Word: motoring
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...California ever adopts a new state flower," Poet Ernest McGaffey wrote in 1923, "the motor car is the logical blossom for the honor. Whether commercially or socially, whether from the standpoint of business or sport, it is the same, the whole same and nothing but the same. All hail rubber! All hail the automobile...
...fastest-growing segment of the market is motor homes, whose prices start at about $19,000 for a stripped-down version with four bunks. "They're a condo on wheels for about what you'd pay for a Cadillac," says James Summers, head of the RV dealers' association. "That's a powerful selling point...
Though they still cannot be considered economy vehicles, new motor homes are more fuel efficient than earlier models. Riverside, Calif.-based Fleetwood, the industry leader with 20% of the market, cut excess weight and restyled exteriors to make its RVs more aerodynamic and squeeze more miles out of a gallon of fuel. The company's 27-footers now get 15 m.p.g. on the highway at 50 m.p.h., twice the mileage of a decade ago. Winnebago (1983 sales: $239 million) developed a front-wheel-drive model powered by a Renault diesel engine. One version, called the LeSharo, gets...
...meant a boom for the town of Elkhart, Ind. (pop. 41,300). A carriage-building center at the turn of the century, northern Indiana was later home to such automakers as Studebaker and Auburn. Today the defunct car companies have been supplanted by more than 30 camper, trailer and motor-home makers, who accounted for 37% of last year's U.S. production. In the past year, they have hired 4,000 new workers...
...Coachmen Industries, the Elkhart area's largest manufacturer, sales shot up 80% last year to $478 million, and profits nearly quadrupled. During the first three months of 1984 profits leaped another 89%, even though production was restricted by a shortage of chassis on which motor-home bodies are mounted. Complains Chairman Thomas Corson: "Detroit can't send us enough, so we're starting to use Toyota chassis...