Winnebago Trend?

RobertRyan wrote:
The E Series has limited ground clearance, ...

My BIL recently sold his dually 2009 Mercedes based Airstream Interstate Class B. It's ground clearance was considerably less than that of my E450 ... I know from both looking at the Mercedes from it's sides and crawling underneath it. It was unacceptably too low to the ground for rough road and offroad confidence in our style of Western U.S. drycamping.

Of course the E450 chassis, like most American made trucks, has fender wells and suspension systems that provide greatly increased clearance over what's actually needed for the stock size tires that come on them. What this means is that U.S. full size truck chassis like the E450 can be fitted with larger diameter tires by their owners so as to easily and inexpensively increase ground clearance ... as we have done with our 24 foot Class C. Since the E450 has a lower rear differential ratio than the E350, increased tire diameter even has no noticeable effect on pulling/towing power versus what an E350 chassis would have with it's stock tires (which are usually the same tire size as is delivered on an E450-based Class C motorhomes).

For example, on my 4X4 GMC pickup I for many years ran tires on it 2-3 sizes (diameter-wise) over what came on it stock from GM. This easily provided around 2-3 inches or more of ground clearance for the extreme backcountry volunteer work I do with it. Increasing tire diameter is also, IMHO, the best way to increase ground clearance because everything on the vehicle - shock mount points, differential cases, transmission cases and mount points, exhaust pipes, brake cables/lines, fuel lines, differential/transmission air pressure equalization tubes, etc. - get raised.

I'm not really sure whether or not some of the chassis types shown in this thread can very easily take much larger diameter tires than what they come with ... or even if their overall gear ratios would still provide adequate torque to the ground with tire diameters much larger.