Last week I regaled you with my four simple requirements for an RV: It needed to run. It should cost me as little as possible. It could not be a fool’s errand, and Maire Anne had to be willing to sleep with me in it. If her first reaction to something I dragged home was “Ick!” it would mean that I had screwed up big time.

    I decided that I didn’t need to solve every problem in my first RV; I could look at it as a starter RV, one in which to do day-trips around New England. I went through a left-brain analysis of RVs in the sub-26-foot range that I found interesting, and explained that if I wanted something fuel-efficient and I couldn’t afford a BMW turbodiesel Vixen, the choices seemed to be a Winnebago LeSharo (built on a Renault Trafic, it has a reputation for trouble), a Winnebago Rialta (built on a Volkswagen Eurovan, it has a reputation for trouble), or one of the Class C cab-over Toyota mini-motorhomes (built on a small Tacoma, it has a reputation for reliability but looks like a cinder block trying to mate with a turtle).

    I was drifting toward the latter, and was about to bid on an auction for a very nice-looking 1990 Toyota Winnebago Warrior in Delaware on eBay that closed on a Saturday morning—but on Friday night, I saw one of those ads that made me have one of those drop-everything moments that we car people live for:

    1996 Rialta Needs Repair $3500

    1996 Rialta needs mechanical and cosmetic work. 2 years ago this month, I started up the road to get an inspection sticker. It died 1/4 mile in, had it towed to my local garage where they replaced the alternator and battery. On the way home, the oil pressure alarm went off. Replaced both high and low pressure sensors but still alarmed. Oil pressure was fine. Baffled mechanic kept it all summer without success, although the low bill made me wonder how much time he actually worked on it. Was going to bring it to a newly found VW mechanic close by when my husband received a difficult diagnosis. There are also lots of Winnebago side repairs needed. There is a newly discovered water leak on attempting to fill fresh water tank. The awning needs a hardware pin for one arm. Windshield gasket has pulled away in the corners, but have had lots of rain with no visible leaks. No spare tire cover, fridge runs on electric and battery but not propane. Generator runs but shuts off, perhaps simply due to 1/4 tank of gas. Had locking gas cap that was seized, got a locksmith over to remove. New cap is ordered, supposed to be shipped by Monday. Has twin beds with a plywood hinge to convert to full, all extra cushions available. Rebuilt transmission at 80,000 miles (prior owner but have records) no trans cooler or dipstick. I purchased in 2010 for $12,000 and put $4,000 into it, then... water pump, tie rods, ball joints, fans, timing belt. 3 years ago replaced cracked skylight and vent fan cover. Will need tires.

    Now, I’d noticed in my Craigslist perusals that there are a lot of obvious scams for desirable RVs, including Rialtas, but this didn’t appear to be one of them. There was no phone number listed, but I e-mailed the seller as fast as my fingers could type. I hoped to hear back before the auction, because the Toyota closed on Saturday morning.

    Fortunately, I did hear back, and spoke at length with Maureen, the owner. We hit it off immediately. She described in detail the oil-pressure-sensor problem referred to in the ad, and how the mechanic had put a mechanical oil-pressure gauge on the engine and verified that the pressure itself was fine. I explained that I was looking for a small RV with a certain vibe for weekend trips with my wife, how the mechanical and cosmetic punch list didn’t bother me, and that if the Rialta ran and it wasn’t rusty, I was quite interested—like drive-down-and-put-cash-in-her-hand-right-now interested.

    Maureen said that I was the first to call, but that she was working all weekend. so it would be easiest if she showed me the rig on Monday. The car was at her house in Mattapoisett on the southern Massachusetts coast.

    I said that if that’s what needed to happen, I could make myself available on Monday—but allowed that I’d prefer to look at it as soon as humanly possible, because at that price, she was about to be deluged with e-mail and sight-unseen offers. I explained that sight-unseen offers can be very tempting, but often turn into a time sink because people, understandably, want as many photographs as possible. I repeated that if the vehicle was solid and ran, I could make something happen then and there. I also explained how, just two weeks before, I was in exactly the same first-in-line-but-can’t-see-it-until-Monday situation with a well-priced 2002tii, and how I’d lost it to someone who browbeat the seller into letting him cut in line and then stuck cash in his face.

    So Maureen arranged for her husband to show me the rig. She had some concerns about this, as he had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (which was one of the reasons she was selling the RV), but said that he’s usually good in the mornings. So I dropped everything, and on a gorgeous early summer Saturday morning, my son Ethan and I took an hour and ran down to Mattapoisett in the E39.

    After looking at an inexpensive Rialta in New Hampshire a few months back and finding it completely rotted underneath, the first thing I did when I arrived was don the Tyvek suit and crawl underneath the rig. The undercarriage was absolutely fine, with just a bit of surface rust where the undercoating was flaking off. A walk-around revealed a few battle scars—the missing door for the spare tire compartment and pulled-away corners of the windshield gasket described in the ad, some cracks in the front bumper—but in general, it had the appearance of a happy vehicle.

    Then I went inside. I’d only been in one Rialta—the rusty one in New Hampshire—and although that short visit left me pleasantly surprised with the rig’s light and airy interior vibe, I hadn’t paid much attention to the details. This time I did.

    Maire Anne and I had two VW Westfalias back in the day (a ’69 and a Vanagon). They both certainly had their charm, but they certainly didn’t feel like they had living space; they’re small vans with a fold-out bed to crash on and a stove and sink and icebox that are perilously close to toys. I was looking for something one size bigger than a Westfalia, something that gave you not just somewhere cramped to crash for the night, but the feeling that there was interior living space, even if that space was small.

    The Rialta is basically a Eurovan Westfalia camper pumped up like a blowfish. The Winnebago body is both longer and wider than the original Eurovan, sticking out about nine inches on each side, although the stick-out is beveled, so it looks sleeker than a Class C, in which the transition from cab to coach is abrupt.

    There’s a wet bath—an integrated shower stall and toile— and a little kitchen area with a microwave, propane stove, sink, and 2.4-cubic-inch refrigerator. But judged by RV standards, Rialtas are tiny. These early five-cylinder ones (’96s and ’97s) clock in at just 21 feet; the later VR6-equipped models are 22 feet. Both are available with several different floor plans. This one had twin beds in the back with a fold-out that connects them, a third seat in the kitchen area, and a tiny fold-out table. If you swivel the front passenger seat and the third seat, they face the table, giving you what passes for a dining area. If you want a bigger table, you have to go with the floor plan that gives you two bench seats in the back that fold out into a bed when you fold up the table. Such are the Swiss Army Knife games played with space in small RVs!

    One of the advantages of the motorhome configuration over a trailer is that you get to use a motorhome’s interior space while driving, allowing a passenger to get up, stretch his or her legs, use the rest room, take a nap in the bed if desired, etc. Although the Rialta is certainly bigger than a Westfalia, and its headroom is adequate for little five-foot-eight-inch me, there’s no pretending that it has real walking-around space. In fact, the front seats are so close together that even the act of getting up from the front and walking between the seats into the coach risks ankle entanglement.

    Still, Maureen’s Rialta was exactly what I said I was looking for. It not only was “something one size up from a Westfalia,” it was literally the Volkswagen-based RV one size up from a Westfalia. And I was very pulled in by the fact that the interior didn’t have the slightest meth-lab/porn-studio vibe of the inexpensive RVs I’d looked at online.

    And then I noticed something very cool: The extra seat in the kitchen area—if you can call a three-foot section in something this small a kitchen area—was upholstered in a wild fabric. I looked around inside the coach, and I noticed that this fabric was echoed in accent panels on some of the walls. When I pulled up the covers on the front seats, I saw this same fabric, worn to ribbons on the bottom cushions. When I got home that evening and searched for Rialta options, I learned that this interior motif was called Bauhaus, and that it extended to the mattress covers (which unfortunately were missing).

    I’ve been talking about vibe. It was as if the rig was saying, “I got yer vibe right here, pal.”

    So, time for a test drive, right? Ethan and I climbed in. I turned the key; the rig fired right up, and I immediately heard the audible oil-pressure warning that Maureen had described. There was also a flashing dashboard temperature light. It was way too early in the warm-up for the light to be a temperature warning; the gauge was still reading cold. I checked the coolant level in the reservoir, and it was fine. And for some odd reason, Ethan’s passenger door wouldn’t latch. He held the door shut as we ambled down the driveway and onto the Mattapoisett streets.

    With its Audi-derived five-cylinder 100-horsepower engine, the rig wasn’t going to win any races, but it ran and drove and shifted fine. I’d be lying if I said it felt familiar, as I’d never driven a Eurovan, and as I wouldn’t expect its automatic front-wheel-drive platform to feel like the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive four-speed air-cooled and waterboxed Vanagons I’d owned. But it did feel “European.”

    Another really nice thing I noticed was the bank of windows down the right side of the vehicle that gave great visibility; I didn’t need to rely exclusively on the mirrors. And when, at the end of the drive, I needed to turn around by hanging a left onto a vacant side street and swinging the rig around, I was astonished at how small the turning radius was.

    When I returned to Maureen’s house, I needed to back the vehicle down the driveway. For my old geophysics job, I used to drive a big pickup truck with a utility body on the back that completely blocked the rear-view mirror, so I’m quite used to backing up while relying only on the side mirrors. I began to do that with the Rialta—and then remembered all the glass in the rig. I looked behind me and saw the enormous rear window. I knew that it was there, and was a massive contributor to the vehicle’s airy feel, but I hadn’t thought of it in terms of making the rig more easily parkable.

    And this is how we buy an unfamiliar vehicle: There’s the whole intellectual analysis and research part of it, but at some point, we like certain small things, and our gut says, “Yeah, I think I’d enjoy owning and driving this thing.”

    I called Maureen, asked her a couple of questions about the temperature-warning light (it had always done that) and the non-functional passenger-door latch (it had never done that), and then told her that I wanted to buy her Rialta. I then asked her the question that has become the center of my negotiating strategy, if you want to call it that. It is a very simple and disarming question: “What do you need to get for it?”

    Note the difference between this question and “What’s the least you’ll take for it?” The former interrogatory is far more human and respectful and far less confrontational than the latter. And it is astonishing what people will say when you ask them this simple, respectful question.

    Note, however, that when you ask this question, you are in a sense skipping a step in the negotiating process. That is, if a vehicle is advertised at a price, it is normally incumbent upon you, the buyer, to make a counter-offer. When you instead ask, “What do you need to get for it?” you’re essentially asking the seller to lower their price unilaterally. Personally, I feel that in order to keep the negotiation respectful, if the seller names a new lower price, and it’s reasonable, then you pretty much need to accept that answer and not try to get them to go lower out of sport. In this case, her asking price was already extremely low.

    “Well,” said Maureen, “I know that it needs work. How about three grand and I’ll throw in the new locking gas cap I ordered when it arrives, and the TV my husband bought for it that I never wanted?”

    “Done!”

    Ethan was along with me for the company, not as a second driver, so there was no way for me to drive off with the vehicle right then. I wound up driving back to Newton in the E39, and then, late that afternoon, when Maureen got off work, she picked me up and drove me down to Mattapoisett. It was great; we had an hour to do the face-to-face thing, talking about life, music, road-tripping, and other things. It turned out that she and her husband had a 2002 back in the day.

    When we arrived back at the rig, she showed me the owner’s and repair manuals, folders of receipts, and important articles she’d printed out from several Rialta forums. She was, as they say, a power-user.

    We negotiated over only one thing. There was a poster in the back of the rig showing a seagull with its feet in the surf, accompanied by the Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) quote, “The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.” I mock-complained as Maureen went to remove it: “Oh… you’re taking that? I really liked its vibe.”

    She hesitated for about half a second, then said, “You’re right. It belongs with the vehicle.” I tried to explain that I was mostly joking, but the deed was done. It stayed.

    Before heading off, I ratchet-strapped the recalcitrant passenger door shut, the first of what I’m certain will be many kluges.

    Maureen and I said our goodbyes and vowed to stay in touch. On the hour-long drive home, the Rialta ran hotter than I would have preferred—making a vintage-BMW owner feel right at home—but exhibited no other major problems.

    In the morning, the moment of truth: I showed the rig to Maire Anne.

    Over the past few years, my wife has gotten heavily into quilting; when I go into the garage to play with cars, she’ll go upstairs to play with fabric. So when she saw the Rialta’s Bauhaus fabric, she said, “Oh, I LOVE it!”

    Score.

    Then she looked me in the eye and said, as only a wife can, “I’ll totally sleep with you in this.”

    Double score. The rig was quickly christened Bauhaus. So for now, there will be no vixen in a Vixen. But there will definitely be a babe in the Bauhaus.—Rob Siegel

    Rob’s new book, Ran When Parked: How I Resurrected a Decade-Dead 1972 BMW 2002tii and Road-Tripped it a Thousand Miles Back Home, and How You Can, Too, is now available on Amazon. Or you can order personally inscribed copies through Rob’s website: www.robsiegel.com.