Motor Homes

Riverside motor home maker MVP RV Inc. is planning to build and export 30,000 vehicles to China under an agreement with a Chinese entrepreneur that is expected to add 1,200 new jobs to the Inland Empire, an area hit hard by the recession. Under the deal with the businessman, Winston Chung, who last year became the RV firm's majority owner, the company will build $5 billion worth of the diesel-powered vehicles. The agreement was highlighted at the White House as part of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit this week.

No doubt about it: Peer-to-peer vacation rentals - that is, short-term rentals done through such sites as Airbnb or Wimdu - usually are a bargain. They enable you to save money by letting you dine in for a meal or two because most come with access to a kitchen. But some are far away from the attractions that were the impetus for the vacation in the first place, which means getting there can cause the bargain to lose some luster. Further, some owners have found they are at risk: In a case that created plenty of social media buzz, one owner in San Francisco complained that her place had been trashed.

I found Roberta Andrews' letter (Sept. 13) very interesting about recreational vehicle parking in Fountain Valley. Hooray for the City Council! It's time every city take steps to eliminate these eyesores. Can you imagine five cars and an RV parked on their property? These are the people who cause changes in the laws. I know of what I speak. I have the problem where two motor homes are parked bumper to bumper next door to me. For years one was parked on the side lawn and just try to get out of the driveway.

Winston Chung came to Southern California two years ago like a standard-bearer for the new China, a wealthy Hong Kong entrepreneur with visions of creating an electric vehicle industry by reviving struggling manufacturing firms. Some dreams rolled out as planned. The battery scientist and clean-energy promoter bought control of four Southland specialty vehicle makers. UC Riverside renamed a building as Winston Chung Hall, saying that the $13 million he provided for green power research was the biggest donation in campus history.

Owners of motor homes--those dream vehicles or eyesores, depending on your point of view--can continue parking on Moorpark streets during the day, the City Council has decided. Council members Wednesday nixed plans to impose restrictions on the times oversized vehicles can be parked on city streets. The city had considered barring the vehicles between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. in response to residents' complaints about motor homes parked for days on city streets.

Rexhall Industries Inc., a rapidly growing manufacturer of motor homes, said it was sued for $10 million by Thor Industries Inc. and its subsidiary Airstream Inc., which makes a rival brand of motor homes. In the suit, filed last week in federal court in Los Angeles, Thor alleged among other things that Rexhall's use of the name "Airex" for its motor homes infringes on the Airstream name and injures Airstream's reputation.

About 375 recreational vehicle owners persuaded the City Council on Tuesday to continue to allow motor homes to be parked in street-side driveways of private homes. The city's code enforcement officer had recommended an ordinance to require recreational vehicles to be parked on driveways at least 14 feet from the sidewalk. But after seeing the crowd that showed up, the council instead voted unanimously to form a commission of residents to study the issue.

A cracked and jutting rock formation looming above a Camarillo neighborhood poses only a slight threat to homes nestled against the steep hillside, a geologist told a homeowners official Tuesday. But scores of unoccupied motor homes parked between the houses and the abandoned rock quarry face a far more immediate danger, said Bill Torrence of the Camarillo Springs Common Area Assn.

Vandals started up 15 motor homes in a Saugus factory and drove them into each other and into the walls, doing about $700,000 damage, authorities said Wednesday. "They just took them and ran them into posts and into each other at what looks to be 20 or 30 m.p.h.," said Bill Rex, who owns Rexhall Industrial Inc., which manufactures the vehicles. "They smashed in the fronts and ripped the sides off of them." Los Angeles Sheriff's Lt.

Sheriff's deputies have arrested two boys, ages 12 and 14, on suspicion of burglary and causing about $700,000 in vandalism last week at a Saugus recreational vehicle factory by starting up 15 motor homes and crashing them, authorities said Sunday. The boys, both residents of the Santa Clarita Valley, were arrested Saturday after they apparently returned to the factory. The two were caught by the firm's owner, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Harvey Cantor said. Rexhall Industrial Inc.

An ordinance intended to keep motor homes from parking overnight in Santa Monica is being applied to an unlikely culprit: a van used to ferry elderly residents of an assisted-living facility to and from appointments and activities. The van, operated by Sunrise Senior Living, has typically parked without incident in front of the center on 15th Street between Arizona Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

Riverside motor home maker MVP RV Inc. is planning to build and export 30,000 vehicles to China under an agreement with a Chinese entrepreneur that is expected to add 1,200 new jobs to the Inland Empire, an area hit hard by the recession. Under the deal with the businessman, Winston Chung, who last year became the RV firm's majority owner, the company will build $5 billion worth of the diesel-powered vehicles. The agreement was highlighted at the White House as part of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit this week.

Robert and Barbara Nicolson, retired supermarket employees from Sedona, Ariz., recently traded in their 2006 motor home for a new Tiffin Allegro Bus that lists for $355,000. Amenities include a dishwasher, washer and dryer, full-size refrigerator and 11/2 bathrooms. "How nice is it? Well, I'm having a hard time convincing my wife that it's time to go home," quipped Robert Nicolson from a Petaluma, Calif., campground. The couple — he's 72, she's 68 — "were very happy with the deal" of unspecified proportions that they negotiated, in which they unloaded their old 40-footer, Robert said.

An Orange County man was convicted Thursday of torturing and murdering his adult daughter and keeping her body in a freezer in his recreational vehicle. Clarence Eugene Butterfield, 57, formerly of San Clemente, was found guilty by a Santa Ana jury of one felony count of special-circumstances murder during the commission of torture and mayhem, and one felony count of assault with a firearm, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. On Oct. 8, he faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Last week, Pasadena resident John Kendall donned a Santa suit and delivered toys to needy families. This week, he has a new outfit and a new position -- as a volunteer with the Pasadena Police Department's "Parade Watch" program. Wearing a cap and a bright-yellow jacket bearing the words "Pasadena Police Volunteer," Kendall is traveling the parade route and reaching out to RV and motor home drivers lining the streets around Colorado Boulevard. He and roughly 50 other volunteers are asking the drivers to pay attention to their surroundings and to call police if they see anything suspicious.

For about 15 days a month, Alaska Airlines pilot Jim Lancaster lives in a motor home in Parking Lot B near the southernmost runway at Los Angeles International Airport. Every four minutes, a jetliner or turboprop roars in -- 500 feet above his front door -- for a landing. The noise is so loud it forces Lancaster to pause during conversations. But he doesn't mind. Lancaster puts up with the smell of jet fuel and screaming engines to save time and money.

Five people suspected of being members of a drug ring that moved as much as $1 billion in cocaine last year through Orange County to New York and Canada were arrested this week after a tip from Canadian law officials, authorities said Friday.

An ordinance that would prohibit residents from parking motor homes, boats or trailers in their front driveways is expected to be voted on Tuesday by the Palos Verdes Estates City Council. The law would cover motor homes 18 feet or longer, as well as boats and trailers of any length, according to City Manager James Hendrickson. Motor homes, boats and trailers that are garaged or stored in any other structure with a roof and walls would be exempt from the law.

In 1958, a budding race-car driver named Mario Andretti first laid eyes on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His family, which had arrived from Italy three years earlier, had driven from its Pennsylvania home so that Andretti could watch the Indianapolis 500. After the race, the 18-year-old made it to the infield to walk on the famed 2.5-mile track, which includes a narrow front straightaway lined with grandstands on both sides. "It was very daunting," recalled Andretti, now 69.

A person died Thursday in a fire that engulfed a motor home in South Los Angeles. The body was so badly charred that officials could not determine the gender. Firefighters arrived in the 6000 block of South Gramercy Place about 1:15 a.m. to find a large motor home parked on the street "well involved in fire," said L.A. Fire Department spokesman Devin Gales. Firefighters were able to knock down the flames in less than 10 minutes, Gales said. ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com