A couple of days before Christmas I drove south to Indiana to see Holiday Rambler’s new Savoy line of fifth wheels – and it was the right time to do so, Christmas being a season fraught with delight for children.

Usually, the patter of little feet is heard within Holiday Rambler RVs only when Grandma and Grandpa invite the little ones aboard. Presidential and even Alumascape models are outfitted mostly for the empty-nest crowd. But with Savoy, Holiday Rambler has broken new ground. They’ve built a line of fifth wheels (travel trailers to come soon) designed, equipped and decorated for younger, price-conscious families—and yet each model is every inch a Holiday Rambler.

“For years, we’ve been letting other manufacturers sell younger people on RVing, while our products represented a step up for more experienced RVers,” said Brad McKinney, national sales manager for Holiday Rambler towables. “Now we have products that appeal to families buying their first new travel trailers or fifth wheels. They can experience Holiday Rambler quality and all the benefits that go with it right from the start.”

McKinney added that all the Savoy fifth wheels can be towed by properly equipped half-ton pickups, further adding to the line’s appeal to budget-conscious families.

There are six Savoy fifth wheel floorplans available, from 27 to 29 feet, five with single slideouts and one with double. Five of them are well suited either to family use or as couples’ coaches. A sixth, the 28BHS, is a bunkhouse model just for families with kids, and it’s the one I’ll focus on here.

The 28BHS is a family coach if ever there was one. Bob Cratchit’s large family could have vacationed comfortably in it, if Scrooge were to give him the time off. With mama and papa all settled down for a long winter’s nap in the very private upstairs bedroom, there’s room to sleep at least seven little ones downstairs, and you can even separate the troublemakers from the little angels.

At the rear of the coach is a triple-bunk bedroom that will probably cause dissention in the junior ranks over who gets to bunk there. One of the three berths is on the floor, and the roll-up mattress can be stowed if you want to use the floor-level space for storage. Each of the upper bunks has a jalousie window, and there’s another on the rear wall for cross ventilation.

What kids will really love about the bunkroom is having their own mini-entertainment center. It’s built into a cabinet unit on the road-side wall that includes floor-to-ceiling shelves, drawers and closet space, and a shelf big enough for a 20-inch TV with a cabinet above for a VHS, DVD and/or game controller. As a responsible parent, your challenge will be to drag the little nippers outside for occasional exposure to sunshine and fresh air.

On the roadside is a long slideout containing a dinette and flip sofa. If you want comfortable sleeping accommodations for a second adult couple, I’d suggest the optional sofa bed. You’ll still have room for at least five crumb crushers between the dinette and the bunkroom.

Before launching on a tour of the rest of the 28BHS, I want to mention a special Camping Value Package that’s being built into Savoy fifth wheels as standard production. It includes: stabilizer jacks: electric front jacks; a spare tire; a ladder; a 20-inch television in the living room; a kitchen countertop extension; an exterior security light with indoor switch; day-night shades in living room and bedroom; and a patio awning.

My test unit had a couple of other options you’ll want to consider. One was a flip-up counter just forward from the bunkroom with two stools. With it, you can seat for meals the nine people the coach is capable of sleeping – or at least six without using the sofa. The other option is a tub in lieu of a shower stall, which is better for scrubbing down small children.

Feeding The Multitude
The kitchen is compact, but the slideout opposite allows for plenty of working room and there is a lot of storage space. The flip-up counter extension that comes with the special option package is a boon, and it’s a good-sized one.

Standard equipment includes a microwave, a large three-burner range with oven and a six-cubic-foot fridge. There’s a large double sink with covers and a built-in cutlery holder behind the range.

The drawers feature quality Holiday Rambler craftsmanship and are on roller guides. Drawer fronts are solid hardwood as are the raised-panel cabinet doors throughout the coach.

I found a large amount of storage under the sink area, including a flanged shelf to keep cookware in place, with access both from the kitchen and from the entryway. There were three drawers, the top one with a silverware divider. Deep cabinets for skillets and similar objects were built in above the microwave and below the range, with two nice cabinets above the sink.

Living It Up
The décor package in my test Savoy was definitely designed to add to the fun. The décor scheme is called Black Slate, which doesn’t begin to do justice to the jazzy, youthful fabric used on the dinette and window treatments. The sofa was a complementary beige. The insert in the slideout surround is black imitation alligator. Cabinet hardware is brushed nickel rather than the usual brass color. Wallboard is a light marble pattern and the kitchen, entry and bath flooring looks a lot like ceramic tile. This Savoy is young and exciting and fun.

The living room entertainment center featured a good deal of open storage, the 20-inch TV included in the option package, and a standard AM/FM/CD unit with four speakers. There’s plenty of room for DVDs, CDs, VHSs, games and the equipment to play them on.

Upstairs
With all the room this rig has for sprats, it would be nice if it had two or three bathrooms. Since that isn’t possible in a 28-foot fifth wheel, Holiday Rambler provided the next best thing: a large, well-conceived single bath.

You can tell the designers were thinking in family terms. In the water closet was a large linen with two shelves; there were four towel racks on the back of the door. Outside, the lavatory had a large basin, and above it a large, mirrored medicine cabinet. A big closet with two mirrored doors, two deep drawers and a double floor-level cabinet added convenience.

Cool feature: In the floor under the sink is a hole that serves as a laundry chute, leading to a laundry basket in the basement. The basket is accessible from the exterior basement door, and the section of floor in which the laundry chute is cut serves as a shelf for extra storage above the basement floor.

The private bedroom features a queen bed, big overhead cabinets, ample nightstands and great cross ventilation.

A Big Family Value
I mentioned before the 28BHS would be a good choice for the Cratchit family. I was thinking not only of their numbers but of their having to live on wages paid by Ebenezer Scrooge. The 28BHS has a base suggested retail price of $24,360; mine, with options, had a sticker price of $26,054. That includes the following as standard equipment, just to name some highlights not already mentioned:
• E-Z Lube axles
• TV antenna with booster
• tinted radius windows
• 13.5 BTU air conditioner
• power roof vent and skylight in bath

Construction is the same as on every Holiday Rambler: Alumaframe® with nine-layer ceiling and five-layer walls; enclosed, heated underbelly; flat-floor slideouts. The front cap is molded fiberglass, the sidewalls smooth aluminum, and the roof is one-piece seamless BriteTEK.

In short, you’re looking at a lot of value and a lot of fun for the money.

Other Models
All the Savoy fifth wheels have plenty of room for families, with sleeping accommodations for at least four children, but those other than the 28BHS are suitable for couples as well.

The 27RLS and 28RLS offer the same slideout arrangement as the bunkhouse model, but with twin swivel chairs aft and a built-in breakfast bar – the difference being the amount of space in the bath. The three 29-footers include a rear kitchen, a rear lounge with a desk or workstation, and a rear sofa with double slideout (dinette and entertainment center.) All three offer a roomy upstairs bed-and-bath suite.

McKinney said Savoy travel trailers will be on dealers’ lots this spring.

New Plant
I’ve been in a position to watch Holiday Rambler closely for nearly 30 years. I remember the company’s early efforts to compete in the low-priced field. In, I think, 1976 Holiday Rambler introduced the Free Spirit and Wide World brands. These were wood-frame travel trailers; Holiday Rambler hadn’t figured out how to make Alumaframe trailers at such a low price point. That meant abandoning what made them Holiday Ramblers. The brands were short-lived.

One of the ingredients missing, however, was economy of scale. With today’s production techniques, and by building a few floorplans in high enough volume, Holiday Rambler can compete successfully in the low-priced arena with a genuine Alumaframe product that’s all Holiday Rambler.

To that end, the company completed earlier this year a 155,000-square-foot addition to their towables production facility in Elkhart. Most of that manufacturing space is being devoted to Savoy, and according to McKinney, the orders they received at the national RV trade show in Louisville a couple weeks before my visit have the plant humming.

That will make a lot of young families happy, when they discover that they don’t have to wait until the kids are out of college to step up to Holiday Rambler quality.