This is a warning. Beware. Holiday Rambler has hatched a fiendish plot. As if it weren’t enough to offer the most ravishing, sumptuous, sinfully desirable luxury pusher diesels — coaches so irresistible that Monaco Coach Corporation has become far and away the largest manufacturer of these extravagant vehicles — now they’re applying their wiles to seducing the tender young first-time motorhome buyer who’s shopping on a gas-coach budget.

It doesn’t seem fair. Holiday Rambler is so experienced, so… knowing. They’ve brought so much of their diesel-coach craft and allure into their 2007 Admiral and Admiral SVE gas coaches — you really don’t have a chance.

Spend a little time in the welcoming embrace of an Admiral and you’ll be ruined for other gas motorhomes. And that’s a good thing.

Holiday Rambler’s strategy here is an old one. Holiday Rambler’s national sales manager, Ken Walters said, “We just want to bring people into the family as soon as we can. When people see what it means to own one of our motorhomes and do business with this company, they’ll tend to stay with us as they move up to larger, more expensive coaches.”

Good thinking, but we’ve seen this strategy backfire elsewhere. If the beginner-level coach you offer has none of the sophistication of the more advanced models, you’ve taken your customer for a bit of a ride. But as Walters points out, Holiday Rambler has incorporated some significant diesel-coach concepts into the Admiral line, along with some other important features you seldom if ever find at this price.

This price, by the way, is at this writing roughly $85,000 and up for the Admiral SVE and $100,000 and up for the Admiral — the suggested retail base prices on the website for 2007 models. Walters explains that the difference between Admiral and Admiral SVE is that the former has some standard features that are optional on the SVE. Also, SVE is offered in lengths of 30 and 33 feet, while the Admiral starts at 33 feet and stretches to 37.

So… what’s so especially admirable about Admiral? Ask Walters and he’ll begin rhapsodizing about how this baby is built. The body construction is Holiday Rambler Alumaframe interlocking aluminum H- and C-channels. It’s the same technology the builder uses on its diesel pushers from Vacationer up to the popular and luxurious Endeavor. The system yields an incredibly high strength-to-weight ratio. It also allows for the superb insulating properties of Holiday Rambler’s six-layer wall construction and nine-layer roof. And it lets engineers place switches and outlets on the walls, where they belong, rather than confining them to cabinets.

Also, Admiral sports a one-piece, peaked fiberglass roof, something almost no one else offers at this price range, as well as a steel-cage cockpit superstructure for an extra margin of safety.

The two Admiral lines even offer something unique to Monaco Coach Corporation in the way of chassis. While these coaches don’t ride on the custom Monaco Roadmaster chassis, as the pusher coaches do, you do have a choice between a Ford chassis with a 362 hp V-10 or a Workhorse with a 340 hp Vortec V-8. The two engines put out almost identical torque, and each chassis is rated for 22,000 pound gross vehicle weight.

Perhaps even more important is the Roadmaster big-coach technology with which Holiday Rambler modifies these standard Class A platforms. It’s called Smart Structure II, and it consists of a system of specially engineered steel trusswork applied to the chassis rails as a foundation for the coach body. Smart Structure II creates an exceptionally solid base and greater roll stability than ordinary systems. Developed several years ago for the big Roadmaster pusher chassis, Smart Structure has been specially adapted to give the same benefits to Admiral owners. The list of features

Spend a little time in the welcoming embrace of an Admiral and you’ll be ruined for other gas motorhomes. And that’s a good thing.

imported from Holiday Rambler luxury pusher diesel design goes on: seven-foot ceilings, side-hinge baggage doors, lots of basement storage and the one-piece Panaview™ windshield. Admiral buyers can even choose optional full body paint with vinyl graphics — and nobody does full body paint like Holiday Rambler.

Finally, there are even some innovative floorplan concepts that originated in those luxury diesel coaches. Most notable are the PanaSuite™ full-wall slideouts — available with a 30-foot 2007 Admiral SVE and a 33-foot 2007 Admiral. This concept simplifies set-up while maximizing usable space. If you haven’t seen one of these, you’ll be amazed at the difference in usable space between a single full-wall slide — one that runs from the front of the living area all the way aft to the bedroom — and the two-slide designs.

(A good place to start looking, by the way, is at www.holidayrambler.com. It’s not quite like stepping into the real thing at your nearest dealer, but you can go there right now, this minute.)

So is Walters’ seductive scheming working? He says yes. The ultra-low-priced Admiral SVE line is about to enter its third year, and the company is adding new tricks and looking for ways to make it even more alluring.

Resistance is futile.

To request a brochure for the 2007 Admiral and Admiral SVE, call (800) 245-4778.