As for phobias, these things take time. When we were shopping, I "test drove" a Tiffen Pheoton" well actually the sales guy drove it. It scared me to death even being in the passenger seat. I refused to drive it.
We'd been looking at super C's, and I liked driving that.
We eventually bought a pace arrow, 36' gasser. It took me a summer, and 10,000 miles, to get used to driving it, and it was not all good. My wife HATED sitting in the passenger seat of that thing. I was always too far to the right, and she was always screaming.
2 years later, we bought our Knight. I LOVE driving the big DP. And the DW loves riding in it. But this is after 5 years and 40k miles of practice.
Now I just need to get her to drive it.