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How many people know the difference between a Conversion Van, Camper Van, or Mini-Motorhome? Knowing the differences can help an individual make “Good Purchase Decisions”. The right Van can be your daily transportation or RV. The differences become important for simple reasons like Conversion Vans are not Motorhomes, but they can offer many of the features of a Motorhome. So let us clear up the differences!

Keep in mind there is room to stretch from one class of vehicle to another; and there is no defacto industry definition; just guidelines. Search the listings and you’ll find many Class C’s mixed into the Class B listings not to mention the Class B’s in the Bus Conversions. You’ll even find ordinary Conversion Vans in the mix. It seems people really don’t know what they have! Confusing isn’t it? We love vans and own several different types.

* Cargo Van – A Cargo van is a vehicle provided direct from the Manufacture with no rear seats, carpeting, or windows. These vans can be “Up fitted or Converted” to meet the needs of a variety of purposes.

* Camper Van - This is the simple conversion of a stock cargo van to add features helpful for “camping”. So a Camper Van is any van that has been converted for the purpose of camping - simple enough! Yes and No. There is no such thing as a commercial “Camper Van” - unless you get outside of the USA where the nomenclature changes. Camper Vans are typically “Homemade” modifications. A Class B Motorhome can be Called a Camper Van if you please, but you can not call a Camper Van a Class B Motorhome unless it has some very specific features.

* Class B Motorhome (Class B RV) - Any full fledged Motorhome built on a Cargo Van Chassis
by a licensed up fitter. The van may have the top removed or the sides widened, but it is still essentially a van in size and shape. Additionally in order to qualify as a Class B Motorhome the van must have built-in sleeping, eating, and bathroom facilities (Including properly mounting fresh and grey water holding tanks). If the frame of the van has been cut down clear to the floor level (they come direct from Ford fiesta RV, Chevy, and Dodge this way - just a frame and a cab) and built up completely from the floor it’s a Class “C” not a Class “B”.

* Conversion Van (aka Luxury Van, Custom Van) - Any van that has been customized for comfort can be considered a conversion van. These are really luxury vehicles used to transport 6-10 people in comfort. Conversion vans can have some of the features of a “Camper Van” or even a “Class B Motorhome”, but are typically more upscale and designed for daytime use and luxury transportation. These vans may have a raised roof, fancy paintjob, Custom Wheels, Leather Seats, 4 Captains chairs, dual stereo, TV/VCR Combos etc.

* Mini C’s & B+’s - These are really Class C Motorhome masquerading as Class B Motorhome. They feature sleek aerodynamic body styles - often made of a single fiberglass shell. The Chinook line of Motorhomes by TrailWagons, Inc. is probably the best example. These are also sometimes referred to as B+ Vans. They are in fact built from the same chassis as a Class C, but are made more to look like a Call B. Confusing? Ultimately it doesn’t matter, as long as you find what you want.

Travelling throughout the Eastern Seaboard in the 70’s, the first time saw one eyes bulged!  It still looks great 30 years later. So after the jump take a look at Afer all Evel Knievil owned one.

It’s Thunderbirds and The A-Team rolled into one, a low and sleek sportscoach that stunned the RV industry when it launched in late 1972. Today, exactly thirty years after production stopped, the GMC Motorhome is becoming a cult icon.

The GMC is the muscle car of the RV world. It holds the land speed record for motorhomes, clocking 106mph at Bonneville last year. It’s been immortalized several times as a Hot Wheels toy.

It’s even had a movie career, starring in the 1981 Bill Murray comedy Stripes. But for those of you who grew up in the 70s, the GMC will always be known as Captain America’s van.

That’s pretty remarkable for an RV that only had a six-year production run. But there are many, many remarkable things about the GMC RV. For starters, it was the first RV created and built by an automaker—and to this day, no other automaker has taken that risk.

GM called the project TVS-4 (‘Travel Vehicle Streamlined, model 4’). For maximum grunt, it dropped in a mighty 455ci V8—the engine that powered the 1966 Toronado. A claimed 260 horses were fed through a three-speed gearbox to the front wheels; with no driveshaft running to the back axle, this gave the living area an extra-low floor and lots of headroom.

The GMC looked sharp from the start, sitting low on its haunches. But the front wheel drive gave traction problems on uphill grades, especially in heavy rain or snow. Handling was otherwise decent, helped by a low center of gravity and an air spring setup for the four wheels at the back.

You got the choice of a six-berth 26-foot or a (relatively rare) four-berth 23-foot. The sleek styling gave an amazingly low drag coefficient of 0.39. And the interior was funky even by 70s standards, designed with the help of House and Garden magazine. The wraparound glass looked cool, but in hot weather the large windows put a huge strain on the roof-mounted air conditioner.

At launch, the GMC cost between $12,000 and $16,000. And what a launch it was: the stock prices of all the other major RV manufacturers fell the very next day. Their vehicles suddenly looked very old. As the GMC sales brochure said, you could now buy a “motorhome that doesn’t look like a box or ride like a truck.”

GM originally pitched its motorhome as a ‘multi-purpose vehicle’ for extended living. That was mostly a marketing fantasy, but in 1975 GM did launch an unfurnished Transmode model. Soon, GMCs were being turned into everything from mobile recording studios to laboratories. The Transmode shells were farmed to conventional coachbuilders such as Coachmen, and even Coca-Cola got into the game, offering custom ‘Gadabout’ models as prizes.

And then, suddenly, the wheels came off the bus. The fuel crisis played a part: the GMC’s 8 to 10 mpg thirst was actually pretty good for a Class A with a big V8, but the running costs became too much for the American middle classes.

In 1977 GM shrank the engine to 403 cubes, but the sticker price had already soared to $38,000. There was no place for the world’s coolest RV any more: in 1978, the production line in Pontiac, Michigan was shut down.

Some 13,000 GMCs were made in all, and many are still on the road today. Winnebago RV released a thinly-veiled copy in the late 80s called the Spectrum 2000, and small numbers of other GMC replicas have been produced by companies such as Silver Motor Coach.

Today, thirty years on, the originals are relatively easy to keep on the road. Rebuilt engines are available for $3,000 or thereabouts, and the bodies are made from long-lasting aluminum and fiberglass.

Some owners restore their GMCs to showroom condition, while others update the interiors in superyacht or Airstream RV CCD style. The only real bugbear is the underlying frame—which could cost up to $10,000 to fix if decayed. But a thriving restoration industry makes it easy to keep the mechanicals in good running order, led by specialists such as Cooperative Motor Works.