Mobile Motel

Inn with all aboard

At the end of their golf game or after a tour of a Napa Valley winery, the guests climb aboard their two-story inn. Then, after drinks and a meal, they watch movies in the lounge and roll on to the text stop. They are passengers on the newest thing in pampered tourism: the mobile motel. The Snoozer, as it is inevitably known, is a live-aboard bus with a bar, kitchen, sky lounge and eight mahogany-paneled passenger rooms, each with two beds, shower and toilet, radio, closed-circuit television, closet, dresser, heating and air conditioning. The first of ten vehicles to be eventually acquired by the nationally franchised Travel Network Corp. went into operation this month in Arizona, Nevada and California.

Built by the West German firm of Neoplan Co. for some $600,000, the 594-ft-long Snoozer consists of two double-decker cars, joined by an accordion-like hinge, on an air-suspended chassis; it can traverse the bumpiest byway. Powered by a 10-cylinder, 400-h.p. Daimler-Benz diesel engine, the superbus can reach 80 m.p.h. and is as high and wide as the aw permits (13.12 ft. by 8.2 ft); a six-footer can walk its length without stooping.

The minimum daily rate on the wavward inn is $75 a person, double occupancy, which includes a Continental breakfast. Snoozers will be available both for charters and scheduled tours, and Travel Network President Barry Jones expects a wide variety of guests. "With the Snoozer," he says, "we're not in the business of transporting people from A to B. The bus is really the destination "

The greatest demand is for long weekends. The Snoozer is especially popular with golfers, who can play three far-flung courses in a weekend-- for example, Las Vegas, Lake Havasu City Ariz., and Palm Springs, Calif.-- with the bus traveling at night. However, the company has lined up 18 charters for events like the Calgary, Alta., Stampede in July, the Superbowl in Pasadena, Calif, next January and the Winter Olympics in February at Lake Placid, N.Y., where local housing has already been rented in advance at astronomical prices. Other future charters mclude a seven-day tour of Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah in September, a week's tour of the Grand Canyon in August, and next month, a rock group has booked the Snoozer for the first leg of a West Coast concert tour.

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