A few years ago, while cooling my heels in the lobby of Monaco Coach Corporation’s beautiful motorhome plant in Wakarusa, I met a gentleman who was the lucky owner of a late model Holiday Rambler. He was waiting to go on a plant tour and asked me if that was my business. I explained that, no, I was a writer in town to do an article on a new coach for Holidays.

The fellow seemed impressed with this beyond my understanding. Usually, when you tell someone you’re a writer, they say, “Oh, that’s nice,” gaze off into the distance, and begin to inch away from you.

But this good man said he thought I had the best job in the world and wished it were his. I finally caught his drift. He was thinking, “This writer guy gets to spend all his time traveling all over the country in beautiful new Holiday Rambler RVs and gets paid for it.”

If Only

The truth is that I rarely get to spend more than a day with a new rig. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. For one thing, I do this for a living, and as much as I enjoy writing for Holidays, I still have other work to get back to.

But the bigger problem is that the RVs I get for test driving and review almost always have to be shipped right away to a Holiday Rambler dealer. So, you see, it’s your fault — you readers out there. If you weren’t so eager to buy these Holiday Rambler RVs, the dealers could wait, and I might get more time with them.

And yet, my recent trip to Elkhart to see the new 2006 Presidential Suite fifth wheel set a new record.

The only way I could get to spend time in one was to park myself in a unit that was still on the assembly line, in “final finish.” It is retail show season, and these handsome new fivers are the star of every Holiday Rambler dealer’s display. If I had waited another day, the fifth wheel would have been shipped before I could get there.

It was a novel experience taking my notes and pictures while trying to stay out of the way of people doing real, honest work, vacuuming, dusting, polishing, straightening, installing and so on.

A Cavernous New Basement

Anyway, the big news about the new Presidential Suite models is the huge new basement storage area. These rigs are built for people who spend a lot of time traveling or snowbirding, and you can’t have too much storage when you’re living that life.

The two Presidential Suite models, both 40-footers, boast 148 cubic feet of basement storage below the bathroom, a big improvement over standard Presidential models and one of the largest in the industry. The space is accessible from both side and the front, through a double door that hinges top and bottom, so you can open it even when the rig is hitched up.

Better yet, the storage space is open and unobstructed. Any equipment that used to be exposed in this area is now housed behind a sliding door in the bulkhead at the rear of the basement, along with any appliances that used to be in cabinets or under the dinette seats upstairs.

Holiday Rambler national sales manager Brad McKinney said that this configuration is identical in both Presidential Suite models and will be in any future ones. Standardizing the central location of these mechanical components, along with the freshwater and holding tanks, makes things a lot easier for service technicians.

The Presidential Suite’s basement is close to what you might call “finished,” if it were the basement in your home. The ceiling is paneled and insulated (to keep the bathroom floor warm.) The floor is decked with a new, heavy-duty, nonskid material that is far more rugged than the usual linoleum. The area is heated, well lit and equipped with jacks for TV/Internet cable, telephone/dial-up and has a 120-volt outlet — all on the patio side, of course.

Up front, there are separate motors and switches for the front jacks, so you can level the rig without having to get on your knees to adjust drop tubes. Other exterior features exclusive to the Suite models include: newly styled front and rear fiberglass caps; a new water management system bay with soap dispenser, paper-towel rack and power washer fitting; 40-pound LP tanks; sealed gelcoat fiberglass storage bay doors.

This new fifth wheel even looks special. After the rig I saw rolled off the line in Elkhart, with special vinyl exterior graphics in place, it was shipped to the motorhome plant in Wakarusa where the front and rear ends would get a special, optional, motorhome-quality paint job. You won’t see a better-looking fifth wheel in any campground.

A Great Galley Design

As of now, there are two Presidential Suite models, a 37RLQ and a 37SKQ. The unit in which I camped out on the Elkhart assembly line was an SKQ, and I fell in love with the floorplan. The part I liked best is the galley. The stove, microwave and fridge are housed in a road-side slideout. An L-shaped counter projects from the wall aft of the stove, curving forward. The design yields several benefits.

First, the kitchen is a cul-de-sac, so the cook doesn’t have people traipsing through it, causing soufflés to fall and tempers to rise. The fridge is forward of the U created by the wall and the counter, though, so you can grab a cold one without stumbling over the chef.

There is an extraordinary amount of storage space, and all the cabinets above and below the L counter are accessible from both sides, so, again, you don’t have to go into the kitchen to get drinking glasses, serving trays, outdoor picnic ware and so forth. Also, the open end of the kitchen is directly opposite the door, so getting food in and out is easy, with the traffic pattern crossing tile, not carpet.

The countertops are Corian with rounded edges. The large twin sinks are positioned corner-to-corner in the elbow of the counter. The work space is extremely generous, especially when you include the Corian range cover. Another nice feature is that the radiused end of the counter extends beyond the cabinets below, so there is a nice, stumble-proof place to put a wastebasket (included) when you want it out rather than in a cabinet.

Maybe best of all, for all its storage and work space this kitchen is extremely compact. It takes up minimal living space and everything a cook needs is within one step. Also, this configuration has social value, keeping the cook involved with the party, rather than back-to-the-action.

Luxurious Living

I’m very much an outdoor guy, but the living room in this coach could change that. The curbside slideout houses the dinette and a large sofa, from which they might eventually have to surgically remove me, since (in the coach I saw) it faced an optional 32-inch wide-screen LCD TV with a standard surround-sound home stereo and DVD player.

On the other hand, those special Euro-style chairs with the padded footstools in the back were awfully comfortable, too, and the TV does pull out and swivel for optimum viewing pleasure.

The entertainment center is housed in a slideout that also contains a computer station.

Upstairs, the Suite models both feature a spacious bath and slideout bedroom. The bath has an angled tub/shower, a large sink with Corian counter, private water closet and a large wardrobe plumbed and wired for a washer-dryer. The head of the king bed is housed in the fourth slideout, with a long built-in dresser across from the foot (cabinets and 20-inch flatscreen TV overhead) and at the front end is a full-width cedar-lined closet with sliding mirror doors.

Into the Woods

The exceptional woodwork in this coach deserves special attention here. The coach I saw had the optional Newport Cherry cabinetry, and it was stunning. The Suite models have unique crown moldings and slideout fascia that are especially beautiful. The drawer roller-guide systems have a new extension system that gives you open access to the entire drawer box. Add a new, single-pedestal dining table with lift-up storage space near the wall, beautifully upholstered dining chairs, hardwood-and-fabric window treatments and mood lighting, and you have a genuine showstopper.

Great interior design has been a hallmark of Holiday Rambler towables for 30 years, and the Presidential Suite takes it a big step further.

Presidential Suite models are moving fast, even before they leave the factory. Spending time in this coach while it was still on the line had its advantages. It’s great to see how meticulous Holiday Rambler’s people are in making these coaches ready as they roll out the door.

Oh, and I did, in the end, get to make a short trip in this fifth wheel after all. After I’d been aboard a few minutes a horn blew, and everybody stopped working. Time to move the line. It happens 11 times a day on the Presidential/Alumascape line, 16 on the line that builds Savoy and Next Level. My coach lurched forward, and I got to make the trip from the penultimate to the very last station of the assembly line.

Oh, well. Someday I’ll be retired, which is to say, working less than I do now. Maybe then I can hit up Randy Puckett to let me take one of these babies to the Florida Keys for some bonefishing. That would make a great story, eh, Randy?

If and when that day comes, I really will have the best job in the world. But I have to wait a bit. You, on the other hand, should not wait; get yourself down to your local dealer and see the best Holiday Rambler fifth wheel in the world while there’s still one there.