[MrE]

When we bought our first motorhome, it was for my wife to live in when she was sent to a job site. She did construction accounting for Morrison Knudson Construction out of Boise Idaho. Before motorhomes, she spent close to a year in Bonners Ferry Idaho on a railroad tunnel project, and Bonners Ferry didn't have a selection of rental properties, so she rented a room from a gal that was really low budget. The heater went out of the house, so they used the oven until that broke. Needless to say, I didn't want that experience to repeat. Her next job assignment was in Missoula Montana for the North Reserve St Project. We bought a cute Pace Arrow gas motorhome that had the Banks power pack on the gas motor. It was adequate, but the queen bed was up against the wall and hard to make, and she had to use the park's laundry facilities. We replaced it with a Fleetwood Bounder that had a queen bed and a built-in washer/dryer. It was fine parked, but really a rough-riding POS on the road, and a 40' sail in the wind. We took her sister's family to Yellowstone during the summer, and the nieces and nephews were being bounced off the bed while trying to watch DVDs in the bedroom.

I felt more research was in order. I found an article on the Internet about motorhome construction, touting semi-monocoque and monocoque construction. By that time I decided to move to a diesel pusher. I looked at some late model Fleetwood pushers and rode in the back during the demo rides. There were squeaks and rattles that would never be corrected because of the frame rail construction. We found a 1973 Newell for sale, and because it had a semi-monocoque construction I decided to give it a test. Riding in the back on the bed, there were no squeaks or rattles. Needless to say, I was quite impressed with the ride!

We bought it, knowing there would be modifications needed. It came with split-bench seats out of an old Lincoln that we replaced with truck air-ride seats on swivels. Replaced the steering column with one that had tilt and telescoping abilities. Other than that, it had already been fixed up really nicely. If we hadn't moved to Seattle for corporate jobs we'd still have it.