I read recently an article in Smithsonian magazine about the many things that are getting bigger in America: men, women, children, fast-food servings, cows, chickens, refrigerators, movie-theater seats, TV screens and the time people spend watching them, and coffins. One might look for correlations in these raw data, but I won’t. Other things that have become larger: houses, cars and Wal-Mart stores.

So it was refreshing to see on my recent visit to Wakarusa an example of true progress in the way of making something smaller.

Specifically, Holiday Rambler has added two 30-foot models to its Admiral motorhome lineup for 2008. Last year, Admiral was available only in 33- to 37-foot lengths (although the 30PDD was added in April). The new, shorter Admirals offer lower prices and greater maneuverability. They’re a nice alternative to a large Class C. And the coach I saw, a 30SFS, packs an astonishing amount of storage and livability for a small Class A.

If the 30SFS is short on anything, it’s seating. There’s a sofa plus a dining table with two free-standing chairs. So this is one coach in which you’re regularly going to make use of the cockpit seats, which easily turn to face the salon and are the most comfortable seats in the house. I might even tilt one way back to watch television, but only over the protests of my wife, who prefers to cuddle on the sofa.

In other words, if your usual crew includes half a dozen children or three boatloads of fishermen, you’ll want to look at a larger Admiral. But for a couple, even with a pair of guests or children, this is a great way to go.

First-Class Ticket, Coach Price

One of the things I admired about this front-engine, gas-powered motorhome is that despite its low price, it incorporates a lot of the style, feel and features of Holiday Rambler’s more expensive diesel-pusher coaches.

The restyled front end is exceptionally smooth, clean and upscale in appearance. The look is enhanced by automotive-style headlights, a new chrome grille and especially the huge, curved, completely unobstructed Panaview™ one-piece windshield. The fog lights are standard. And the heated, remote-control mirrors are mounted well forward so you can glance at them — through the windshield, not the side windows — without turning your head too far.

The 2008 Admiral has full-body paint with exceptionally nice graphics. Too often, the graphics on a coach in this category underscore that it’s a low-priced model. Not so here. Admiral’s graphics lend the coach high-end eye-appeal. The luxury-car-quality paint job is done in Holiday Rambler’s own shop. The last step is the application of two clear coats, which protect against fading caused by ultra-violet light. It also means you don’t need to wax the coach to keep it brilliant.

Some other luxury-coach exterior features: a one-piece arched fiberglass roof; double-pane tinted windows, radius-corner doors especially made by Monaco Coach Corporation. The coach also has well-insulated side-hinge baggage doors, so you don’t have to get on your hands and knees to load or unload or hook up utilities.

There is the usual lighted service bay for all your freshwater, winterizing and wastewater hookups and operations, including a hot-and-cold hand-held shower.

A nice new feature I found is a locking metal gas cap. Since Admiral’s long-range 75-gallon tank holds well over $200 worth of gasoline at today’s prices, that’s not a bad idea.

Choose Your Chassis

And speaking of driving long distances, Admiral gives you a choice of chassis and power trains. You can choose a Ford chassis with a 362-horse fuel-injected V-10. GM fans can opt for a Workhorse chassis with a 340-horse Vortec V-8. Both chassis come with anti-lock braking and automatic hydraulic leveling standard.

The use of Workhorse and Ford chassis is one point of difference between Admiral and Holiday Rambler diesel coaches — the company makes its own Roadmaster chassis for all its rear-engine models. However, there is still a significant difference between the Admiral and competitive coaches built on Ford or Workhorse platforms. That difference is Smart Structure II, an all-welded truss system that straddles the chassis rails like a saddle. This design significantly improves handling and stability by distributing stresses evenly across the platform, as opposed to a conventional design that balances the coach body on a relatively narrow pair of frame rails.

Body construction is classic Holiday Rambler Alumaframe®, with a nine-layer roof, five-layer walls and a four-layer floor, with multi-layer insulation and vapor barriers and a steel-cage cab.

A Rich Inner Life

What impressed me most about this little Admiral, though, was the quality inside. As in far more expensive Holiday Ramblers, the drawer fronts and cabinet doors are fine hardwood, with dovetailed hardwood drawer boxes. The drawers are the full-extension kind now popular in fine home cabinetry — they pull out all the way, so that everything in the drawer is easy to see and reach. This includes the kitchen, bath, nightstand and wardrobe drawers, with one exception I’ll note later. I was generally amazed at the amount of storage in the coach.

But that is one of the advantages of the full-wall slideout concept that makes this 30-foot coach a great design. The single slideout extends from just behind the driver’s seat all the way to the rear third of the bedroom. It contains a sofa, dinette, two huge wardrobes and the bedroom entertainment cabinet.

The forward wardrobe, just outside the bedroom door, is nearly a yard deep. The top section consists of a large closet so deep that there are shelves behind the hanging area on the left half. The four large drawers below this closet are the exception to the full-extension feature I mentioned. Because they are roughly 33 inches deep, they stop a couple inches short of full-extension. Of course, all these drawers are on high-quality roller guides.

In the bedroom, the angled TV cabinet sits atop a bank of deep shelves. Aft of that is a tall hanging locker with six deep dresser-style drawers below it. There are good-sized nightstands on either side of the bed and large overhead cabinets to boot.

The point is that while one might think of a 30-foot motorhome as ideal for weekending, and be right, the Admiral 30SFS has the storage and livability for long-range travel and snowbirding.

The completely private side bath is another marvel of space engineering with a flush mirror, a medicine cabinet and a linen cabinet to the side, a full-extension drawer and a cubbyhole perfect for spare bathroom tissue — plus liberal counter space.

The galley in my test coach was well-appointed and well-conceived, with six more of those full-extension drawers, nicely finished cabinet interiors, Corian® countertops with a fold-up extension, a single-handle faucet plus a built-in hand-soap dispenser, and an underhung aluminum double sink. A convection-microwave oven is standard.

Bells, Whistles, Etc.

One of the things I enjoy most about getting into the outdoors is having a whole lot of great electronic entertainment in case the outdoors turns miserable due to weather or my neighbors’ cacophonous campfire singing. I was pleased to find that Admiral’s low base price includes a 26-inch wide-screen, high-definition LCD TV over the cockpit, along with a CD player, Sirius-ready radio and surround sound. A DVD player is the only thing they left out, but you can option one for either the forward area, bedroom or both. The bedroom also has a standard LCD TV, a 20-incher.

Taking the Helm

As for the cockpit itself, to be honest, I need to just write a standard paragraph I can just paste into every article I write about a Holiday Rambler motorhome — about how great the cockpit ergonomics are, the sightlines to the highly readable gauge and so on. They never misfire.

The view through the big Panaview windshield is spectacular, with excellent visibility to the sides as well as up and down. I can remember driving motorhomes in which you had to stop half a block short of a stoplight if you wanted to see it turn green, and in which you couldn’t see what was on the ground 20 feet in front of you without standing up and leaning forward. This windshield, along with the fairly perpendicular bus-style front, gives you great visibility. And it’s a great pleasure not to have a center post and vertical windshield wipers obstructing one’s view.

As for the view to the rear, Admiral gives you all the options. You can spec a black-and-white video system with adjustable camera that includes an intercom, so you can talk to the person who is backing you into the campsite rather than relying only on hand signals and screaming. Or you can upgrade to a three-camera system that lets you see if small vehicles are lurking off your quarter panels before you change lanes. Once you spec either system, you can add a GPS navigation system that reads out through the same monitor. And what would a modern Admiral be without GPS?

I’d go the full boat on these options. Rear vision with audio and electronic navigation represent a tiny investment compared to the value of preserving my marriage, bless her directionally challenged heart.

And while we’re on the subject of options, standard-run Admirals (i.e., those you are most likely to find on dealers’ lots) for 2008 have a specially priced option package consisting of a protective film mask on the front end, power sun visors (a boon, what with that huge windshield), raised-panel hardwood refrigerator doors, a 15,000-BTU air conditioner with heat pump, and a patio awning.

This little coach quickly became one of my favorites out of all those I have reviewed in these pages. The maneuverability, the fun of driving it, the spaciousness and exceptional storage afforded by the full-length slide — this would be a great rig for hitching up my boat and spending a string of summers exploring the various fishing and camping opportunities around the northern Great Lakes states, north Ontario and Manitoba, where the smallmouth, walleye and pike are huge and the campsites often aren’t.

That’s still a dream, but the time to make it come true approaches.

Dave Bessmer is a freelance writer living in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has spent over 25 years in or around the RV business.