what year did they start fiberglass bodys is better than the aluminum

I've had fiberglass & aluminum rigs, & IMHO fiberglass is not better. It's easier to mass-produce, & perhaps easier to seal in large panels, as well as lending itself to stylish, swoopy shapes.

As to longevity, I doubt that fiberglass is better. From my experience, it's more difficult to repair, and more difficult to keep shined up and looking good.

Ease of production and styling are probably the main reasons nearly everything is fiberglass today, but I can't say when the industry turned to it completely.

Airstream, Barth, Revcon, Newell, Silver Streak, to name a few are great aluminum coaches. Their longevity far exceeds fiberglass. In the boating world, only the finer yachts were built out of aluminum because it simply costs more to build (Stryker, Burger) than fiberglass, That's why cheaply built sob's are built of fiberglass (fleetwoods, Winnies, junkers etc. . )

I think a molded fiberglass MH can be very good, like the Travco or GM. (Boy, one of the ugliest and one of the most handsome) But when fiberglass is applied in sheets, quality usually suffers. Lots of sad stories out there.

I have seen a number of wrecked RVs, and the all metal ones are the only ones that don't look like someone just emptied a dumpster along the road. I believe a person would have a better chance of surviving a disaster in an all-metal RV.

Bill H, I couldn't agree with you more see the other post I put fiberglass vs aluminum. I would like to remind everyone that the term fiberglass is a euphemism for FRP (fiberglass reinforced PLASTIC!!!) Just like naugehide was a euphemism for vinyl. Also for the record, GMC was an aluminum sided motorhome with front and rear frp caps. Some premier builders did make plastic coaches but their most expensive, well built mohos were built on a prevost bus chassis(Vogue, executive, country coach, Beaver)-Jeff

Unlike boats the FRP in coaches are panels applied to a frame. With a boat the FRP is applied over a plug so it is a unit. Structural strength is added by tabbing both lateral and longitudinal beams whether FRP, metal or wood. This gives the strength and rigidity associated with unitized body that cannot be achieved by adding side panels. Think mobile home vs auto.

When I sold RV's for 15 minutes once I had the opportunity to drive some large plastic coaches. In the plastic coaches I felt a marked twist and swing when going around tight corners and sudden change of lanes.

Now I have not driven any really large aluminum coaches, (mine is a 28 foot) however, a lady from Prescott, AZ who sold a beautiful 36 foot Monarch on this site and replaced it with a $300K+ 40ft Monaco. She loved the 3 slides on the Monaco and the big TV, but she told me that the Barth was a much, much better drive. She said that she could feel the twist in the Monaco which was never apparent in the Barth.

This tells me that the Barth build concept has a great deal to do with the stability of the coach in general.

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Although I can't say whether the Barth was engineered this way (but from the photos Dave has supplied of a Barth under construction, it could have been), the chassis, frame, and sheathing become almost a monocoque design, meaning that structurally, it's one piece capable of handling all the loads imposed on it.

FRP coaches have nowhere near the structural integrity.