MADHOUSE
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The First · MORELO · Empire Liner
A prototype on the Mercedes-Benz Atego chassis. The car that introduced an entirely new generation of luxury liners.
Introduction
Some objects are not products. They are statements made once, in one place, by people who couldn't stop themselves. This is one of them — the original Empire Liner. The piece they showed at the fairs before they built another. The car that drew the line between what a motorhome had been and what it would become.
Chapter One
In 2016, MORELO began work on something that did not yet exist in Europe: a true luxury liner built on a Mercedes-Benz Atego truck chassis with a continuous flat floor running from the driver's cabin through the entire living space. The first one ever built carries the internal nickname Modelka — the model — because long before it ever became a car to drive, it was the car to photograph: the face of the catalogues, the centrepiece of the show stands, the one that introduced an entire new generation of Empire Liners.
It is the unit that defined the silhouette, the proportions, the floor plan. Every Empire Liner that came after began here.
Provenance
A car like this one keeps a short list of owners. Ours has had three. Could you be the fourth?
Co-founder, MORELO
For its first years, the prototype was driven personally by Reinhard Löhner — one of the two men whose surnames the brand itself is built from. He used the car the way a chef uses the kitchen: the place ideas are tested before they become a menu.
Identity withheld
Then a short chapter under a custodian we won't name — closer in temperament to a character with a number than to a weekend caravanner. The kind of owner who buys a vehicle precisely because it does not look like the others.
Current owner
Today the car lives in the KH Group fleet, kept in running, road-ready condition. Still on the original plate. Still the first one.
Engineering
Before the Empire Liner, truck-based motorhomes had a problem they had learned to tolerate: a step between the driver's cabin and the living area. MORELO refused to tolerate it.
01
Through deep modification of the Atego platform, the cab and habitation share one continuous surface — no step, no transition. You move from the steering wheel into the salon the way you move through an apartment.
02
Underneath the warm interior sits a Mercedes-Benz commercial chassis built to cross continents fully loaded. The robustness of a working truck. The composure of a long-distance tourer.
03
Volumes, sightlines and proportions were drawn the way you would draw a small apartment, not the way you would draw a vehicle. The result is a space that feels like it was designed to be inhabited — because it was.
04
A full-width garage and bay storage built into the chassis itself. The Empire Liner was the first MORELO designed to leave nothing behind on long-distance tours.
Heritage
Within roughly six kilometres of Schlüsselfeld in Franconia sit three of Europe's most respected luxury liner builders — Concorde, Phoenix, and MORELO. They are not coincidence. They are evolution.
1980s
Founded by Helmut Reimann. Establishes the German blueprint for premium motorhome construction. Becomes the European reference.
2000s
A first generation of builders steps away from Concorde and starts Phoenix nearby. The cluster begins to form.
2010
Jochen Reimann (son of Helmut) and Reinhard Löhner — both veterans of Concorde — found MORELO. The name is built from Mobile · Reimann · Löhner. The ambition: a more modern, more emotional, more uncompromising liner.
2016
The prototype now known as MADHOUSE is built on Mercedes-Benz Atego. The Empire Liner generation begins here.
MO·RE·LO
Gallery
Photography is being prepared. The grid below will fill in as images are added — exterior, interior, cabin, details, road.
Photography © KH Group. High-resolution prints available on request.
By appointment
She makes occasional appearances at events and gatherings across Europe. Private viewings are arranged on request through KH Group.
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