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Honest RV Review: 2025 Airstream Atlas B+

Tony Barthel

Today’s RV review is of the 2025 Airstream Atlas B+ motorhome. The Atlas is a logical competitor to things like the Grand Design Lineage 25FW and is a direct copy of the Leisure Travel Vans Unity Murphy Bed model.

Start at the road

What sets this vehicle apart, aside from the Airstream name, is the fact that it’s built on the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4500 chassis. Many, many of these little Class C motorhomes use the less capable Sprinter 3500 chassis so cargo carrying capacity is really minimal at best.

When you buy a chassis from Mercedes-Benz or Ford or whomever, you do get a number of choices including packages of safety gear. Airstream being Airstream, the company outfits this rig with every available safety gadget and road nanny available which is not a bad thing.

Another thing they do is reconfigure the rear suspension with an air ride system built by VB Airsuspension in Europe. This system not only provides a better ride but can also mitigate some swaying side-to-side and can even help in leveling the rig at a camp site. That’s neat.

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Airstream

Probably no other brand in the RV space has such good name recognition and you can ask just about any human in the US to point out an Airstream travel trailer and they probably could without thinking about it. Over the decades Airstream has also built RVs other than travel trailer including motorhomes and the Atlas is in that category.

Aside from a price tag north of a $310,000, what qualifies this rig as “luxury?”

There are some things that carry over from Airstream’s iconic travel trailers including an aluminum ceiling in this rig which some aficionados will insist will last longer. Okay.

I do also like the cabinetry in this motorhome and, in particular, the positive catches on the doors. Simple and magnetic catches are fine for homes but have no business in a moving vehicle and kudos to Airstream for seeing this. In fact interior materials, in general, have a high quality feel to them and the overall fit and finish and feel of things in this rig give it an air of quality.

Features to love

There are, indeed, some really good features in this coach. For example, when you unlock the doors with the key fob remote that also gains you access to the under-floor exterior storage bays and I’m surprised how many and how spacious they are given the size of this vehicle.

The steps are power-operated and sort of tumble into a space below the door. This design makes it so the steps don’t take any of the interior floor space. That’s a great idea.

I like that the Murphy bed sits on a Froli sleep system and is 73” X 73” and can even be used when the slide room is closed. Big kudos on this!

There’s a nifty sun roof over the bed that can be opened for air flow which is protected by a screen to keep the uninvited bugs out. But there’s also a blackout shade over it if you prefer to sleep in the dark. Nice.

The convection microwave features an air fry function so you can nuke something, bake something or air fry.

But the best thing is the build quality of the exterior fiberglass shell on this rig which is one piece. There are no seams to fail over time and that’s a big deal. Of course I would rather see an aluminum shell like a proper Airstream trailer but at least this is a first-rate use of a fiberglass box.

But is this luxury?

There are a lot of features that are defined by Airstream as luxury touches that I think are silly.

For example, power blinds. I can see these breaking after a few years and, of course, in the up position so you can’t sleep at night. Just give me simple blinds, I can retract them myself.

Same’s true of the couch which has a power foot rest for the two outboard positions. Honestly, it would take less time to simply flip up a foot rest and, again, it’s not taking battery power to have me do so. Also that same couch has a power fold-down mechanism. See previous comments about this. But it seems that the folks at Airstream are more about checking boxes that they feel qualify them as “luxury” than trying innovative things.

For example, when I wrote about the Newell Coach one of the things that impressed me is that the blinds could also serve as projection screens which then left the space that would have been taken up by a televator to be useful interior space instead. That would really make sense in that cabinet across from the Murphy bed that is, in fact, taken up by a televator.

But, honestly, for over $300K Airstream uses a plastic toilet in this rig. Seriously? I get a ceramic toilet in a $26K Cherokee but I buy an RV for more than the price of many houses and get the cheapest squeaky toilet on the market? This is the equivalent of seeing the queen of England react as the rest of our intestines do to a dinner from Taco Bell.

And, while on the subject of cheap, a two-burner cook top that’s nothing better than a cheap camp stove? I think an induction cook top or anything other than the first thing you saw in the discount RV parts catalog would be better here. Yeah, yeah, it’s some low-grade of stainless steel but you’re not fooling me. Even the new very affordable Jayco travel trailer has a much, much nicer two-burner cook top than this one.

Let’s talk about Mercedes-Benz Sprinters

Even if I were going to buy a Class C or B+ RV I wouldn’t consider one on the Sprinter chassis, quite honestly. Why? Very, very limited access to service and repairs.

My nephew works for a company that hauls broken down Sprinter-based vehicles from Colorado to New Mexico just for routine service. Yep, you can bet that that round trip towing bill is going to be more than what your oil change costs. And, should you be in some back woods town, where many of us choose to go camping, good luck finding even routine maintenance on these things.

So while I do think the interior of this RV is beautiful and Airstream have done some nice things, the Sprinter chassis is a deal breaker for me.

Note that Leisure Travel Vans offers the same floor plan for over $100,000 less on a Ford chassis. Honestly, I would much rather wait for one of their RVs than buy this one. Or anything on a Sprinter chassis.

In summary

I do like this rig and like the layout but there are a few things that just stick in my craw. While the cabinets are high-quality and there are some very thoughtful features in here I think Airstream could forego the power blinds and power couch and move up to at least average-quality when it comes to some components like that cook top and the plastic toilet.

Watching a recent video from Matt’s RV reviews on this unit the salesperson was saying that you can get one of these in a matter of months as opposed to having to wait two years for a comparable unit from Leisure Travel Vans. Given Airstream’s brand recognition I think that’s a telling story about the prioritization of some of the components chosen for this rig.

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