Motorhome drivers deserve quite a bit of credit. In particular, we’re talking about the guys of Palmer Designs, Ltd. We thought that you had to have a pair to drive a truck/trailer at 142mph, but an RV is another story.
Haters always talk about how front-wheel-drive cars are slow. Well this GMC Motorhome disproves such, very clearly. This type of motorhome was manufactured back between 1973-78, and was based off of an Oldsmobile Toronado drivetrain. It featured a smogtastic 455ci motor at the time, but now has a modified 502ci motor.
If you’re more interested in the build list, it’s featured on their website. As far as we’re concerned, it’s made out of pure awesome. Although this monster is pure awesome, it doesn’t quite beat the world record of 137.9mph, which is currently held by a Dodge-Sprinter-based RV. The size of the Sprinter is perhaps a bit small to be a true RV, so the “real” record to some is a 128.6 mph record held by a Hymer AG motorhome. Will Palmer Designs defeat the record next year? We hope so.
Thanks to Autoweek for giving us a new project idea.
Comments
Great story!
They should have a couple of people eating lunch in the back during the next attempt. 😎
Interesting story, it seems to me that these were quite ground-breaking back then. They sure were nice too and from what I remember they were the motorhome of choice amongst race car drivers, At least it looked that way at the track.