Riding the Wild Turf in Comfort : Travel: Recreational vehicles offer many of the amenities of home for outdoor enthusiasts.

With logistic mischief, Coleman’s pop-up tent trailers are displayed across the aisle from a 40-foot Prevost Shell motor home at the 26th annual Anaheim Sports, Vacation and RV show running through Sunday.

That’s both ends of the evolution of the recreation vehicle into the 1990s--on one hand, for as little as $2,395, the refined but still least expensive mode of living outdoors on wheels; on the other, for $475,000, the dream of total highway luxury, complete with satellite dish.

You, too, can be John Madden. For a few dollars more, you can even install a Jacuzzi and be Esther Williams.

More than 600 RVs are displayed in three other halls, offering something for every budget, with the serious budgets for self-powered, self-contained motor homes starting at $25,000. Salesmen are everywhere, but few will try to persuade you that an RV offers the most economical way to travel anymore.

“I’ve never used that pitch,” said Frank De Gelas, president of Mike Thompson RV Center, the largest RV dealer in Southern California, with sales of $52 million and 1,200 units last year.

Simple arithmetic reveals that even $25,000 will buy you three meals a day for a lot of days at Denny’s and more nights in a Motel 6 than anyone would care to imagine--not to mention the difference between a rig that gets eight miles to a gallon and a car that gets 25 or 30.

“It’s just the best damn toy you can buy,” De Gelas said. “It’s fun, it’s family, it’s convenient.”

Dave Altman, president of Altman’s Winnebago and the Southern California RV Dealers Assn., adds: “You don’t pack or unpack. You don’t have to get into a town at 3 in the afternoon to get a place to stay. You’re fully self-contained. Pull into a grocery store parking lot or a rest area for the night. The convenience is what we sell.”

Altman’s, the largest Winnebago dealer by three times, sold $45 million worth of about 1,100 new and used RVs last year. Microwaves, hot showers and TVs with VCRs were standard on most of them, as they are on other makes these days. The philosophy has come to be: Don’t leave home without it.

It’s certainly not roughing it, but those who would ridicule such comforts may never have had to erect a tent and start a fire during a driving rain in Yellowstone National Park with the wind blowing 40 m.p.h. Where is it written, RV advocates ask, that a person must suffer exposure and discomfort to enjoy the outdoors?

Now, satellite dishes and Jacuzzis may be stretching the comfort factor.

“We don’t sell many of those (as accessories),” De Gelas said. “We do sell a lot of awnings . . . at least 70%. This is what the industry thrives on: Things that make the RV owner want to buy a new one.”

And business, it seems, has seldom been better. Early sales at the show equaled last year’s.

What recession?

What soaring gas prices?

Apparently, that doesn’t seriously affect the typical Class A motor home buyer, who, De Gelas says, is 60.5 years old and has seen it all before.

In ‘73, Altman said, “when the gas lines started, nobody really knew what the real story was and it scared them.”

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2 also gave buyers some pause, but only temporarily.

De Gelas: “September and October were a disaster, (but) in November and December we sold more units and did more gross sales than we did last year. And if this Kuwait thing gets settled, we’ll do a lot of business right away.

“Most people miss the demographic profile of the buyer. He’s an older guy who has already made his money. If he has the money to buy an RV today, what’s happening that affects him? If gas prices go up 20 cents a gallon, is he gonna stop RVing? In tough times I’d much rather be in this industry.”

The industry may be better prepared for hard times than it was when two slumps in the 1970s cut production by as much as 70% and put about half of the manufacturers and dealers out of business. Those slumps followed record sales years in 1972 and ’78 and caught the industry overextended. The industry learned. Although in 1988 national RV sales hit a record 427,300 units, including van conversions, a slide to 395,700 in ’89 did no serious damage because inventories were lean.

“We started feeling a little bit of it long before (Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait,” Altman said.

Nevertheless, the RV industry dodged another big bullet this year when the federal government imposed luxury taxes of 10% on the amount of any purchase above $30,000 for cars and $100,000 for boats. The tax doesn’t apply to RVs--and hundreds of hastily prepared notices are plastered around the Anaheim show to remind potential customers of that.

The RV industry didn’t lobby to avoid the tax. It just kept its mouth shut while Congress reeled in the upscale cars and boats. Even now, Bob Strawn, executive vice president of the Recreational Vehicle Dealers Assn. in Fairfax, Va., said: “I’d rather not say much on that.”

But Altman thinks RVs may be immune--for now.

“A lot of people live in RVs,” he said. “As a result, these still are considered a second home, so we are kind of protected from Congress--and you can deduct the interest on them.”

Buying an RV is a lot like buying a house. Not only are they similarly equipped but similarly financed--up to 180 months, or 15 years. Of course, they don’t always last 15 years--but, then, considering the average buyer is 60.5, he may not, either.

No problem. Somebody else will be getting older all the time. The industry is salivating in anticipation of the arrival in mid-decade of the post-World War II baby boomers to what they perceive as the market entry level: the ripe old age of 50.

“That group of people which has shaped the United States as they grew older is now coming into prime RV buying age,” De Gelas said. “When they were born, there was more baby food made than ever in history. Then pretty soon it was nylon stockings when they became teen-agers and young women, and pretty soon it was cars, and now they’re getting into their mid-40s and starting to buy RVs.”

Strawn thinks that, unlike their parents, they can afford it.

“I’m amazed at the number of Mercedes and Audis being driven down the street by young people,” he said. “We want to plow new ground. We want to reach the young people and make them aware of the values of our lifestyle.”

Strawn visualizes sales of 750,000 in the year 2000. That might create a serious parking problem.

“Public authority is now telling us where we can’t park these things,” Strawn said.

Some communities forbid owners to leave them on the streets or even in their driveways. Casinos at South Lake Tahoe have banned them from their lots.

Parking and other problems have been addressed by the RV industry’s Consumer Care Commission formed five years ago. Manufacturers, dealers, RV associations and campground operators established guidelines for responsibility.

“It’s made a big difference,” Strawn said.

RVs aren’t what they used to be, even five or 10 years ago. They are built less like little houses on trucks than integrated units--balanced for better handling and, in some cases, streamlined for better gas mileage. Lighter but stronger materials also have made them more fuel efficient and easier to drive. Improved suspension gives them more comfortable rides. Improved construction methods have made them more durable and quieter, so the interior doesn’t sound like a tin pan band going down the road.

Still, anything that can go wrong with a house or a car can go wrong with an RV--and probably will.

That’s why De Gelas advises buyers to select dealers for their service programs as well as their prices.

“They get into the enthusiasm of buying and don’t seem to realize that this thing is going to break,” he said.

It can happen to the best of them, even if it costs $475,000.

The Anaheim Convention Center is at 800 W. Katella Ave., across from Disneyland. Show hours are 2-10 p.m. weekdays, noon-10 p.m. Saturday and noon-6 p.m. Sunday.