The 20 Year History of the Toyota Motorhome

For almost 20 years various manufacturers made theEscaper motor home, while Coachman produced the
Toyota motor home in several models. During itspopular Coachman and Savanna models. Leisure
heyday, this little camper was produced in over 60Odyssey was building the Americana, Santa Cruz, and
different models and styles of motor homes.the Laguna campers.
Beginning with the rather small Toyota ChinookThe Mini-Mirage was built by Mirage industries, while
camper and carrying on through the largest of thethe still very popular SunRader was constructed with a
Toyota based Winnebago and Itasca models, thefiberglass body by Gardener Pacific.
Toyota based motor home help to establish manyBy the late 1980s the length of the camper body had
manufacturers in the RV industry.expanded to 22 feet. This caused a severe overload
Because of the large number of manufacturers it isproblem on the original half ton pickup axle. A national
not uncommon to see similar campers and verysafety recall was issued by the United States
different names. The small overall size had to limit thegovernment to correct the problem. Most of the
variety of floor plans available. This caused a lot of themodels were given a new one ton axle. However
manufacturers to build virtual duplicates that varied onlythere are still a few units available today that have the
in some of the fit and finish type of details.unsafe axle. Caution is advised if you are looking at in
It wasn't long until the manufacturers began to expand1980s version of this very popular camper.
the size of the camper bodies. Using conventionalIn 1989 V6 appeared on the market in the Toyota
manufacturing techniques found in the travel trailerchassis. This increased horse power became very
industry, the stick and staple type of construction withpopular with the camper owners and production
aluminum siding became the standard.continued until 1994 when Toyota stopped supplying
In the decade of the 1980s production of the Toyotathe pickup chassis to the camper manufacturers for
motor home peaked. Many different companies weresafety reasons. Winnebago produced some of the
producing many different models. Some of the largerlast V6 versions in 1994.
companies that were in this business were nationalDuring its production lifetime, the Toyota motor home
RV, the producers of the very popular Dolphin series.enjoyed a great popular success and was widely
They also produced the Seabreeze models. At thedistributed across the country. Today the greatest
same time Winnebago was producing the Brave, thenumber of units on the road seem to be concentrated
Warrior, and the deluxe Itasca Spirit models.on the east and west coast areas but these motor
Damen Corporation of Elkhart Indiana produce thehomes will turn up just about anywhere in the country.