By: Bob Gummersall
I have often heard that the one thing that you can plan on is change. And change is now entering our RV lifestyle. My wife Sylvia and I have tented backpacked; boat camped and traveled in RV’s for most our 45 year marriage. We are now facing our next “change” in lifestyle that requires us to face our limits of ambulation and current health. Since 1974 we have traveled over 240,000 wonderful miles in three motorhomes starting with a gas engine 19’ Cortez then on to a gas Winnebago then to a 32’ Georgie Boy diesel pusher and now a beautiful Monaco diesel pusher. We recently reflected on why RVing has been so important to us. Oh we did our share of touring in airplanes and ships, having been lucky enough to have an international traveling job that allowed Sylvia to come along. We even spent 7 weeks traveling Europe in a tent camper. Cruises were very enjoyable. Planned Tours, like our great trip to China, were also very enjoyable. But, we always came back and wanted to get out and enjoy the RV. So I just thought that we could publish the latest turn in our Ongoing Odyssey of deciding that it is time to “Downsize” to a smaller easier to handle Rig.
BACKGROUND - The one thing that always drew us to RVing is the freedom to have all our stuff with us, stored in our draws and cabinets and sleeping in our bed. We do not see ourselves doing other types of travel. We know that our next step in our ongoing odyssey will be with another RV – namely a smaller Motorhome. We always travel in a way that can most accurately be called touring – not very many nights in any one place. The freedom that this lifestyle provides is without equal in my opinion. We live in Seattle, a summer vacation destination so we stay home in the beautiful summer months to be close to our family and garden. The only exceptions are a couple of summer rallies and teaching an RV school or two. All of these summer trips are a few days long. The garden was recently featured in the Mercer Island Garden tour and is truly a work of art, mostly because of Sylvia’s design and hard work. I am the digger and carrier. She tells me where to dig and how deep and the rest is her job. As most of you have heard, Seattle is “grey” lots of the rest of the year. That is when we truly enjoy getting out and enjoying the freedom of our own rig touring to visit friends, family and see new and old territory.
WHAT DOWNSIZE RIG TO GET? - We decided that three things were important: size, easy of entry and investment. We looked at newer and smaller Class A, Class B and Class C motorhomes. Our ambulation limits make it hard to climb steps, so many of the Class A options were eliminated. The Class B options seemed to be really too small. Most Class C’s also require climbing steps. We concentrated our looking at hybrid sizes like the Winnebago Rialta which solved all three of the objectives except investment. Then we attended the FMCA Northwest Regional Rally in Moses Lake in June, where I was responsible for Registrations and one day about 50 classic 1973 to 1977 GMC’s came in the gate almost together. This got me to thinking, because we really enjoy going to FMCA Chapter Rallies and getting to know the people and here all these members of the “Cascade Cruisers of GMC” poured into the Fairgrounds. Over the 5 days of the rally, I got to know many of their members and there and then decided that this was the coach to be our prime target. But could you find one of these 25 year old classics still in good enough shape to do the kind of touring we plan, which will be about 12,000 miles per year. I began the search. For those of you who don’t remember this coach, you could click here to see a photo.
HOW TO SELL OUR CURRENT RIG? – I spent 30 years in marketing for IBM, so selling in my kind of thing. I had bought and sold most of our RV’s using the traditional Newspaper Classifieds and Auto Trader vehicles. When we sold the Georgie Boy in 1998, the internet was new and interesting, so I priced the rig right and put it up on just two classified web pages. Both happened to be free at the time. A prospect called one day and asked if I had any video or photographs and further description, so off they went to California on FEDEX. A few days later, they called and said that they were flying up to look at the rig, and long story short in a few days the rig was sold. We were without a rig for a few weeks before our new one was built. We actually went to two rallies staying in motels – bummer.
The internet has grown up in four years and there are many RV Classified pages to list your coach on. The nominal fee is $25 for a 3 to 6 month listing. There is also a thing called Ebay.com. We took some good photographs and have so far placed the rig in 4 of the major Internet RV Classified pages. So far we have had several prospects email and one got serious -- but bought a new Monaco Executive instead. I will let you know the progress on the next edition. We are not in a hurry to sell this rig because we still enjoy it very much.
I have considered consigning and wholesaling but have decided to wait on those decisions. Other people, not so comfortable with selling, might choose to consign a rig, paying a dealer to sell it.
FINDING A SUITABLE GMC – My search began at the Moses Lake Rally, talking with one couple that had ‘upsized’ from their loved GMC getting a diesel pusher to fulltime in. Too bad we did not meet them sooner. We talked with several of the GMC owners and found information on several other rigs that were for sale, because the owners had ‘upsized’. They also gave the web address of Classified Pages that specialize in GMC’s. Through July we have looked at four rigs trying to understand how we might find one that will suit our purpose. Because of the 1970’s colors many of these GMC’s are paint and upholstered in Lime Green or Orange. We even looked at a “Coca-Cola” model that was bright red with bright red shag carpet. The ones that have updated to better colors are obviously more expensive. These updated coaches had asking prices of $25,000 to $45,000. I even found one listed that had been “remanufactured”, but again the asking price was very high. There is a company that is trying to make a business of buying junkers and totally disassembling them for a complete body off rebuild and restoration process. The prices for these “new” remanufactured rigs are $60,000 up.
Mechanical Condition is the other significant variable and since these rigs are over 25 years old, most have significant mileage. We have looked at several that had 150,000 miles or more that are still running well. The original appliances also leave some to be desired, so we quickly decided that there were two good approaches. Find the very best restored and rebuilt one we could find and pay the $30,000. Or we could find a yucky lime green one with plaid upholstery and shag carpet that had been rebuilt underneath. Now Sylvia is very keen on interior design, and she indicated that it would be lots of fun to redecorate one and make it ours. So the direction was established. We would look for the very best rebuilt rig that needed paint and interior restored. The price for this kind of GMC was from $19,000 to $30,000.
THE SEARCH BEGINS - So now my quest became serious because I knew what I wanted to find. I went back to the web in earnest to find the “one”. On a diesel coach Egroup bulletin board that I monitor called “Diesel Owners” someone mentioned that they had just sold their $140,000 plus diesel on Ebay. So taking a flyer, I keyed in ebay.com, then to the ebaymotor.com hot link and punched in GMC. Low and behold, there were three currently being auctioned. All three met my criterion and bid prices. The only problem was that they were all, a long way away from Seattle, one in Arizona, one in Michigan and the other in Louisiana. It would be a major thing to get one of these driven or shipped to Seattle. For what happened next, in a week or so, I’ll post Part II of our Ongoing Odyssey.