Trivia
Toys
The sleek lines of the GMC Motorhome have inspired the marketing savvy of
many toy manufacturers
over the years. Mattel's "Hot Wheels" line included a "Palm Beach" model,
available in Orange(pictured) and Green, and a "Captain America" model, white with
the "Captain America" logo on the side,
for a short time. While, I'm not a expert on collectible toys, I've been told that this
six-wheeled "Hot Wheel" is very much in demand, fetching around eight to ten dollars at
swap meets and flea markets.
Not very coincidently, General Motors did have a luxury interior trim package
known as the Palm Beach model. While the "Palm Beach" script is similar to the
original,
the full size motorhome definitely did not come from the factory
painted orange with a large palm tree
depicted on its side.
Mattel also produced a much larger version of this toy for their
"Barbie" doll and, while I haven't seen one yet, I've heard that Hess made a version
of the GMC for their toy collection.
Movies
Hollywood is always on the watch for a fresh face, and the GMC Motorhome's futuristic appearance
was definitely not lost on them.
The GMC had a "starring" role in the movie Stripes
opposite Bill Murray and Harold Ramos as a very chique yet tough armored personnel carrier.
Sporting an olive green(naturally) paint job, it served as both a gun platform and troop
transport. Certainly farfetched, but it made for good comedy.
The GMC also had a much smaller role in Twister as a high-tech platform for
tornado tracking equipment. While the GMC motorhome didn't get much screen time
inTwister, that particular coach has some interesting features. It has the
upward swinging rear panel that some Transmodes were equipped with and it has been modified
to add a driver's door. Dressed up all in black, it was unfortunately one of the
bad guys.
In Print
During the 1970's, a series of adventure novels
written by Don Pendleton featured a fictional war hero named Mack Bolan. Bolan returned home
from the jungles of Viet Nam to do battle with organized crime. The vehicle of choice for
this battle was his "War Wagon", a highly modified and armored GMC Motorhome. While
the fiction series did attain somewhat of a cult following, the promised feature length movie
never materialized (although the description of this fictional vehicle did resemble
the Stripes motorhome).
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