Vintage RV Restoration

“Honey, did you see that old motorhome over on the next row? Boy, it sure looked nice, looked like it had a new paint job. Wonder why they drive that thing?”

Have you had a conversation like this recently about some older trailer or motorhome found at the last RV park you were in? The question that always comes up is, "Why would they put all of that money in an older RV?" At the surface it may seem like an unrealistic thing to do but you need to dig deeper to see what is prompting more and more to do such a thing.

This doesn't work with just any RV because the construction standards in some brands have not held up under the test of time, but there were RV's that were built to last. These are the ones that actually make good sense to renovate and reuse. The wood frame covered with siding units fell to the wayside years ago so if you actually see one of them out and about it would be in rough condition not suited to renovate. Motorhomes, notably Airstream models, Revcon, Cortez and the classic front wheel drive GMC's were some of the engineer designed coaches while Airstream and Avion, among other classic travel trailers, were also designed and built in a manner that lend themselves to be updated and reused today.

Purely style driven, these machines will always draw attention wherever they go and if they have been refurbished will really draw a crowd. But that's not the only reason for having one of these classic machines brought up to today's standard. The average cost of a quality based, 25-30 foot well appointed motorhome is pushing and in fact over $100,000 with diesel pusher models easily over that. Now this is where the economy of renovating vintage RV's comes in. One of these special machines in original condition but still intact can be had in the $10,000 range. Replacing the complete drive train with transmission, motor, differential, then going through the brakes and suspension with an eye to renew it all will run somewhere around $20,000.

Now wrap the baby with new paint, trim, moldings, bumpers, lights, ladders and all of that will come in around $15,000. Turn to the interior where the sky could be the limit but taking care to not go overboard, you can outfit the interior of a classic motorhome for $20-25,000. These numbers are an average, with the final cost a function of what that particular vehicle needs,  but generally you will have about $70,000 in your classic renovated vintage motorhome. In most cases, this is less that you might have in a comparable new motorhome.

You might say, “what about maintenance?”, and this is the best news when renovating an older vehicle. With most older rigs, there are no computers to talk to and satisfy when doing repairs. These machines were of the age where mechanics and even owners with a basic knowledge of auto repair could repair and maintain the electrical and mechanical systems. With flat rate labor costs at your local RV center topping out over $100 per hour, wouldn't it be nice to be able to change your own oil, spark plugs and distributer cap? Or at least feel confident that the shop down the street could do your work for a greatly reduced fee from those RV super centers? Parts are recognizable and you don't have to divulge the last 8 digits of your VIN to figure out the parts you need. These machines were easy to get a part for and easy to install and set up.