Model · Newell
Newell Classic
Classic is the name owners use for Newell coaches built before the Series 2000, from 1967 through the 1989 model year. The first were front-engine coaches based on the Streamline design. Newell introduced rear-engine coaches in 1971 and diesel power in 1972, and built its last front-engine coach in 1976. Later classics gained the 6V92 engine as standard (1980), the 8V92 engine (1985) and a 102-inch-wide body (1986).
Photo: The Motorcoach Store · All rights reserved (brand photo)
About this model
NewellOwner.com divides these years into Classic Front Engine coaches, model years 1967 to 1973, and Classic Pusher coaches, model years 1972 to 1989. Newell's timeline says the first Newell was completed in Miami, Oklahoma, in 1967, after L.K. Newell brought Streamline's parts and unfinished shells there. Family RVing says the Streamline motorhome rode on a Ford chassis with a gasoline engine in front, but it does not say which chassis the first Newells used.
The magazine says L.K. Newell based his 1971 rear-engine coach on a FitzJohn bus chassis, with a bridge-style frame of small welded tubes that left room for open storage bays under the floor. Newell still describes its chassis as a bridge-truss design. A diesel version followed in 1972. One 1972 coach described by its owner in Family RVing was a 32-foot gasoline pusher.
Newell's timeline gives the main changes of the following years: the 6V92 engine as standard in 1980, the 8V92 in 1985, a 102-inch-wide body in 1986 and a coach longer than 40 feet in 1988. The timeline gives only a year for each change and does not say whether it is a model year. An owner-kept list says Newell's coach numbering system started in 1983, with 1983 models numbered from about 1 to 23.
Specifications and prices for the classic years were not found for this record, apart from one owner's account of a 1972 coach.