Let me tell you a story of how I came to purchase my Barth. I am somewhat curious how many of my fellow Barth owners came to share this peculiar affliction of loving oddly-shaped but sensationally built coaches, and thought I could start by sharing my story.

I live in a fairly rural part of Pennsylvania, where it seems every fourth house has some type of RV, travel trailer or pop up sitting in the drive, back yard or under a lean-to.

I never really gave it much thought; I never really saw myself as a motorhome owner, although I must confess being intrigued by an old Dodge 'watchamacalit' that was built on a van chassis and looked like the space shuttle. It gave me an odd tingle when I saw it. I began fancyful daydreams of how cool it would be to have such a vehicle; although those daydreams were always interrupted by the logical fact that the thing was perenially sitting outside a local mechanic's shop when I would see it. That realization was usually enough to douse my fantasies with the proverbial bucket of cold reality, and I gave it precious little chance at rooting in my mind.

In any event, one day my family and I were coming down a rural highway, and my wife spotted a 'no name' class C sitting by the side of the road with a prominent "FOR SALE" sign. She suddenly turned to me and said "Woudn't it be cool to own a motorhome? We should stop and look at that."

My immediate reaction was either my wife had been recently replaced with one of those "pod people" from some wacky science fiction movie, or that she had quite suddenly thrown a mental rod. The third possibility was that she was just messing with my mind to see my reaction. It never really ocurred to me in that instant that she was serious.

My wife likes cars, at least in a peripheral sense. That is to say,for instance, she likes to drive my Mustang GT convertible, but doesn't care what the brake horsepower is, or what the tire sizes mean. She just enjoys what they *are* without a care for the specifics of *how* they are, if you take my meaning.

To hear such a comment come from her was so compelling,so *FREAKY* that I spun around in the road and went back to see it without further ado.

It was nice, sure enough. Clean and compact. I didn't know ANYTHING about motorhomes at the time, but my mind was seized with an odd infatuation.. and quite honestly I am dangerous person to be around when I am infatuated.

Immediately my mind was seized by two distict operating systems, both quite clearly molded in my childhood. The first was the "Clubhouse" mentality. The inner child in me spoke quite clearly here. I believe it was my 12 year old self. My 12 year old self said "This is JUST like the clubhouse you always wanted...WITH plumbing and a fridge!". And of course the 16 year old inner child piped up and added "AND it's on WHEELS".

Well, as any proper inner child can tell you, for a man such as myself, that was an intoxicating mixture...clubhouse AND motor vehicle. It was really quite unfair of my wife to take advantage of my weaknesses so readily.

Inner children you see, are notoriously short sighted and selfish. For instance, the "clubhouse" mentality side totally disregarded the fact that it is another house that has to be CLEANED; not to mention fixed up, supplied, maintained and repaired. Nope, the 12 year old didn't care about that. The 12 year old only saw "CLUBHOUSE". Sitting around that cool table, watching TV with friends. The 16 year old me saw "TRUCK" and driving into the sunset with visions of endless adventure ahead. Not the similar theme of registering, insuring and the obvious dealing of the mechanical side of things...nope. It was 'all good'.

My wife added to these delerious thoughts with a lethal dose of sentiment. "My childhood was sometimes difficult, but I remember that one of my happiest memories were camping in our pop-up".

At that point, I began to seriously contemplate this idea. Inner children have their place, after all..but it is the "outer adult" that has the check book account.

I talked to some co-workers who camp. They pretty much told me the same thing. "We feel that we are closer as a family after camping".

They (I think) carefully avoided mentioning that this type of closeness is similar to the family feeling one gets with ANY group of people one experience trials with, such as the customers being held captive by bank robbers, or a group of people trapped in a flooded lifeboat at sea.

In any event the die was cast. Inner children and present-day real children were totally on board. Now the shopping adventure was to begin, and my wife and I attacked the shopping part with the zeal of Imelda Marcos at the local "Famous Footwear" shop.

We soon found the Barth, and the rest as they say is "history"...what was your impetus. I can blame the inner child, but what is YOUR excuse?

Well, my motives were somewhat less altruistic, but nevertheless, practical.

After my ex- and I split, for no reason at all, I went to look at a 28' Furon a friend of mine (who owns a repair shop) had for sale. He was still working on it, and I wasn't totally enthused about the layout (I don't know why - up 'til then I'd had only one sickly travel trailer).

Yet, I continued to look at 26'-28' motorhomes, with no particular motive in mind...Mind you, I had a LWB Ford 1-ton diesel van then (as now) and it was ideal for my two Golden Retrievers (who are not spoiled) and me.

But a couple of years ago, I wanted to go look at properties in N GA, SW NC, and SE TN, and it took me over eight hours to find a place where Maggie and Casey (who are not spoiled) would be welcomed. The seed was planted to find an alternative...if motels wouldn't embrace Maggie and Casey, I'd get my own damned motel.

So I continued my search. This was accelerated by the fact my Dad was in declining health (and he refused to allow my dogs into his home); my sister lived somewhat nearby, but also couldn't allow dogs (her POSSLQ had only one lung, so couldn't tolerate fur or dander).

Still, I looked. Most of what I looked at was garbage, but I needed something - and the SOB Class C I still own came up only four miles from the office. It wasn't perfect. but it had what was needed, if not what I wanted. So I bought it.

I didn't know how much I'd use it, but I embarked on making it reliable and comfortable.

Now, my other money-pit hobby is astronomy. Being able to take my dogs (who are not spoiled) made star parties, even remote ones, quite practical. So, since May of 2004, the little Class C, the dogs, and I have logged well over 15,000 miles.

I'd not evisioned getting that much use from a motorhome, but I found it almost a "liberating" experience, being able to "ease on down the road" at my whim.

Even before (and after) snagging StaRV I (that Class C), I still wanted a 26'-28' Class A, with ample basement storage for my astro-gear. Not only would the Class A floorplan allow more room (Class Cs' cab areas are useless for inclusion in the living area), but basement storage was a real plus - with StaRV I, most of the telecopes and associated gear had to be hauled into the living area. While most was easily accomodated above the cab, in the "bunk" area, it was still drudgery loading it (my main scope in its case weighs about 100 lbs. - and it went onto the folded-down dinette, stealing space from Maggie and Casey, who are not spoiled).

I'm also a recovering marine engineer, and I much prefer diesel over gaso engines for a variety of reasons, and StaRV I has a wimpy little carbureted 5.7L.

So, still, I continued to look for StaRV I's replacement, adding to the total of RVs looked at for about four years - over 50. There seemed to be nothing but garbage, until December '05. Jerry Aull had his '92 Breakaway 28' for sale, and I looked at it in Atlanta (twice) but it was lean on basement storage, (as were the 30' Breakaways I contemplated).

Apparently, in '93, Barth completely revised its plan for the 28' Breakaways, and shortly after Jerry's 28' came onto the market, a '94 28' Breakaway arose. The '94+ 28' Breakaways have about 5X the basement capacity of the earlier versions, and finding the Bennetts' coach was a true blessing. Not only was it in pristine shape, but it was endowed with enough basement area to engorge all my astro-gear. So I bought it.

Somewhere along the line, and before I discovered this forum, I'd started to settle on a Barth for the first choice, mainly because its build would mean a late '70s coach would hold up better than a late '90s Plastic Pig. In short, I don't mind at all doing mechanical work, but I'd like to know the unit on which I'm working isn't falling apart faster than I can get that done.

So StaRV II, bought from the Bennetts, has turned out to be ideal for me. Very little work has been needed, and none I didn't know about before buying. It has a great layout, a turbocharged diesel pusher (I also prefer pushers because there's SO much room to work on them), ample LPG storage, and plenty of fresh water and holding tanks for those remote star parties.

And Maggie and Casey (who are not spoiled) love it - lots of room on the road, and they can both fit easily on the queen-sized bed.

We're all delighted with my choice.

So I got a Barth because they have the features I want, and they'll last forever. And that suits me (and Maggie and Casey, who are not spoiled) just fine!

quote:

Originally posted by Windsor Dalrymple:
I am somewhat curious how many of my fellow Barth owners came to share this peculiar affliction of loving oddly-shaped but sensationally built coaches.

We should all know "The Story" by now so suffice it to say there's not to much more to tell. But, when has that ever kept me from replying?

To borrow a line from Paul Harvey: "Now here's The Rest of the Story"

I would go to NASCAR races with 4 other friends several times a year. Each time we would rent a "plastic pig" and had a blast. The money aspect of each trip kept adding up and it was decided one day that we would buy a bus and convert it.

Everyone of you have seen the school buses painted in a "Refreshing Pandora of nauseating colors" dotting the NASCAR tracks. Well, even in my drunken stupor I told "The Crew" that a School Bus was not for me. It would have to be built like a tank and would require a commitment from everyone to redo.

I knew I wanted to redo a real Bus. Who doesn't love an older MCI or GMC coach? Being in "The Business" I put out feelers to several dealerships, tow truck operators and three different auction yards. Everyone knew I was looking for a Bus.

We figured spending about 5-10K on a coach and over the course of a few years rebuild it. I was haunting some of the bus sites and on-line auctions. After looking around I was resigned to the fact that this was nothing more then a fanciful dream.

I had this feeling that this would be one of those things that each time we got together we would drink, dream and talk about it. In case we actually found something I talked to the wife and made sure that she would tolerate this.

One of the guys got a divorce, another was talking about moving to N.C. and another wound up in the hospital. Hey, life happens. You can plan and dream but reality is always there to bite you back.

During this time the wife and I was talking about how much fun it would be to go camping and spend time with the kids when they got a little older. We went to several Rv shows and checked out some rather high end coaches. We left one show thinking that those coaches we rather cheap looking. We took a ride to a dealership and looked at some Rv's that cost more then we paid for our house.

We all know what "depreciable assets" are. This Rv thing was so upside down that we decided to buy a summer house in a area that we might retire too. Makes sense to me, why sink all of that money into 6 wheels and no real asset. We put money down on a new house in Calabash N.C. and started dreaming about vacations.

So what happens, life happens. I got a call from a dealership that wanted to get rid of "This Thing" that was cluttering their back lot for a few years. It had two generators and two roof AC units. It went something like this...

Hey Bill, your still looking for a bus right? How about coming down here and stripping some parts off of "this thing" before we crush it. The State has just given the go ahead to destroy it. We can't get it to run and the owning agency has been given a grant to buy a new rig.

Insert "The Story" here.

We had a blast that summer stripping it and redoing the interior. Every weekend some of us would get together and work on redoing the Barth. The wife's would sit up on the back porch looking down at us pointing and laughing. They would make sandwiches and the kids would run around jumping in the pool and checking on our progress.

The wifes all commented on how much fun they had that summer and we all got to know each other a little better. There was three of us that put a lot of time into it. I started to tally up the cost, the Barth was eating up money faster then I could print it.

If you buy a new coach you can pay it off in a zillion years. Buy an older coach and be prepared to pay out right away. No one had extra income that year so the group project became a full expense for me.

Two plus years going to the races in this and now I'm so hooked on Barth. Every time I go someplace with it people comment on how nice it looks. It is "The Original Aluminum Magnet".

You know how fact is stranger then fiction? Well...

Last June I parked next to this really nice looking coach and the owners came over to talk. I think they were feeling really proud of there coach. There comment was "we paid 200 for ours, what ya pay for yourz" I told them 500 and then they said something so stupid it made me realize what had just happened. There response: "We would never pay half a million for a coach" and then, they walked away.

No, No, No, my coach doesn't look that nice! I don't know what they were thinking. That weekend scores of people came buy and commented about the Barth. There were other nicer looking coaches but for some reason people just kept stopping by.

Some people just know class when they see it. Others have so much money that class could slap them in there face and they wouldn't know what they were looking at.

I would rather have a diesel pusher 30' to 38' widebody with a center side door but because of the other house and the thought of actually retiring with some money have decided to put this dream on hold for now. Yes, I'm 39 and trying to make sure I can retire with something extra. If you don't do it now then when?

I love my Barth and the aluminum construction. I like knowing were everything is. I put it together and I could take her apart without worrying about what this or that does. I know my coach needs a lot more work. The underside is a little rusty and there's some body work that needs to be done. The roof vent has got to go etc... But less face it. It's got good bones!

I like what I like and have a hard time changing. I'm still with the girl I took to the senior prom, I still wear Converse sneakers, I still own a Chevy Nova like I did in High School and I still believe that I'll have a Barth for many years to come. Some things you just stick with, ya know.

Other things you embrace and move on with. I own a lot of new audio and video equipment. People call me to help them fix their computing problems. I can rebuild a house and love plumbing and electrical work. If it's mechanical and I don't understand it I'll talk to someone who does and I'll learn something that will help me out.

I love learning new things and trying out new experiences. I'd even like to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft one day. See, no fear. Except of the wife!

Before we had a coach Deb and I used to take a great many car trips. We especially enjoyed driving through Central Wisconsin following the Chippewa River, as well as The Bluff Country of Southern Minnesota, SE Wisconsin and Western Illinois, following the Mississipp.

However, we found that regardless of the travel shows talking up the local cuisine the food generally stunk and the ma and pa motels were worse. Add to it that we were not the only ones out there and many times we had to start looking for someplace to stay starting around noon. I know we could have made reservations before we left but that is no fun.

Than as many of you know my wife is a long time newspaper lady at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In her newspaper we read that it takes laundry water at a certain temp to destroy the errant biology in hotel sheets. And that even the most expensive Hyatts and Hilton maintain the temp for maybe the first couple loads in morning so most of us former hotel dwellers were sleeping in the "stuff" from several of the previous sheet renters. So that cinched it for us.

We first went out looking for Class C's and even then a 5 year old ugly Minnie Winnie was $44K. So I came to the conclusion that RVing just wasn't in our budget. Or at least we couldn't see us spending $40-50K or more for an RV.

But we went out one more time and there in between two big 40 foot Overlands sat our little Barthmobile..



Then we like all of the rest of you Barthomaniacs it was love at first sight. Even those this baby has cause us to spend s few bucks we have never (well at least not offen) regreted our decision.

We had a succession of RVs, from camper shells, then tent trailers, Travel Trailers, Fivers, Class Cs and Class A. The only one that wasn't garbage was an old hump-backed Shasta from the sixties. You know, the one with the little wings on it. And it got stolen. Oh, yeah, we had half of a Cortez. It was pretty good, but small. I just plain got tired of the lousy construction out of inferior materials by inferior workers. Three were Fleetwood products. At one time, we had a Prowler fiver on a perm spot on the Colo. river for water skiing and a Southwind for hunting and fishing. Plus, I am an inveterate modifier and tinkerer, and there was no economic or emotional future in improving those travesties on wheels. In seeking out our next purchase, I slowly ruled out other brands for various reasons, and Barth was left. I waited over a year for a tag 30, and that was it. The layout wasn't right, but I changed it to suit us. I have only seen one other Barth I wish I could have bought, but it wasn't available until several years later.

From this and other posts about Barths, I've inferred a pattern - that when a Barth joins the family, there's a sense of relief and contentment, that to me, reminds me of the Italian wine, Est! Est!! Est!!! (Translated roughly, "This is it! This is it!! This is it!!!").

It translates to a feeling of adventure and relief, that The Search has ended because what has been sought has been found.

That's certainly the way I feel after looking for four years at Plastic Pigs: "Finally! No more disappointments!" Putzing with mine, I no longer have the feeling of "what's falling apart next?" but rather a feeling of progress...almost an ecclesiastical connection that says I'm not "shoveling sand against the tide", but actually restoring a piece of art, for which the artist died a few years ago.

In fact, with a few more dollops of brandy, I'd be ready to compare the Barths with the art and design of DaVinci and the SOBs with that of Andy Warhol ("Fifteen minutes of fame.")

But I haven't yet consumed the brandy, so let me get back to you....

Once upon a time...
At a school department workshop, the instructor said" tell us something about yourself no one could guess." My turn came and I stated that I owned a motorhome. To my surprise, another participant, the one and only Bill G. raised his hand and said he was an rver too.

The rest is history, sort of.

We went on a trip together and I saw his Barth. Wow! This was a classy coach.

How did I get to a Barth? Well, Bill started telling me what a great coach they were. As we camped together, it became apparent that a Barth would make a great retirement vehicle.

Then I saw this website, and some great coaches for sale. After my wife and I set a limit as to what we could affprd, we promptly exceeded it and bought Tink Hardeker's 94 Breakaway.

I now have a great coach (notice Dave, I have not used the 'r' word lately),a new camping friend and a bunch of dedicated Barth owners who share willingly what they've learned about owning a coach.

It doesn't get better than that!

So next time yo're at a workshop, don't be shy about raising your hand.

That is a great story Richard and we are so glad to have another educator on the website to wince at my despicable grammar.

Boy I think we have just about every possible career field covered. We have even had a professional comedian, a could musicians, doctors for sure, when I call this a community it is truly that.

We just got back from spending the day at the FMCA international convention at Pomona. Needless to say, we looked at Southwinds so we could feel superior and smug. And we looked at Foretravels and CCs so we could feel inferior and inadequate. We also make a point of looking at Prevosts so we can snicker at the bad taste of the moneyed class. We always come away liking our Barth and wanting only a higher line Barth. The hightlight of today's looky-looing was a 1.8 million Parliament Prevost that was, by far, the worst thing we have ever seen. I believe it is the only coach I could not make decent. If it were given to me, it would be gone in a big hurry. It even seemed SMALL inside. Its only redeeming interior feature was a lovely table top with an inlaid band of abalone and a thick lacquer finish. Everything else ranged from impractical and ill-conceived to "Oh My God".

I will reserve my covetousness for the up-line Barths or Newells.

My first "camper" was an old slide out, pop top no name, that I sanded and painted red and put new canvass on. I loved it, even in the middle of a blizzard on top of Beech Mountain, NC, with the thing rocking from side to side and paper stuffed in the cracks so the electric heater would keep us warm. Next was a brand new Coleman pop top that was nice but the ex and I were on different planets and it didn't work out (traded it for cash and a motorcycle). Tere and I married in '84 and did some tent camping with the kids but I had enough of that in the army. After I supposedly retired in '03, we sold the house and thought we would go traveling in a Toyota mini. The kids were gone by this time. Went to a dealer to look at a floor plan similar to the Toyota, and while driving around the lot in a golf cart, spied a Trek (they do look kind of cool and that Electro magic bed is something else). So we bought it for $43000. Loved the layout, hated the handling. Scared us to death on a windy trip to Florida where we stayed for a year running an assisted living facility in a village of retired missionaries. You haven't experience fear until you've driven a short wheelbase Trek on a dark and windy, rainy night in Florida. Traded that thing in on a 35' Dynasty. Great coach, can't say anything bad about it except it depreciated more than the $300 monthly payments. We knew we were in over our heads and it was a bit of an over kill for weekenders. Sold it to a guy in California who bought it sight unseen--his first motor home--crazy. Never heard from him again. Then there was a short affair with a 28' Callista class c that cost $1000 to rebuild the rear end. The point is, once bitten by the joy and freedom of the "ride", you're finished until you get 'just the right one. I had actually stumbled across a Barth in Florida while trying to trade in the Trek, but the son-in-laws dad who sells Prevosts, said they were junk. He, of course, doesn't know what he's talking about, and can go about his life selling those million dollar + coaches. Who cares? Then I stumbled across the Barthmobile site. That was it! I love the 28' Regal. Yeah, I've had some issues, but name one other coach that could elicit this comment from a mechanic that worked only on motor homes; "This Barth rides and handles better than any $300,000 coach I've ever driven". That happened today, March 23, 2006. The Barth is 21 years old. I really don't mind putting money into it. It's pure gold.