This Holiday Rambler Motor Home is oozing with 1980’s style, with lots of stripes and trim, back before those abstract swoops took over. This is a big guy for the times; its big block Chevy V8 will gladly slurp gas at about 4-6 miles per gallon. But that’s not a problem for the owner of this fine time capsule: it hasn’t moved from this location in months. It’s found its curbside home here.
No, I didn’t get any interior shots. All the windows were covered, and there was stuff piled up against the front passenger window. It’s become the storage closet.
Here’s a better look at the trim and stripes that run around this Rambler of a different sorts.
Its Rambling days are over, at least for now.
“Holiday Rambler” sounds like something from a National Lampoon movie starring Chevy Chase.
😉
Or a joint venture between Oldsmobile and AMC? 🙂
sorry I mis-posted my name. Having a little interface trouble this morning!
mrh
The 80s look is completed by the quad rectangular sealed beam headlights up front. I like it. And this is a really big motorhome!
I had to look this company up – it has really made the rounds. It started in Wakarusa, Indiana in the early 50’s, was sold to Harley-Davidson in the mid 80’s, then was bought by Monaco Coach of Oregon in the mid 90’s, got sold off to Navistar in the late 00’s in Monaco’s bankruptcy, and finally to Allied Specialty Vehicles of Milwaukee in 2013. But you can still buy a new Holiday Rambler.
That’s a LOT of rear overhang
Watch that tail swing!
Wow, the lax zoning regulations in Eugene are both a blessing and a curse, more the latter in this case. In my city:
1. Recreational vehicles (RVs, boats, etc.) must be parked on your property. Monstrosities like this would never be allowed to be parked on the street.
2. Vehicles stored on your property must be parked on an impermeable surface (concrete pad, asphalt driveway, or in a garage). No parking vehicles in your yard.
3. No overnight on-street parking between 2:00 and 5:00 AM. This is mostly to eliminate abandoned vehicles. This obviously is only doable in a newer city like mine, where virtually all the houses were built after WWII and have the ability to park vehicles on the property (driveway, alley, garage, carport, etc.)
Same in Bellingham. It’s where our working class lives now. Most of them have jobs and usually have their commuter car parked behind them.
amen fellow hamster….rent is out of this world….
Tom,
I’m not so sure Eugene has lax zoning regs, as they seem to be similar all across the country, except for densely populated city streets. Perhaps your city has enacted highly restrictive zoning regs. In most state I’ve checked, a legally licensed and operable vehicle can be parked on public residential streets, except for specific areas denoted for safety reasons.
Here in Maryland, except for roads marked as “snow emergency routes” or major arterial roads, it’s OK to park a legally licensed vehicle in front of, or near your residence.
You might enjoy a little story about what happens when the local government tries too hard to enforce regs . . .
In the 1980s Maryland enacted their “Year of manufacture” {YOM] license plate regulation for Historic cars. My girlfriend had a 1953 Packard, so I found a set of restored 1953 Maryland plates and we registered them to her Packard. She would often park the car at the curb, not really worried about traffic as her house was on a 1 block long court.
We left the Packard at the curb and took the Dodge motorhome for a 1 week camping trip. On our return we noted the Packard was gone, so I called the police, only to discover it had been towed away as an abandoned car. We found out later that a busy-body neighbor [we’ll all her “Karen”] had waited until we were gone, then reported the car as junk.
I called the Police chief for the county and said the car was legally parked and correctly tagged, and parked in front of the home listed on the registration. I was told that the 1953 Maryland license plates were illegal, and we would have to show proof the car was legally licensed and insured or they would not release the car.
She had to go to court to get her car back, and at the court hearing, the Judge, knowing about the YOM law, asked the county attorney why it was towed, and the attorney said it wasn’t legally licensed. The judge then checked the paperwork we supplied, and he asked the attorney if he had the same paperwork from the State MVA, and he said no, but the tags were clearly marked as expiring in 1953, so they HAD to be illegal.
Seems the county police had been sent the new YOM package, but no one had even bothered to look at the new regs, nor had they provided the info to the police officers or the country zoning enforcement office.
On hearing how the car had been kept outside and under a pine tree for 6 weeks and was now filthy, the Judge ordered the county police to take the car to the county maintenance facility, where it was to be checked over to ensure it was in the same condition as when it was stolen [his word] by the police, and the car was to be polished and cleaned before being returned by rollback truck to my girlfriend, at her convenience. All expenses involved in this case were to be paid by the county, including my girlfriend’s legal fees.
“Karen” was cited for making a false property report and required to show up in court, where the same judge fined her $150 + court costs. That was on top of the money she spent on an attorney to represent her. We later found out from a different neighbor that “Karen” felt the restored Packard was an eyesore and was lowering her property value, but the rest of the neighbors loved the car.
Your tale is testament to the idea that it is not the laws that necessarily dictate how things go, but the enforcement of the law. Strict rules and lax enforcement mean that the rules, in the real world, aren’t actually that strict.
But then there is the bossy neighbor or the bossy HOA official. It creates a real dilemma when rules aren’t strictly enforced, and then they are.
We have a neighbor who used to stash his spare car and trailered boat around the broader neighborhood, moving each one every 72 hours, in the dead of night. What finally did the trick was that someone got the community association to spread all over town what he was up to. As a small businessman, his business tailed off quite a bit when people figured out he was the guy with the eyesore boat and the blue Escort being parked all over the place.
Until about a few years ago, Maryland allowed cars over 20 years old to be registered with “Historic” plates, and cars so tagged were exempt from inspections upon sale as well as emissions inspections every two years. The title/tags/registration was less expensive as well. The historic vehicle application form had a blurb that such cars were to be used primarily for display at car shows, exhibits, period films, parades, and the like, along with “occasional transportation”. But many people used historic tags as a loophole to avoid inspection and higher registration costs for the twenty-year-old Camry they just bought for their daily driver, so the law was toughened around 2016 to prohibit driving historic-registered cars to work or school. Really, they should have just extended the age “historic” cars had to be to beyond where used-car prices bottom out.
I grew up in a mid-1960s neighborhood of detached houses with driveways (and only rarely garages), and RV or boat owners often extended their driveways into the back yard or at least side yard to store their large vehicles. It was considered bad form to park your RV or boat near the front of the driveway where it blocks the view (especially if they weren’t in good shape) but as far as I know it was legal and allowed. I rarely saw big RVs parked on the road, but I’m not sure if this was for legal reasons or not. There was no HOA in that development (or any other place I’ve lived save for one high-rise condo; I don’t care to live anywhere that tells me what color my curtains have to be.
Wow, the lax zoning regulations in Eugene are both a blessing and a curse, more the latter in this case.
Zoning has nothing to do with this or related issues. Zoning determines what kind of development can take place: single family homes only (R1), two-three-four units (R2), multiple units (apts) R3, etc. Or commercial (C1, C2, etc.)
The issue of parking is determined by city codes, and how they are enforced. In Eugene, technically, one cannot park without moving on the street for more than 48 hours. But enforcement is the key thing: Eugene does not enforce this in residential areas except in response to a complaint. I don’t know if this rv belongs to the residents of the house it’s in front of. This is in an older close-in neighborhood with lots of rentals. If it’s not theirs, the renters might just not care, or maybe they don’t know that one could complain.
I know of a number of cars that have sat immobile at the curb for years, with grass growing under them. Seriously.
As someone who works in the field of zoning, I’ll chime in here.
In many states, including here in Virginia, Zoning Ordinances do regulate parking to an extent. Tom’s first two points (concerning where vehicles are parked on a property) can be regulated by zoning. Many jurisdictions’ zoning codes here do regulate the types of vehicles allowed to be parked on private property — such as prohibiting RVs, commercial vehicles or trailers from certain parts of a lot. On-street parking, however, is generally is left to City Codes because zoning does not regulate the public right-of-way.
Around here, zoning ordinances regulate all kinds of obscure stuff – maximum noise levels, business delivery hours, honeybee colonies, etc., etc.
I know that some states have much more narrowly-focused zoning codes, where are kept exclusively to land development – I suspect that Oregon is among them.
Our city has a city wide 24 hr limit for parking bylaw, but enforcement is based on complaints. Unfortunately we have a neighbour who complains about everything so we are looking at making a couple of parking spots in our yard. The discussion around zoning restrictions is a reminder to me to check with the city about that as I wanted to use the pavers that allow for grass to grow through them. With our kids at university we have 4 vehicles and 2 are currently parked on the street and can sit for a few days. This neighbour is costing us a fair bit of money and stress.
And using RVs as housing is a common practice in our city, but not in our neighborhood.
We purchased a ‘94 version to travel south in the winter…unfortunately it was a major money pit with mechanical/chassis issues (RV coach part was fine) and after a couple of years I just didn’t trust it, so sold it off after $1,000s in repairs. One of the biggest motor vehicle mistakes I’ve made.
Here’s a pic…
At over 40 feet long these truly ruled the road. New ones can cost over $500,000. This one looks in decent shape. Maintenance and repairs are a huge expense and have sidelined many of these. Maybe that’s what happened here.
When seeing one of these behemoths on the road, usually piloted by a nervous retiree on vacation, I’m thinking to myself that driving one of these cannot be fun. I have a friend who once had a much smaller 5th wheeler who still cringes at the memory of having to back it down a one lane road he mistakenly entered.
“Nervous retiree” gave me this morning’s best smile. I sometimes ponder this sort of vacationing, but an RV this long would scare me to death.
Perusing 1990s want ads, not hard to find someone letting go of one at about 15K-20K miles.
This 1980s ad sure makes it all look pleasurable, however:
Great find! Here’s another from a late 1980s ad, replete with good period decor:
That’s one nice motor home according to the picture in the ad above. However, I would not feel comfortable driving it with all that rear overhang. Even if there’s nothing bad about it, it just looks strange.
Among motorcycle enthusiasts, the initials HRC are well known as being used for Honda Racing Corporation. So back in 1986 when Harley bought Holiday Rambler Corporation, it was common to joke that Harley bought Honda’s racing division rather than try to develop a competitive bike. Harley won the AMA Championship in 1983 then Honda won from 1984 through 1987, after which it mostly reverted to Harley. So Harley’s HRC purchase did help 😀
Holiday Rambler was considered a upscale brand for many years. By RV standards it was. After the founder $old out, well…the various changes of ownership didn’t help that “IMAGE” too much……. DFO
It looks very plush. I wonder what it might rent out for per month just parked like that…for that matter I’m just as curious why the Chinook got sold off instead of getting parked on your little quad between the rental houses and generating rental income! My middle kid is very serious about wanting to buy and live in some sort of van when he gets to college, seeing what property costs around where he thinks he wants to go has me buying into the whole idea more and more…
Nice looking coach .
There are more than a few of these around Los Angeles that are the home of down on their luck citizens .
Many have been sitting since the beginning of the pandemic and I doubt even run anymore .
My city used to allow overnight parking but now has no parking 3 ~ 6 AM, ‘for street sweeping’ .
They stopped over night street sweeping several years ago .
I’m of mixed mind about the parking thing, I used to park in the street and always moved every two days but as Paul mentions, some just leave their jalopy and weeds grow underneath the wind blown trash accumulates….
-Nate