America is a big place, and manufacturing recreational vehicles to tour it is big business. The vehicles themselves are big too, but the technical demands and consumer mindset in the motorhome segment are pretty traditional, which tends to limit innovation. That’s what makes the 1973 GMC Motorhome even more extraordinary.

GMC abandoned the conservative truck/bus frames and powertrains that dominated the RV market, and instead developed a clean-sheet chassis designed around the innovative front-wheel-drive transaxle famously introduced in the Oldsmobile Toronado and shared by its E-Body cousin the Cadillac Eldorado. For Motorhome duty the 455 cubic-inch Oldsmobile V-8 was tuned to produce 265hp and a land yacht’s worth of torque right from idle speed through its Turbo-Hydramatic 425 transaxle. It provided plenty of smooth power for highway cruising, but just as important the compact front-drive powertrain allowed engineers to ditch the elevated floor truck/bus frame since there was no driveshaft or a bulky rear drive axle to accommodate. In fact, there are no rear axles at all! The rear tires are mounted on a bogie system, not unlike the setup used on tracked military vehicles. In addition to saving space and improving ride quality, the unique design allowed the airbag suspension to be leveled from inside when the motorhome was parked on an uneven surface.