Coachmen RV Draws Overseas Inspiration for Class A ‘Euro’ – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News

The Coachmen team behind the Euro launch include, from left: Engineering Manager Eric Smith, Class A General Manager Mike Kaiser, Production Manager Alvin Handshoe, President Bob Dumm, Purchasing Manager Chris Witman, and National Sales Manager Zach Eppers.

ELKHART, Ind. – A brand new Class A brand – with heavy design inspiration from Europe – will be awaiting dealers headed to the Coachmen RV display at the Forest River Dealer Expo, whoch begins at noon today and runs through most of this week. The “Euro” has prime space front and center of the Forest River display, which is in the same location as last year at an East To West production facility at 29861 Old US Hwy 33 on the southwest side of Elkhart, Ind.

While the Euro 25 EU on display is a prototype, officials confirmed the model will go into production.

Built atop the Ford F53 chassis with a 178-inch wheelbase and the 7.3 V8 gas-powered engine, the Euro stands out not only because of its European styling but also because of its short stature – it’s only 27 feet, 6 inches long, 11 feet tall and 99 inches wide.

“The biggest thing for me is it has the creature comforts of an A, B and a C,” said Coachmen RV Class A General Manager Mike Kaiser. “That’s really what makes it so inviting, so much easier to drive. It’s a very automotive feel. It’s totally different than anything I’ve ever driven in a Class A, and I’ve been doing this for 22 years. It’s basically a larger SUV, and people are very accustomed to driving those now.”

Euro 25EU

The nimble size also is reminiscent of counterparts found overseas, Kaiser added.

“That’s where our idea came from, and we wanted that in our thought process when we were designing and building this. I guess, when you think of European class and European units, you think of something that’s smaller, a little more user-friendly, and easier to drive,” he said.

Picking up on that, Coachmen National Sales Manager Zach Eppers said the Euro succeeds as a smaller Class A because Coachmen designers and engineers threw out the North American playbook.

“Every time we try to make, in our minds, a smaller class A, we failed because we stick to the North American thinking where we have wider roads and you can get stuff around everywhere,” Eppers said. “We had to throw that out and we had to start over, start from scratch. And part of the inspiration was, ‘How do they do it over in Europe? How do they do Class As in Europe where the roads are much more narrow?’ Not to mention, they don’t have the bridges that are 13 foot tall. So, yeah, that’s where a lot of our inspiration came from.”

Aside from specific amenities, the highly stylized front end offers a glimpse of what’s to come. Inside, the 50-amp Euro offers square windows, European curved cabinetry, sleek vent hood over the range, and a pair of GE Profile AC units.

“It’s definitely a newer look, obviously, in going from the radius windows to the square windows,” Kaiser said. “So it’s definitely an appearance look on the outside. What makes it a lot more functional for us is that the inside, when it’s going down the road, in a motorhome without the valances being all encapsulated in the windows, you just hear that rattle and stuff all the time. Where with these that goes away. And we get to trim it out much differently, so it’s very sharp, very clean.”

Eppers also mentioned the ceiling lights, which are LED strips running the width of the coach, as another opportunity to try something different.

“Last year we started looking at our ceilings and you’ve got the ducted vents and all these puck lights, and everybody’s the same. At the end of the day, in this environment, we wanted to create something that is not only user-friendly, but just it has a wow factor,” Eppers said.

“I think people inside are going to turn their heads when they see this going down the road,” he added. “But when you come inside, you’re going to get that same thing where it’s just a lot of different components and a different thought process of how we built this compared to the status quo.”

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/coachmen-rv-draws-overseas-inspiration-for-class-a-euro/