Resurrecting Dinosaurs – Our Custom Designed RV

Nikki Wynn

May 5, 2015 — 5 min read

Welcome to the grand tour, and unveiling of our spankin’ new custom designed Bounder RV! While we are super excited to show you around, first we want to make sure you’re up to speed.

This custom RV is part of a project were calling Resurrecting Dinosaurs. It’s all about an opportunity to create change and design a motorhome more suited to the modern traveler. You can learn more about the project here: Resurrecting Dinosaurs – The Story Behind Our RV Design

Our new custom designed RV is a 2016 Fleetwood Bounder…I’m sure you’re really wondering: why in the world would we switch to a gas powered RV?

Well, the answer is pretty simple: The Bounder already has one of our favorite floorplan layouts, its way more affordable than a diesel coach and we realized we’ve never spent any time in a gas RV…and we don’t want to be “diesel elitists”. Sure we put them head to head in the Gas vs Diesel smackdown, but how can we truly weigh in with an opinion if we haven’t ever traveled in both? So, we thought this would be a good time to experiment…and beat the crap out of it on our Alaska Trip, nothin’ like trial-by-fire.

Also, the big reason for choosing the Bounder as our design muse is due to the 2016 updates that bring this gas powered coach closer to the 21st century. If you want to see some of the BIG changes that were made to this years Bounder, you’ll want to watch this…because we won’t be covering the standard updates in the video tour of our custom designed RV.

Ok, now we’re all caught up and ready to dive into our designs!

Remember, this was not a ground up collaboration (we’re not qualified nor would we want to take on a project of that magnitude) so we didn’t have any say on the engineering design, floorplans, engine, chassis or any of the other major features. Our input was mostly on the textiles and the overall look of the coach. We see this collaboration as an opportunity to take an existing popular motorhome, make a few adjustments and see if there is enough positive response from the ‘public’ (that’s you 🙂 ) to bring about a change towards more modern RVs.

Overall, we weren’t able to have as much influence as we would have liked, but we think it’s a nice change from the dated looking interiors currently available (but that’s just our opinion). We would love to see some of our design mods in the grey version, and in a soft creamy sand color, become available ASAP in the Fleetwood lineup, and hopefully embraced by all the RV manufacturers. We feel the simple color palette provides a clean canvas to add your own style, whether its with a throw, a few framed photographs, a colorful bar set or even an extra pillow or two.

Our Custom Designed Bounder

Fleetwood’s Standard Designed Bounder

Is our Bounder perfect?!? No, and we realize that. We’re not saying our designs are ‘better’ nor are we saying the current RV designs don’t fill a need for a certain demographic. Obviously, if nobody liked the standard RV designs then the manufacturers wouldn’t sell any motorhomes! What we do know is the standard RV designs don’t fit our style and we know there are loads of others out there who feel the same…and that’s exactly why we’re pouring our blood, sweat and tears into this passion project.

Voice Your Opinion and Vote!

Hey, sorry the poll has ended but you can still voice you opinion and see the results here: Resurrecting Dinosaurs – Influencing RV Design Changes

Disclaimer: We are not being paid to drive this RV, nor is it given to us. Our custom designed RV is a test coach that is owned by Fleetwood and leased to us for one year. We are thankful to Fleetwood for helping to support our Resurrecting Dinosaurs series, it’s a passion project for us that we hope can benefit the entire RV industry and most importantly the travelers that use them. As usual our thoughts are our own and can never be purchased!