6-Wheeled Wonder: The GMC Motor Home
Have you ever stepped inside?
Sometimes on bike rides my mind defaults to the retirement savings I wish I had, the travels I can’t afford, or the awesome vehicles I’d happily populate my driveway with if I still had a driveway. Not on this ride. I was thinking about Ken.
Here’s how I met him.
If you’ve seen the movie Stripes starring Bill Murray, you may have noticed a rather unusual vehicle toting around the protagonists: The M-50 Urban Assault Vehicle, based on a real motorhome made in the 70’s. A few of them are tucked away near an overpass along Route 283 in Lancaster County, a spot you may have driven past a hundred times at 65 mph.
I cycled over this bridge recntly, and it dawned on me that the vans were just under my nose! So I turned off the two lane road and followed a parallel street that dead-ends at the highway.
I found a gravel driveway leading past a shabby double-wide home to several outbuildings and three GMC motor homes in various states of repair. Eureka!
A guy in his 60’s with a generous mustache stepped out of a nice sample, and I hooted at him: “Hey! Hello!” He walked on, and so I got closer and re-tried my peaceable approach. This time he saw me, and I shouted, “Hey, can I take a look at your GMC?”
A bit surprised by a friendly intruder in biking shorts who seemed to know a thing or two about RV’s, nonetheless he responded with some measure of pride and joy: “Sure!”
What ensued was a fanboy exchange over the salient details of production numbers, models, GMC clubs, car shows, and his involvement since the 70s as an owner and guru-mechanic of these manatees on wheels.
It was no surprise that he was well-aware of the Ultra Van, a Corvair powered Tylenol that has an ajacent fan base to the GMC. Did he also know Jeff at The Corvair Ranch?
Of course he did. They go to the same car shows. This is Geekdom.
Besides the double axle in the back of these campers, the real attention-getter of is their low profile. They’re not built on a truck chassis but on a uni-body platform like a car. GMC got away with this by mounting a powerful V8 Oldsmobile power plant up front with front wheel drive.1
Open the generous side door, and you easily step into a mod living room. I recall ogling one at a car show in Hershey and was jealous of the owners who simply lounged in their show car in leatherette luxury.
Ken recounted to me the friendships he’s made over the decades in his GMC tribe and how they swap stories and talk shop.
I pedaled off, and my brain shifted back to thinking of all the blessings I do have, one of which is the sheer joy of connecting with a new pal over a shared passion.
Though Ken’s stationary house needs some TLC and his hearing is blunted, he lacks no sparkle in his eyes or hop in his step. Like a buoyant tortiouse loving life in the slow lane, he and his wife take their 6-wheeled house with them wherever they want to go in this wide country.
Ken will be showing his classic soon in Lancaster, PA. I won’t be able to drop in. If you go tell him the bike guy says hello, and be sure to have a seat in his living room.
The handsomest car of the Becker driveway fleet during my youth had to have been brother Jim’s 1968 chocolate brown Olds Toronado. It was a luxious Cold War missle with a 455 V8 driving front wheels tucked in behind stealthily sexy retractiable headlights. Mmm, I love chocolate.
