summer has ended here in Australia, it’s nice to dream about the adventures you can have in an RV.