Newell Coaches Cost Millions of $$! Are They Worth It?

Without a doubt, Newell Coaches are the highest-end, non-bus-conversion RVs on the market. The price for a new Newell Coach starts at around $2 million. (The fancy rig in our featured image has a price tag of $2,428,578.00.)

Are they worth it?

In this post, we’re taking a closer look at Newell Coaches to see what makes them different from other top-notch Class A RVs, and why they cost over two million bucks.

What’s So Special About a Newell Coach?

There’s a lot that’s exceptional about a Newell Coach.

Newell Coaches are fully custom designed. So, you’ll choose your own floor plan, appliances, materials, fabrics, and more. They’re almost entirely a blank slate, so it’s as though you get to design your own personal luxury motor coach.

As a Newell Coach buyer, you’ll work directly with Newell designers to custom design the entire coach, and then you’ll ride down the highway in rock-star-like luxury on wheels that carry some of the finest appointments you’ll find in any RV.

Obviously, if you buy a used Newell motorhome, you’ll still ride and live in opulent style, but you’ll have to forego the opportunity to custom-design it to your specifications. (You’ll also likely pay significantly less than two million dollars for the opportunity to own someone else’s luxury design.)

Another thing that distinguishes Newell Coaches from other luxury motor coaches is that instead of using the fully-welded unibody construction of a Prevost bus chassis, Newell manufacturers their own RVs from the ground up using a custom-designed chassis and body.

The only RVs that would likely be considered higher-end than a Newell Coach would be bus conversions built on Prevost bus chassis, (including Marathon Coach, Liberty Coach, Millennium Luxury Coaches, Featherlite Coaches, etc). Those rigs are often used by your favorite musical artists as tour buses.

Who Started Newell Coach?

L.K. Newell started Newell Coach back in 1967, and we’ve got Mr. Newell to thank for our current home, a 2005 diesel pusher with lots of much-appreciated basement storage.

What does our Newmar Mountain Aire have to do with L.K. Newell?

Well, it was Newell who designed the first diesel-powered rear-engine motorhome, AND it was Newell who designed in the fantastic basement storage we’ve got in our rig today. Even our front-mounted generator is due to the innovative spirit of L.K. Newell. 

Here’s why:

Back in 1967, Newell traveled from his home in Oklahoma out to California to pick up a brand new motorhome he’d ordered from the Streamline Trailer Company, then a leading luxury motorhome manufacturer. 

Newell’s rig had an aluminum body and was built on a one-ton gas-powered chassis from Ford Motor Co. 

Newell focused on a number of modifications he felt could be made to the high-end motorhome to improve it even more. 

So, he went back to California to share his criticisms and ideas for improvement with the head of Streamline, who suggested that if Newell thought he could make a better motor coach, maybe he should buy the division from Streamline and do it himself.

So, he did!

Not only did he buy the motor coach division of the company, (eventually moving it to his hometown of Miami, Oklahoma), but by 1969 he’d also designed and built the very first rear-engine (pusher) motorhome.

That rig was built using a Madson gas-powered bus chassis, but it just didn’t pass muster for Newell. His design removed the frame rails between the front & rear axles to create the huge basement storage spaces we have in our own rig today.

Newell also included air suspension and air brakes like those found on buses, but ultimately he wanted buyers to have the opportunity to customize their own rigs as he did. That philosophy remains a key feature of Newell Coaches to this day, despite the company having changed hands a couple of times since then.

In the end, it was L.K. Newell who designed the first diesel pusher motorhome with full basement storage and a front-end generator… which is exactly the type of rig we travel and live in.

Here’s a look at a current-day Newell Coach up close and personal, via video:

Are Newell Coaches Worth Millions?

How would we know? ????????????‍♂️ We’d have to win the lottery to answer that question! ????

What we can tell you is that Newell is a very successful company, so we’re guessing their clientele is more than satisfied with their products. And how could they not be, with the extraordinary luxury and attention to detail offered by a Newell Coach?

Unfortunately, we’ll have to leave the answer to whether a Newell Coach is worth millions to those with the millions!

Meanwhile, the rest of us can shine up our current rigs to keep them looking their best, and maybe those Newell Coach owners will toss us a wave as they drive by our rigs in their L.K. Newell-inspired dream machines.

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