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Page 1
RVBUSINESS.com
VOLUME 58, NUMBER 2, MAY 2007
©
FCCC executives
Bob Harbin,
Tony Sippel and
Dean Schaper
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002-RVB05 PG CV2 MONACO
4/16/07
9:59 PM
Page CV2
John Nepute
Kay Toolson
PRESIDENT
CHAIRMAN AND CEO
“Only Roadmaster delivers a ride
this smooth. And you’ll only find
Roadmaster chassis under our brands.”
THE DIFFERENCE IS OUR FOUNDATION.
Take a test drive, and the Roadmaster
difference is clear. Your customers
will be amazed by the sure-footed
handling and smooth ride. The secret
is Roadmaster’s unique Cushion Air
Glide suspension system combined
with our exclusive SmartStructure
integrated steel truss engineering. Together they
create a ride unlike any other motorhome. And you will
only find it under a Monaco Coach Corporation brand.
Monaco Coach Corporation brands are recognized for
luxury, comfort and cutting edge design. But without a
solid foundation like a Roadmaster chassis, none of
that would matter. That’s why every Monaco Coach
Corporation diesel motorhome
like our Safari, Holiday Rambler,
Monaco, and Beaver brands is
built on its own special and unique
Roadmaster design. This is truly
a feature that you won’t find
anywhere else, from any
other manufacturer.
Roadmaster’s mission is a commitment to only
building luxury diesel motorhome chassis for Monaco
Coach Corporation. Roadmaster is the most reliable,
and most experienced chassis builder in our industry.
Show your customers the Roadmaster difference
with a test drive today.
®
www.monacodifferent.com
.
877-252-4666
91320 Coburg Industrial Way, Coburg, OR 97408 . 606 Nelson’s Parkway, Wakarusa, IN 46573
© 2007, MONACO COACH CORPORATION
Monaco Coach Corporation is traded on the NYSE under the listing MNC.
MONACO. DIFFERENT.
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003-RVB_0705_LO_TOC
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VOLUME 58, NUMBER 2, MAY 2007
©
19
DEPARTMENTS
4
15
47
50
55
56
26
TOP OF THE NEWS
7
7
7
8
10
10
12
14
14
RPTIA Opposes RVIA Initiative to Expand Trailer Dimensions
Airstream Recognized as Cultural Icon by New York MoMA
FreedomRoads to Acquire AGI’s Camping World RV Stores
Tiffin, Weekend Warrior Notch Big Gains in ’06 Market Share
New RV/MH Hall of Fame Welcomes Visitors in ‘Soft Opening’
RVB Poll: FEMA Sell-Off Will Have Adverse Impact on Industry
Opinion: Will Chinese-Built RVs Wreak Havoc Stateside?
KOA Adds Parks in California, Virginia to Company Portfolio
Camping World Adds New Stores, Internet Banking Services
FEATURES
19
26
200 Industry Leaders Attend Inaugural AGI Campground Expo
New Coaches, Components on Display at FMCA Convention
COVER STORY
21
Freightliner Streamlines Manufacturing, Maintains Diesel Lead
OEM SHOWCASE
38
Frontier RV Adds Satellite Manufacturing Plant, New Towables
Q&A
34
Coachmen CEO Richard Lavers’ Culture-Changing Crusade
BUSINESS PROFILE
45
Colibert Enterprises Connects with Fifth-Wheel Hitch Lineup
State of the Art
In Brief
Public Domain
Ad Index
Retail Trends
Classifieds
THIS PAGE: Coachmen’s Sportscoach division
unveiled a supplemental hydrogen hybrid fuel system
at the Georgia FMCA convention that the company
claims will increase power and fuel economy (page
26). Inaugural AGI RV Resort and Campground
Conference & Expo drew more than 200 industry
leaders to Las Vegas in early March (page 19).
COVER: Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. (FCCC)
has weathered recent changes well — including the loss
of Sprinter commercial van construction from its Gaffney
manufacturing plant — and the company continues to
reign as the industry leader
in diesel chassis sales.
Under the leadership of
Bob Harbin, who took over
as company president last
October, FCCC has implemented new quality control
and lean-manufacturing
processes intended to help
maintain its lead role.
Photo by Rick Haithcox.
RV Business (USPS 920-340) is copyrighted 2007 by TL Enterprises
Inc. in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and other countries.
Publication Sales Agreement No. 1938495 Canadian return address:
Affinity Group Inc., 2575 Vista Del Mar, Ventura, CA 93001. All
rights reserved. Permission to reprint or quote excerpts granted only
upon written request. Periodicals postage paid at Ventura, Calif.
93001, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send
address changes to RV Business, PO Box 17126, North Hollywood,
Calif. 91615-7126, (866) 238-3237, fax (818) 760-4490. Address all
correspondence and editorial material to the Ventura, Calif., office.
RV Business is published monthly. Subscription rates: U.S. and
Canada, $79 a year; $149 for two years. Foreign subscriptions, $129 a
year. Single copies are $11.95. Advertising rates are provided on
request. RV Business is published by TL Enterprises Inc., 2575 Vista
Del Mar Dr., Ventura, Calif. 93001, which also publishes Trailer Life,
MotorHome, Rider, Trailer Life’s Campground/RV Park & Services
Directory and Highways for the Good Sam Club. TL’s Book
Division currently has 11 books in print.
MAY 2007
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004-RVB_0705_LO_State of A
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STATE OF THE ART
Page 4
BY SHERMAN GOLDENBERG
STAFF
Sherman Goldenberg
Bruce Hampson
WEB EDITOR Dave Barbulesco
ART DIRECTOR Steven Averill
SENIOR EDITOR Bob Ashley
EDITOR AT LARGE Jeff Crider
COPY EDITOR Steve Bibler
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Shawn Spence
CONTRIBUTING TECHNICAL EDITOR Chris Hemer
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Bob Dawson
VP/RV TRADE PUBLICATIONS
EDITOR
Airstreams, Sarbanes,
KOA & Van Campers
H
ere we are again, with the clock running down on
another RV Business deadline and Editor Bruce
Hampson and Art Director Steve Averill anxiously
awaiting the completion of another late monthly column. Fear
not, though, because I’ve got a couple of editorial aces up my
sleeve — in this case, a few observations I’d like to make regarding business- and non-business-related topics. For instance:
• What a neat thing it is for the Museum of Modern Art to
have inducted a recreational vehicle, a diminutive 1963
Airstream Bambi (see page 7), into its permanent collection. I mean, for a product category like ours that is rarely if
ever appreciated for its grace and style, this was quite an
honor, and I was flattered to have been invited to attend the
Bambi’s induction ceremony.
• We’ve often heard about how cumbersome and expensive
it is for publicly held companies to meet federal Sarbanes-Oxley reporting rules,
and we were reminded of all that a few weeks ago when contributor Steve Bibler
interviewed Rick Lavers, the new president and CEO of Coachmen Industries Inc.
(see page 34). Calling it “extraordinarily” expensive for a company Coachmen’s size,
Lavers said it costs Coachmen about $3 million a year — all things included.
• A lot of people in the recreational-vehicle sector visit RVBUSINESS.com at
least once a day — if not more often — to keep up with industry news, and most
don’t realize just how busy that website is for a narrow slice of the American business pie like ours. In case you wondered, a traffic analysis indicates that we average
1,140 visits per day, 760 unique visitors per day, 34,704 visits per month. The
busiest time: Tuesday mornings.
• Soaring land values are quickly changing the accommodations end of the RV
business. For example, the seasonal residents of a small Florida trailer-park town
recently voted to sell out to a housing developer for more than $510 million. And why
wouldn’t they, considering that they originally purchased their properties for as little
as $35,000 and most of them will become millionaires as a result of the sale? Equally
noteworthy was the recent sale by Kampgrounds of America Inc. to a developer of
a marquee property in the Florida Keys for more than $53 million — the revenues
from which have spawned a buying spree by the Montana-based campground
franchiser. The upside in all of this is obvious. But the downside in general is that
campground site counts are dropping in popular resort areas around the country.
• While some RV categories have been turning in lackluster sales growth numbers
lately, reader Dean Rumpel reminds us of how well van campers — also known
as Class B motorhomes — have been doing lately and how little we have endeavored
to point that out in the pages of RV Business. Indeed, shipments of van campers on
Ford, Chevrolet and Mercedes chassis were up 75% — from 400 to 700 units — for
the first two months of the year. We’ll try to pay more attention in the future.
• Has it occurred to you just how deeply ingrained the Latino labor force is in our
society at this point and just how difficult and damaging it would be to unilaterally
remove these people from our service shops and factory floors? I mean, chances are that
all of our businesses would feel the pain and that, like the state of Colorado, we would
all have to take a good look at hiring prisoners before all was said and done. Yes, indeed,
I advocate an accommodation of some nature that preserves the integrity of our borders
while maintaining the dignity of this latest wave of American immigrants. 6
SENIOR ADVERTISING
Brenda Hutchinson
Gerald Vandiver
IMAGE EDITOR Robert Peterson
ASSISTANT CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jill Anderson
FULFILLMENT MANAGER Melissa Robinson
CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Blakely
PRODUCTION MANAGER
PREPRESS SPECIALIST
TL ENTERPRISES INC.
Stephen Adams
Michael Schneider
SENIOR VP/CFO Tom Wolfe
CHAIRMAN
PRESIDENT & CEO
VP/PUBLISHER/
RV CONSUMER & TRADE PUBLICATIONS
VP/CONTROLLER
VP/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Susan Bray
Kevin Hobbs
VP/TL DATABASE PUBLISHING Joe Daquino
OF GOOD SAM CLUB
VP/MARKETING
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF
CLUB & PUBLICATIONS MARKETING
CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER EMERITUS
Ken Hurd
Art Rouse
EDITORIAL /BUSINESS OFFICE
2575 Vista Del Mar Drive, Ventura, CA 93001
(805) 667-4100; Fax: (805) 667-4484; rvb@tl.com
ADVERTISING
Terry Thompson
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CLASSIFIED Sue Panchenko (Mgr.), Angela Pezzullo
BUSINESS MANAGER Denielle Sternburg
ADVERTISING SALES PROMOTION MGR. Barbara Keig
P.O. Box 8510, Ventura, CA 93002-9912
(805)667-4100; Fax: (805) 667-4379
Elkhart, Indiana
MIDWEST SALES DIRECTOR Chuck Lasley
MIDWEST SALES MANAGER Peg Recchio
ADVERTISING SALES Tacy Hendershot
2300 Middlebury St., Elkhart, IN 46516
(574) 295-7820; Fax: (574) 522-0418
ADVERTISING SALES Paul Gillerlain
(219) 324-4740; Fax: (219) 324-6564
Seattle, Washington
ADVERTISING SALES Scott Oakes, John Marciano
1818 Westlake Ave., Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 283-9545, fax (206) 283-9571
VP/RV ADVERTISING SALES
ADVERTISING SALES
Automotive Accounts
TIME & SPACE INC.
651 Oak Ridge Drive, Pike Road, AL
(334) 260-7765; Fax: (334) 260-7762
As Vice President of RV Trade Publications for TL Enterprises Inc., Sherman Goldenberg,
based in Elkhart, Ind., oversees RV Business & Woodall’s Campground Management.
4
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Dale Hendrix
Contents
005-RVB05 PG 5 GE EXTENDED
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GE MONEY, CIRCLE 141 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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006-RVB05 PG 6 GIRARD
4/16/07
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Page 6
WHEN IT COMES TO
SHADE MANAGEMENT,
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There’s a reason why more RV manufacturers choose Girard awnings over any other brand:
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Here are a few good reasons to get covered by Girard:
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G-2085 WINDOW AWNING
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G-5000 SLIDE-OUT AWNING
See Girard’s full line at your local dealer or go on-line at:
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NEW!
New & better than ever, the G-5000
is mounted on the coach, not the
extending slide room, providing more
pitch than any slide-out awning on
the market. This ensures smoother & tighter fabric while preventing
water buildup over the room. A built-in brush self-cleans debris
from the awning while retracting, completely protecting fabric &
eliminating billowing during transit.
A perfect complement to the
G-2000 Patio Awning, the G-1500
is fully automatic, providing shade
& rain protection at the touch of a
button. Practical & attractive, especially when installed with decorative farings.
GIRARD SYSTEMS
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:25 PM
Page 7
RPTIA Opposes RVIA Initiative
To Expand Trailer Dimensions
of the
NEWS
ARVC Supports Development of a National
Tourism Strategy, Cites
Decline in U.S. Visitors
The National Association of
RV Parks and Campgrounds
(ARVC) has twice submitted
comments recently to the U. S.
Department of Commerce regarding the department’s development of a national tourism
strategy.
In Feb. 9 comments, ARVC
urged that the federal government support efforts to reverse
the declining U.S. share of the
global tourism market. ARVC
criticized unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that confront international visitors and suggest to
the world that citizens of other
countries are likely to be hassled
— if not prevented — from visiting the United States.
ARVC expressed special concontinued on page 42
Winter Texans Vexed
Over ‘Double Taxation’
Of On-Site Park Models
As the season came to a close,
Winter Texans made one last
appeal to local authorities concerning so-called double taxation
laws, according to a report in
The Monitor of McAllen.
On March 5, protesters vented
their frustration and anger over
Hidalgo County’s tax policies
toward their RVs in the area’s 60
RV parks.
There was nothing official about
the meeting, which had been suggested as an informational session
by county Commissioner Oscar L.
Garza Jr. Nonetheless, the gathering was held before key county tax
officials.
In Hidalgo County alone, Garza
reported, there is about $48 million
in RVs and related property that is
continued on page 53
Critics Believes Changes
Would Blur the Line
Between Park Models
and Over-the Road RVs
The Recreation Vehicle Industry
Association’s (RVIA) plan to
increase the maximum square
footage for travel trailers and fifth-wheels
could take years, if ever, to complete. And
that initiative, launched at the national trade
association’s February annual meeting,
apparently doesn’t sit well with the
Recreation Park Trailer Industry Association
(RPTIA).
While RVIA members say that the proliferation of large slideouts in travel trailers and
fifth-wheels should allow towables to house
more square footage than current limits,
RPTIA claims the changes would blur the
line between over-the-road RVs and
so-called “park models” that typically are
more sedentary once sited.
“My executive committee has indicated
that we probably will do everything we possibly can to stop this,” said Bill Garpow, executive director of the Newnan, Ga.-based
Airstream Recognized as
Cultural Icon by New York
Museum of Modern Art
Restored 1963 Bambi Travel Trailer
On Display in Museum’s Main Lobby
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York
City marked the acquisition of a restored 1963
Airstream Bambi travel trailer into its design collection during an April 12 ceremony attended by company officials and noted design aficionados.
The Bambi, first produced in 1960, was chosen
after a lengthy review process as representative of
the 76-year-old Airstream’s well-known visage.
“As a cultural icon, the Bambi evokes the freedom
of the open road and the convenience and comfort
of a home on wheels,” noted MoMA in its display
literature. “With its aerodynamic body of gleaming
aluminum, the Bambi is a machine for living and
traveling.”
The 16-foot Bambi joins six others vehicles — all
design statements in themselves — in MoMA’s collection: a 1946 Cisitalia “202” GT sportster, a 1953
continued on page 49
Fifth-wheels are currently limited to 400 square feet of
floorspace; an increase would require federal intervention.
RPTIA. “We don’t think this is in our best
interest or in the industry’s best interest.”
The RPTIA represents recreational parktrailer manufacturers, an industry segment
coming off its strongest year in the 21-year
history of the park-model business.
Manufacturers last year built 10,141 units.
At its Feb. 24 meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz.,
the RVIA board directed staff to begin what
could be a lengthy process to increase the
allowable size of travel trailers from 320 to
400 square feet, and to allow fifth-wheels to
exceed by an unspecified amount their current limit of 400 square feet. Motorhome
builders currently face no such limitations.
continued on page 42
FreedomRoads to Acquire
Camping World RV Stores
Affinity Group Inc. (AGI) has announced plans to
sell its Camping World Inc. subsidiary to
FreedomRoads Holding Company LLC, a Chicago
area-based national RV dealer network.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), AGI said it entered into a stock
purchase agreement on April 16 with FreedomRoads.
The agreement calls for the sale within the next 60
days of all of Camping World’s outstanding stock to
FreedomRoads for $175.8 million. All three companies are controlled by businessman Steve Adams.
The sale is an extension of a “joint venture” through
which Camping World has co-located stores with
numerous FreedomRoads-affiliated dealerships
throughout the country. As part of that joint venture
relationship, FreedomRoads has been managing the
joint efforts of FreedomRoads and Camping World for
more than a year.
Camping World, a specialty retailer of merchandise
and services for RV owners, currently operates 71
locations in 26 states. Of those stores, 38 are alongside or within FreedomRoads dealerships and 32 are
leased from FreedomRoads. The nation’s largest
wholly owned RV dealer network, FreedomRoads
operates retail stores at 58 locations in 22 states. 6
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TOP OF THE NEWS
Tiffin, Weekend Warrior Good Sam RV Council
Notch Big Gains in ‘06 Identifies Key Issues
Thor Dominates Towable, Park Model Segments in Annual Market Share Rankings
by Statistical Surveys, Inc.; Winnebago Continues Reign Atop Motorized Market
A tested retail maxim came into play for
motorhome manufacturers in 2006 as several factors continued to depress demand.
“In a soft market, the smart builders concentrate on gaining market share,” said
Tom Walworth, president of Grand
Rapids, Mich.-based marketing firm
Statistical Surveys Inc., which tracks the
RV retail market. “They develop product
that creates higher demand for their units.
Then when the market comes back, they
can ride on that advantage.”
The motorhome sector showed a 9.9%
decline in unit sales for the year — and that
was stacked up against a relatively soft 2005.
A 13.1% plunge in Class A registrations
weighed down year-end totals while the
Class C sector retreated 3.8%. Walworth
said the Class A market did show some
signs of bottoming out and then gaining
some momentum late in the year.
Walworth noted that the sale of
motorhomes related to hurricane relief in
the latter part of 2005 could have affected
numbers slightly. But that factor had a
deep impact on the towable side, which
showed a 2.1% drop in retail sales from
2005 totals.
“A couple of things happened,”
Walworth said. “After Katrina hit, FEMA
was buying product right off of dealers’
lots. And then dealers had to replace that
inventory. It really distorted the trailer
numbers.
“That said, being down just 2.1% wasn’t
too bad. All in all, towables experienced a
good 2006.”
continued on page 54
Market Share %
19%
16.3%
14.1%
11%
8%
5.7%
5.5%
5.1%
4.6%
3.4%
The RVOC was formed in December
2006 to evaluate and make recommendations to Good Sam management regarding
RV-related issues of major concern to the
million-member club.
The poll asked respondents to weigh in
on nine specific topics. Results, ranked
from first to ninth, include:
• Quality of RV manufacturing (98%)
• Availability of competent RV service
(93%)
• Existence of adequate lemon law
protection (87%)
• High fuel costs (86%)
• Protection from local parking
ordinances (79%)
• Availability of suitable commercial RV
parks (65%)
2006 Top 10 Motorized
OEM
Winnebago Industries Inc.
Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.
Thor Industries Inc.
Monaco Coach Corp.
Coachmen Industries Inc.
Forest River Inc.
Gulf Stream Coach Inc.
Tiffin Motor Homes Inc.
National RV Inc.
Jayco Inc.
The Good Sam Club’s RV Owners’
Advisory Council (RVOAC) recently
completed a survey that identifies and
ranks issues of importance to the club’s
membership for the first time.
Change from 2005
5.9%
6.8%
12.5%
-14.5%
-15.8%
22.6%
4%
32.9%
0.0%
8.6%
• Federal access user fees (80% retained
by federal facility) (63%)
• Decreased availability/high cost of RV
storage yards (52%)
• Uniform state special RV drivers
licensing (33%)
“Most notably, the rather startling result
is the 1-2-3 place finish of RV quality, RV
service, and lemon laws,” said Tom
continued on page 54
2006 Top 10 Towables
OEM
Thor Industries Inc.
Forest River Inc.
Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.
Jayco Inc.
Monaco Coach Corp.
Weekend Warrior Trailers Inc.
Coachmen Industries Inc.
K-Z Inc.
Starcraft RV Inc.
Skyline Corp.
Market Share %
29%
16.1%
9.6%
9.1%
4%
3.1%
2.8%
2.8%
2.6%
2.4%
Change from 2005
4.2%
0.5%
-14.6%
2.6%
-8.1%
19.2%
-27.4%
4.9%
10%
-13.1%
2006 Top 10 Recreational Park Trailers
OEM
Thor Industries Inc.
Skyline Corp.
Chariot Eagle Inc.
Cavco Industries Inc.
Forest River Inc.
Woodland Park
DNA Enterprises Inc.
Athens Park Homes LLC
Kropf Manufacturing Co. Inc.
Trophy Traveler
8
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RVBusiness
Market Share %
22.5%
15.2%
11.2%
8.3%
4.7%
4.3%
4.1%
3.6%
3.5%
3.1%
Change from 2005
-12.6%
-16.1%
-12.3%
19.3%
0.0%
40.5%
2.3%
244.8%
-4.6%
-20.4%
Teton Homes
Appoints Chris
Braun as CEO
High-end fifthwheel manufacturer
Teton Homes, Casper,
Wyo., hired former
Fleetwood Enterpri ses Inc. executive
Chris Braun as CEO,
effective April 9th.
Braun most recently
served as executive
vice president of
Fleetwood’s RV Group, overseeing the Riverside, Calif.based company’s folding camping trailer, travel trailer
and motorhome divisions.
Prior to Fleetwood, Braun logged over 20 years in the
manufacturing sector, the majority with PACCAR, a
builder of Kenworth and Peterbilt Class 8 trucks. While
at PACCAR, he held a variety of senior management
positions in the areas of sales and marketing, plant
operations and finance.
Teton was founded in 1967 by Robert “Boots” Ingram.
In May 2005, Boston-based Webster Capital bought a
majority interest in the company, which was then headed
by Ingram’s son, Tony. 6
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009-RVB05 PG 9 FREIGHTLINE
4/16/07
10:09 PM
Page 9
TURNING IT UP, AGAIN.
Introducing another industry first by Freightliner Custom Chassis.
We’ve done it. Freightliner Custom Chassis’ new independent front
suspension by ZF®, with an industry-leading 60-degree wheel cut,
enables you to maneuver like you’ve never thought possible.
Why? It’s about negotiating those tighter spaces and tighter turns;
about having more controlled confidence at the wheel; about
expanding the limits of where you go and how you get there.
So don’t be afraid of the road ahead…take on the world one turn at
a time with Freightliner Custom Chassis, The Leader at Every Turn.
1.800.545.8831 | freightlinerchassis.com
Call Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation at (800) 545-8831, or visit us on the Web at www.freightlinerchassis.com. FCC/MC-A-030. Specifications are subject to change without notice.
Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation is registered to ISO 9001. Copyright 2006, Freightliner LLC. All rights reserved. Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation is a member of the Freightliner Group.
Freightliner LLC is a DaimlerChrysler Company.
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP3.qxd
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4:20 PM
Page 10
TOP OF THE NEWS
New RV/MH Hall of
Fame Welcomes Visitors
Low-Key Curtain-Raiser Will Allow Heritage Foundation
to Fine-Tune Displays before Grand Opening in August
The new RV/MH Hall of Fame/
Museum adjacent to the Indiana Toll
Road in Elkhart County, Ind.,
opened to the public for the first time
March 26 in advance of the official
opening scheduled for Aug. 5, the
day before the RV/MH Heritage
Foundation Inc.’s 2007 Hall of Fame
induction dinner.
“The first week went absolutely
wonderfully,”
said
foundation
spokesman Al Hasselbart. “We had
RV travelers, local people and two bus
groups. Finally, we are
doing what we said we
were going to do: Show
off the industry to everybody and anybody.”
Don Walter, president of Starcraft RV (left) and Tom Stinnett,
Included in the new
president of Tom Stinnett RV Freedom Center, were instrumental in the development of the Go RVing pavilion.
facility is the Go RVing
pavilion that will feature
interactive kiosks, a continuously run- pusher motorhomes.
A supplier exhibit hall has yet to be
ning Go RVing video, campgroundand RV-dealer locators and a repre- occupied, and construction will follow
sentative sampling of new RVs from on a wing of the museum to house RV
continued on page 53
folding camping trailers to diesel-
RVBUSINESS.com
INDUSTRY poll
RVB POLL:
FEMA Sell-Off Will Impact Industry
Majority of Respondents Believe Ongoing Government Sales Will
Deplete ‘Buying Pool’ – and Perhaps Damage Industry’s Reputation
A clear majority of respondents in the latest
RVBUSINESS.com Industry Poll is convinced
that the auctioning off of surplus trailers by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) will have an adverse effect on industry
sales.
Although the repercussions from the sell-off
are still a matter of speculation, 78% of the those
polled by RVB feel the ongoing, online sales will
deplete the buying pool.
Respondents said that the auctioning off of
FEMA units — all purchased, and many actually
used, for hurricane relief efforts — would have a
detrimental impact on industry sales.
“It is going to hurt the industry for as much as
12-18 months as our customers purchase them
instead of new or used RVs through a dealer,”
said an RV retailer. “It will take them off the
market. Also, the buyers will try to trade them as
‘regular’ units — making it a nightmare for the
dealers to decipher and making customers angry
when they take the unit to the dealer and then the
deal falls apart when the dealer finds it is not the
correct unit.”
That outlook was also reflected when poll participants were asked whether there were any
potential benefits for the industry from the government auctions, particularly as a source for
used inventory by dealers. Again, 67% felt that
the surplus would damage both the industry’s
bottom line and, possibly, its reputation among
consumers.
“I think it will flood the market with too many
RVs that have not been maintained or checked on
since they were built,” stated a member of the
continued on page 16
Spartan Chassis Buys Manufacturing Plants
Spartan Chassis Inc., a subsidiary of Spartan
Motors Inc., announced April 9 it bought two
manufacturing facilities near its headquarters
in Charlotte, Mich., to meet demand from its
military customers to supply chassis for a key
military vehicle.
The facilities, which total 80,000 sq-ft, will
help build chassis components for the Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles,
while also creating capacity at Spartan’s other
10
Go To:
RVBusiness
facilities for motorhome- and fire truck-chassis
production.
A joint-military program led by the U.S. Marine
Corps is seeking to double the size of its new
armored vehicle program to meet short-term combat needs. The Marines and Army want to buy
7,774 MRAP vehicles, expected to cost $8.4 billion.
Spartan Chassis, which makes frames and
components for vehicles, said it will spend $8 million to purchase and renovate the two plants. 6
American Firm Recruiting
Canadian Drivers for RV
Deliveries to Alberta
Thriving Economy of NW Province
Outpacing U.S. R.V. Transport’s Ability to
Ship Units. “I could use another 500 drivers today,” noted a company manager.
U.S. R.V. Transport fielded an estimated
200 calls on April 9 in response to its plea for
Canadian drivers to deliver travel trailers and
fifth-wheels to Alberta, Canada.
The Wakarusa, Ind.-based RV transporter
began placing the ads in Alberta media to try
to catch up on its backlog of deliveries. It has
shipped about 1,000 RVs yearly to Alberta
during the past five to six years but expects to
far exceed that this year.
“In reality I waited beyond what I should
have,” Bill Goodwin, national sales manager,
said in April. “I needed these drivers three to
four weeks ago. I kept thinking we could manage our business but it kept coming faster
than I could manage.”
“I could use another 500 drivers today,”
Goodwin said, based on backlogged deliveries
waiting at depots in Wakarusa, Peru, Ind., and
Dallas, Ore.
Alberta’s vibrant economy is the hottest in
Canada and has fueled the demand for RVs.
The province’s economic output grew by 7%
last year (highest in the country) and average
unemployment was the lowest in Canada at
3.4%. Shale oil exploration and recovery in
Alberta account for much of the current
growth, which in turns spills over to the entire
economy. A half-million new jobs were
continued on page 57
MAY 2007
.com
User Guide
Contents
011-RVB05 PG 11 COUNTRY CO
4/16/07
10:09 PM
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP3.qxd
4/19/07
4:21 PM
Page 12
TOP OF THE NEWS
Diesel Chassis Joint Venture to
Benefit Monaco, International
Companies Will Share Engineering and Manufacturing
Facilities, But Maintain Separate Support Operations
Workhorse R-series diesel chassis will now be built by Custom
Chassis Products LLC at Monaco
plant in Elkhart.
As part of a new joint venture, Monaco Coach Corp. and International
Truck Corp.’s Workhorse Custom Chassis
LLC subsidiary will share engineering and
manufacturing facilities to build diesel chassis in Elkhart, Ind. But executives for both
companies indicate that the two will keep
separate sales, marketing, financing and
customer service operations for Monaco’s
proprietary Roadmaster and Workhorse’s
R-series diesel pusher
chassis.
“The joint venture is principally a manufacturing
arrangement,” said David
Olson, president of Union
City, Ind.-based Workhorse.
“It will produce product and
only have two customers —
Monaco Coach, which will buy the
Roadmaster chassis, and Workhorse,
which will purchase the R-series as well as
the LF 72 low-floor bus chassis. Nothing
comes into play relative to Workhorse’s gas
portfolio or the UFO (gas pusher) chassis
that will have a diesel version coming up
shortly.”
Monaco and International, the operating
company of Navistar International Corp. —
whose chairman, Daniel Ustain, is a member
continued on page 51
Blue Bird Redesigns, Lengthens Wanderlodge
Production is expected to begin in June on
the redesigned Blue Bird Wanderlodge from
Blue Bird Coachworks Inc., Fort Valley, Ga.
The 2008 Wanderlodge, designed with
revamped front and rear profiles, side-swinging cargo doors and a new exterior lighting
package, will be built on Blue Bird's proprietary 54,000-pound GVWR bus
chassis equipped with a 625-hp
Cummins ISX diesel pusher
engine and will be 15 inches
longer than its predecessors.
“We are stretching the body out
to a full 45 feet, which allows us
to do some interesting things with
the bathroom configurations and
also provide more closet space,”
said Fred Vandenberg, director of
motorhome sales and marketing.
Each coach will be custom built — including floorplans, slideouts and interior amenities. “It makes it a little more difficult to build,
but each coach is basically a clean sheet of
paper for each customer,'' Vandenberg said.
Retail prices are expected to start at
$745,000. 6
12
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RVBusiness
Chinese-Built
RVs Enjoy Dual
Advantages of
Low Tariffs and
Cheap Labor —
Is This a Recipe
for Disaster?
Recreational vehicles made in China
are the biggest threat to the RV industry in its history.
I have been forming an alliance with
North American RV manufacturers
and also contacting the Recreation
Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA),
governors, senators and congressmen
to gain influence to hopefully raise the
tariffs on Chinese RVs.
Currently, if we send an RV to
China the tariff rate is more than
25%. However, when they ship an RV
to America the tariff is 2.5%. That,
coupled with one-dollar-a-day wages,
is a recipe for disaster.
As an industry we need to do anything we can to slow the invasion, as it
will put many U.S. RV manufacturers
at risk.
continued on page 55
along with a service and collision center.
Marcus Lemonis, CEO of FreedomRoads and
Camping World noted: “With this new facility we
add to our very strong position in the Carolinas with
about 30% share in the RV market, which is formidable. We’re very pleased to have this new combined facility, which has it all for RV enthusiasts. We
know that the loyal Sonny’s customer base, which
has been built over 30 years, is excited to benefit
from the expansion and transformation.” 6
Supplier Patrick Industries Inc.
announced April 11 that it will acquire
Adorn LLC, a manufacturer and supplier
of interior components to the recreational vehicle and manufactured-housing
industries. Both companies are based in
Elkhart, Ind.
Adorn, a privately-held company that
posted approximately $240 million in
continued on page 57
MAY 2007
.com
Rex Willett
Supplier Patrick
Industries to
Acquire Adorn
FreedomRoads Dealer Network Adds Sonny’s Camp-N-Travel
National RV dealer network FreedomRoads LLC
announced April 12 that it acquired Sonny’s CampN-Travel in Charleston, S.C., and re-branded the
dealership as Camping World RV Sales.
As part of the acquisition, a new co-located
Camping World retail outlet opened, raising the
number of stores for the Bowling Green, Ky.-based
company in excess of 70.
Located in North Charleston, the new 45,000square-foot complex includes a full lineup of RVs
OPINION
Leveling The
Playing Field
User Guide
Contents
013-RVB05 PG 13 KEY CORP
4/16/07
10:08 PM
Page 13
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+EY2ECREATION,ENDINGTAKESTHETIMETOUNDERSTANDYOUR
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+EY2ECREATION,ENDING
KEYCORP, CIRCLE 135 ON READER SERVICE CARD
!LLLOANSSUBJECTTOCREDITAPPROVAL
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Contents
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:27 PM
Page 14
TOP OF THE NEWS
KOA Expands CompanyOwned RV Park Portfolio
Campground Operator Adds Resorts in Virginia And
California, Will Operate Boomtown at Reno Casino
In the latest in a series of expansion
moves,
Billings,
Mont.-based
Kampgrounds of America (KOA) has
purchased two new properties, a
Virginia Beach, Va., KOA park that
has been operating as a KOA fran-
chised park since 1970, plus the entire
Tower Park Resort and Marina complex in Lodi, California.
Additionally, KOA has entered into
an agreement with the Boomtown
Casino and Hotel Reno to operate
Boomtown’s RV park just outside
Reno, Nev.
The Virginia Beach KOA, located
in south Virginia Beach just 21⁄2 miles
Amenities at Virginia Beach KOA make the coastal
campground a favorite among families.
from Atlantic Ocean beaches, is one
of KOA’s largest parks, with nearly
400 campsites situated on 128 acres.
“The Virginia Beach KOA is a
beautiful campground, and it fits well
into the family of KOA companyowned facilities,” said Scott Cory, vice
president of KOA’s Company
Operated Properties Division. “We
continued on page 43
Camping World Launches New Supercenter
Outlets, Partners with Bank of Internet USA
Komfort Corp.’s John Attila (left) and Manuel Caravia.
Komfort’s Founder
Retires After 40 Years
John Attila to Succeed Manuel
Caravia as Company President
Komfort Corp., a subsidiary of Thor Industries
Inc., recently announced that its founder and current
president, Manuel A. Caravia, retired from the company effective March 31.
The Clackamas, Ore.-based towable builder said
John Attila, vice president of sales and marketing,
assumed the position of company president.
“John Attila is exceptionally capable and has an
outstanding reputation,” said Dicky Riegel, Thor
group president. “He has demonstrated his depth of
talents since he joined the company one year ago, and
he will bring a renewed focus to Komfort’s products
and dealer network to continue the company’s record
of success.”
Caravia co-founded Clackamas, Ore.-based
Komfort Corp. in 1967. In the successive 40 years, the
company earned a reputation as a quality builder and
a leader in the Western U.S. and Canadian travel trailer and fifth-wheel markets. Jackson Center, Ohiobased Thor acquired Komfort Corp. in 1995.
“For more than 40 years, Komfort has been driven
by the passion and stewardship of Manuel Caravia,”
said Wade F.B. Thompson, Thor chairman and
CEO. “Thor Industries has been fortunate to have
had Manuel leading one of its companies, and we
wish him health and happiness in his retirement.” 6
14
Go To:
RVBusiness
Camping World Inc. announced the openings
of three new supercenters in Michigan, New
Jersey and Oregon in early April. The recreational
vehicle parts and accessories retailer also recently launched with Bank of Internet USA a five-year
marketing agreement to offer deposit and loan
products to RV customers online.
The new website, RVBank.com, will operate as
a branch of Bank of Internet USA. Effective April
1, RVBank serves Camping World customers by
offering online FDIC-insured bank deposits and
loans nationwide with the same rates and fees as
Bank of Internet USA.
The site offers all RVBank products including
checking accounts, bill pay, certificates of
deposits, mortgage loans and home equity loans
through one office with 24/7 access.
“RVBank is just another example of how our
organization brings needed services and attractive offers to our customers,” said Marcus
Lemonis, chairman and CEO of Bowling Green,
Ky.-based Camping World. “The growth in online
banking matches the needs of our increasingly
mobile customers. Our customers will save time
and money by letting RVBank take care of their
banking needs.”
Camping World, again, launched three new
supercenters during the first week in April, each
co-located with existing RV dealerships. Two of
the stores occupy 4,000 square feet alongside
FreedomRoads member dealerships — a
Meyer’s RV superstore in Lakewood, N.J. and
Olinger Travel Homes in Wood Village, Ore. —
while the third is a 4,600-square-foot location colocated with Grand Rapids, Mich., dealer
American RV.
“Having a Camping World with us is a very big
plus in that the partnership will allow American
RV to provide all of our customers the RV products and services they want at one location,” said
American RV General Manager Chad Neff. “This
is a new chapter in our 17-year history and we’re
all very excited about it.”
With the latest opening, Camping World raised
the number of stores nationwide to 70 with plans
to reach the 100 mark by 2008. 6
Host Class C Tackles Tough Terrain
Host Industries’ 330 Quad Slide 4x4 is a nichemarket coach aimed at those that like to travel off
the beaten path. Built on the rugged Ford F-550
chassis, the 330 has a towing capacity of 17,000
pounds and features high-end details like solid
surface countertops, porcelain toilet, full-size
queen bed, 20-inch LCD television and Yamaha
DVD/CD player. Of particular note is the optional
96 x 96-inch, cable-suspended, 3,000-poundcapacity patio that deploys from the rear of the
coach, complemented by a residential-style rear
sliding patio door. Base price is $167,300. 6
MAY 2007
.com
User Guide
Contents
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP3.qxd
4/19/07
4:21 PM
Page 15
IN BRIEF
COACH GLASS INC., CIRCLE 113 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Thor’s Audit
Continues.
Jackson Center,
Ohio-based Thor Industries Inc. reported April 9 that it will be restating earnings dating back to fiscal year 2004
as a result of an internal audit of
accounting practices at the company’s
Dutchmen Manufacturing Inc. subsidiary. Thor currently estimates that
the cumulative effect of the issues identified would be a reduction to income
before taxes of approximately $25 million, or approximately $16 million in net
income.
RVDA, FEMA Officials Meet. The
Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association
(RVDA) recently met with key officials
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to discuss the
agency’s sell-off of trailers following the
2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. FEMA officials David Garratt and Maryanne Lyle
told RVDA that they are trying to be
extremely sensitive to local markets
and are working to place excess travel
trailers with other federal agencies and
state governments, which will help
keep these units out of the normal
stream of commerce.
February Motorized Sales Down.
Motorized retail sales fell 7.2% in
February compared with 2006, but did
show improvement from January’s
double-digit declines in both Class A
and Class C registrations. According to
Grand Rapids, Mich., marketing firm
Statistical Surveys Inc., the Class A
market was down 9.3% in February
with 2,336 units sold compared with
2,576 units the previous year, while
Class C registrations dipped 3.2% with
1,316 units sold versus 1,359 the year
prior.
CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 106 ON READER SERVICE CARD
RVDA Launches Dealer Marketplace Site. The Recreation Vehicle
Dealers Association (RVDA) recently
announced the beta launch of the RV
Dealers Marketplace, a search tool providing RV dealers and other retailers
access to RV-related products and
services. Available through a link on
RVDA’s website at www.rvda.org, the
RV Dealers Marketplace is a partnership with MultiView Inc., an Irving, Tex.,
publisher of industry-specific search
engines and buyers guides.
Giant RV Leads Dealers in ’06
Unit Sales. Giant RV, with six
California locations, led all dealerships
in unit sales for 2006, according to data
continued on page 18
MAY 2007
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15
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:27 PM
Page 16
TRANSFER FLOW INC., CIRCLE 153 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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TOP OF THE NEWS
RVB POLL
from page 10
manufacturing community. “It will be a reflection
of poor quality and a black eye on the industry.”
Another representative from the manufacturing
sector noted: “Many first-time RVers wanting to
tread into the RV world will unfortunately happen
upon these units at ‘low’ prices in the used inventories of dealers, or individuals. These units will
most likely have numerous issues. This will give
that first-time RVer a very bad taste of what RVing
can be like.”
Conversely, several survey participants believe
there will be minimal fallout, surmising that the
FEMA sale could draw more people into the
lifestyle. “I don’t think this will have as large of an
impact as people in the industry fear,” said a
retailer. “The units being sold are stripped-down
versions of what we currently sell on dealers’
lots, and can only help increase the exposure of
RVing to a greater audience.”
Most respondents (78%) also felt that
regions where the units are being sold, particularly the Southeast, would be most affected by
the sell-off.
“We feel that it may lower the true value of
entry-level used trailers in the regions that the
auctions take place,” said a dealer. “Perhaps a
viable option would be to offer to sell the units
back to dealers, so the dealer can in turn stand to
make some profit off of the sale. They could have
on-line auctions, and open it to any dealer that
has registered to be a buyer.”
Finding alternative uses for the trailers, including future relief efforts or providing shelter for the
homeless, was a common theme among poll
participants.
“…Our industry, already in a depressed state
and recovery phase while operating in some very
challenging market conditions, could be severely
damaged by this liquidation sale,” observed an
OEM representative. “Travel trailers intended for
use as emergency housing should be used for
that purpose, and they should not be later
unloaded on the retail market. The 109th
Congress, when faced with a similar problem,
passed legislation that required FEMA to first try
to donate unused manufactured homes to governmental agencies or nonprofit organizations in
an effort to protect the struggling manufactured
housing industry. That same consideration
should be given to the RV industry at this time.”
Bringing some perspective to the debate, a
member of the supply sector observed that while
the FEMA auction will alter the marketplace, the
industry also received a boost from the agency.
“First of all, the RV industry gained from a
natural disaster and made great profits from
supplying FEMA disaster units in a time when
sales were slumping,” the respondent said.
“Each manufacturer knew that at some point in
time the units would need to be moved and sold.
This will not hurt the industry in that FEMA is
flooding the market with used product, but it will
hurt the OEMs and its suppliers directly selling
to dealers that have very limited or tied up flooring designed for new units, and will affect the
natural turn-rate and floor space designed for
new RVs exclusively.” 6
MAY 2007
.com
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP3.qxd
4/19/07
4:22 PM
RV/MH Hall of
Fame Announces
Class of 2007
10 New Members to be Inducted
During Grand Opening in August
The RV/MH Heritage Foundation Inc. board
recently introduced the 10 newest members
of the RV/MH Hall of Fame, representing a
wide cross-section of the manufactured
housing and recreational vehicle industries.
The “Class of 2007” was selected from a pool
of 50 candidates and elected by the foundation board.
The new class will be inducted into the
RV/MH Hall of Fame on Aug. 6, in conjunction
with the grand opening of the new 55,000square-foot hall facility in Elkhart, Ind.
Members (listed in alphabetical order)
include:
• Mel Adams, Airxcel Inc., Wichita, Kan.: A
past chairman of the Recreation Vehicle Industry
Association (RVIA), Adams is also chairman of
the RV Service Training Council (RVSTC) and is
recognized as a leading voice for industry education and customer satisfaction.
Page 17
• Jerry W. Britton, Textron Financial Corp.,
Alpharetta, Ga.: Britton has been active in the
financing of RV and manufactured housing
dealers for more than 30 years. Currently, he
provides floorplan financing for more than 800
dealers and annually finances in excess of $1
billion in industry products.
• R.C. “Dick” Moore, Dick Moore Housing,
Millington, Tenn.: Moore is a charter member
of the Tennessee Manufactured Housing
Association (TMHA) and a member of the
TMHA Hall of Fame. He is the publisher of the
housing Industry Perspective newsletter and a
mentor to other retailers and land-lease community operators.
• Billy Sims, Billy Sims Trailer Town,
Lubbock, Texas: A longtime RV retailer, Sims
served on the board of directors of the Texas
RV Dealers Association and on the dealer
councils for several manufacturers. He is
actively involved with several consumer organizations to further promote the growth of the
industry.
• Paul Skogebo, Robert Crist and Co.,
Mesa, Ariz.: The RV retailer is the founder and
only president for more than 10 years of
REDEX, an independent dealer-buying group
representing in excess of 100 dealers. In addition to operating an RV dealership that is more
than 70 years old, he has founded multiple RVand manufactured-housing parks.
• Tom Stinnett, Tom Stinnett RV Freedom
Center, Clarksville, Ind.: In addition to operating one of the nation’s larger RV dealerships,
Stinnett is co-chairman of the Go RVing
Coalition and chairman of the Recreational
Vehicle Assistance Corp. (RVAC), and is past
chairman of the Recreation Vehicle Dealers
Association (RVDA),
• Ronald Thomas Sr., RONA Homes,
Pataskala, Ohio: Thomas is a past president
and lifetime member of the Ohio Manufactured
Housing Association (OMHA) board. He also
serves as chairman of the Midwest
Manufactured Housing Association (MMHA)
and on the Louisville Show Committee.
• James P. Visser Sr., Manchester, Ga.:
Visser is publisher of The Journal, a monthly
periodical based in Manchester. He is a major
promoter of industry trade shows and events
via his publication and provides a forum for
major organizations to communicate with the
industry.
• Don Walter, Starcraft RV Inc., Topeka,
Ind.: Walters is a founding member and cochairman of the Go RVing Coalition. He is a
past chairman of the RV Indiana Committee
and has served for more than 20 years on the
RVIA Public Relations Committee.
• Jerry Wilson, (deceased), Cavalier Homes
Inc., Addison, Ala.: One of the founders and
past chairman of the Alabama Manufactured
Housing Institute, Wilson is recognized as a 30year industry leader and mentor to others. 6
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Contents
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:50 PM
Page 18
TOP OF THE NEWS
BRIEFS from page 15
FIRESTONE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS CO., CIRCLE 112 ON READER SERVICE CARD
from marketing firm Statistical Surveys
Inc. The retailer sold 4,098 units,
garnering 1.8% of national sales in the
31 dealer states, to edge out Seffner,
Fla.-based Lazydays RV Center Inc. at
1.4%. Rounding out the top five retailers in 2006 unit sales were Californiabased Mike Thompson RV, Michigan
dealer General RV Center and Stiers
RV, also based in California.
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18
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Skyline Reports 3Q Loss. Citing
a softening demand in its core RV
and manufactured-housing markets,
Elkhart, Ind.-based Skyline Corp.
reported a net loss for its fiscal third
quarter ended Feb. 28 of $2.175 million versus net income of $2.3 million
the year prior; sales retreated to $66.3
million from $117.5 million. Third-quarter RV sales were $15.1 million, compared to $34.3 million the previous
year. Skyline reported an operating
loss in its RV Group of $2.4 million in
the third quarter and $3.4 million for
the first nine months. In the RV segment, Skyline sells travel trailers, fifth
wheels and recreational park trailers.
Forbes Recognizes Elkhart.
Recreational vehicle manufacturing
hub Elkhart, Ind., was identified by
Forbes Magazine as one of the best
places for business and careers in the
U.S. The business publication recently
named the best metropolitan areas
and the best smaller metropolitan
areas, based on such factors as job
growth, educational level of work
force, cost of living and cost of doing
business. Out of 179 smaller metros
listed, Elkhart captured the 83rd slot,
receiving its best ranking — a 44 — in
the cost-of-doing-business category
based on cost of labor, energy, taxes
and office space.
RVs on TV. Fleetwood RV recently
celebrated the 20th anniversary of its
participation on CBS' popular daytime
game show, The Price is Right!. The
company’s Wilderness travel trailer and
Red Line toy hauler are among this
season’s prizes. Also, a complete
array of RVs was showcased on the
April 12 airing of the Today Show. Five
RVs were featured on the NBC show,
including an Aliner folding camping
trailer, Winnebago Class C minimotorhome, Jayco SURV, Airstream travel
trailer and a Fleetwood Class A coach.
continued on page 57
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Page 19
NEWS
IN FO CUS
The three-day conference brought together campground
operators, industry consultants, Internet providers and
companies specializing in membership financing.
Photos: Thomas Myers
AGI Campground Expo
Spotlights Key Issues
Conference Stresses Need to Continually Improve Sites and Services
to Satisfy Demands of ‘Baby Boomer’ Generation
■ By Jeff Crider
A
fter years of talk and speculation, the Baby Boom generation has finally entered its prime RV-buying years. But the
‘Boomer Bulge’ won’t sustain the industry forever. In only
seven years, in fact, the numbers of Boomers turning 50 will
start to decline. So, there’s little room for park operators to rest
on their laurels in learning to market their businesses to the best
of their abilities.
That was a key message conveyed by David Gorin, the
Virginia-based campground-industry consultant and lobbyist to
some 200 private park operators, vendors and industry leaders
attending Affinity Group Inc.’s (AGI’s) first-ever RV Resort
and Campground Conference & Expo.
The conference, which took place March 4-6 at the South
Point Hotel, Casino and Spa in Las Vegas, was hosted by Grant
Miller, president of AGI Clubs, and Joe Daquino, vice president
of AGI’s Multi-Media Division.
During the gathering, AGI introduced the American Council
of Travel (ACT), comprised of individual travel clubs and their
strategic partners. AGI said the council is designed to “provide
a clear voice and establish best practices for the travel club
industry, improving the recreational traveler experience.”
According to AGI, by establishing the standards for best
practices, ACT provides a forum that “embraces all elements of
the travel industry and facilitates a network of strategic alliances
that will maximize revenues and minimize costs for everyone
involved.”
In addition to educational seminars and a keynote address by
Steve Farber of Extreme Leadership Inc., the conference showcased Affinity Group brands like Woodall’s, Trailer Life, Good
Sam, Coast to Coast and Camp Club USA. Among the other
vendors on hand were: Issaquah, Wash.-based Utility Supply
Group; Evergreen USA; Murrieta, Calif.-based MacKinnon
Campground Consulting; Boise, Idaho-based NomadISP;
Austin, Texas-based TengoInternet; and Barbados, West IndiesMAY 2007
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19
019-RVB_0705_LO_AGI
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6:31 PM
based Digital Rez International, with
whom AGI is working to launch an
online campground-reservation service
called RVtripsetter.com.
Also featured were several companies
specializing in campground membership
financing and debt servicing, including:
Scottsdale,
Ariz.-based
Concord
Servicing Corp.; Escondido, Calif.-based
Conrad Companies; The Universal
Group of St. Joseph, Mo.; and Aspen
National Collections, located in Grand
Junction, Colo.
Partnering With Government Agencies
Gorin urged private park operators to
take the initiative now to make sure their
parks are doing everything they can to satisfy the needs of today’s campers who, by
all accounts, are more demanding than
any camper the private-park sector has
ever attempted to accommodate. In
apparent agreement with Gorin were panelists George O’Leary, of Rincon Country
East and West in Tucson, Ariz., and John
Heidrich, of Shangri La Resort in Yuma,
Ariz., among others.
“‘Fun’ is the key word for this generation,” added panelist Gene Addink of
Midwest Outdoor Resorts, with membership parks in southeastern Minnesota and
in the Black Hills of South Dakota. “They
have a very short attention span, and you
need a tremendous amount of activities to
keep them on your resort.”
Both Gorin and Addink also advised
park operators about the growing use of
toy haulers, or sport utility recreational
vehicles (SURVs). They spoke to the
merits of contacting local Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) officials to identify
neighboring areas that may be of interest
to RV enthusiasts with toy haulers.
In a related interview with Woodall’s
Campground Management, a sister trade
publication to RVBusiness, Gorin talked
about the advantages of being located in
so-called “gateway communities” that
serve as jumping-off points for visits to
public lands operated by federal agencies
like the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service and
the National Park Service.
“Where it is practical, partnering with
the federal agencies can make a lot of
sense,” said Gorin, the former head of the
National Association of RV Parks and
Campgrounds (ARVC) who currently
serves as an ARVC lobbyist. “The feds can
provide recreation-related information that
the resort can incorporate into its own promotion and marketing. The feds can also
provide interpretive activities that help
guests appreciate the lands, and many of
the federal lands provide great hiking, ATV
riding, hunting and fishing opportunities.”
From a marketing standpoint, Addink
20
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Page 20
suggested that park
operators need to
keep teaching their
staffs how to connect on a personal
level with their
guests. He mentioned, for example,
how powerful it can
be when campground
staffers
remember
their
guests’ names. “We
Grant Miller (left), president of AGI Clubs, was one of
need to work on
the Expo’s hosts. Attendees included Linda Profaizer,
giving people a reaARVC president, and Mike Schneider, president and
son to come back to
CEO of AGI.
our park, to pass on
that whole ‘conthose of their peers because search engines
nected’ feeling,” he said.
have made it possible for consumers to
Upgrading Parks and Websites
Campgrounds also need to continue gather more travel-related pricing informaking physical improvements to their mation than ever before.
Gorin and Profaizer noted that private
parks to accommodate today’s big rigs,
parks
have a growing number of tools
which require more space as well as 50amp electrical service, attendees were with which to market themselves to consumers, including the GoCampingAmerica
advised.
On that score, the campground sector is website, their own websites and campmaking great strides, maintained Linda ground directories. Gorin also talked
Profaizer, ARVC president and CEO. about virtual Internet tours, such as those
Citing ARVC’s latest economic survey used by Rincon Country East and West in
conducted by David Gorin & Associates Arizona, enabling consumers to see and
— a survey that has not yet been general- feel more about a park than ever before.
ly released — Profaizer told conference “The quality of some of these virtual tours
attendees that 80% of ARVC-member is absolutely incredible,” he said. “It’s not
parks today offer 30- and 50-amp electri- inexpensive. But it really does help share
cal service, 56% improved their landscap- the experience, which is what people are
ing in 2005, while the typical park invest- looking for.”
Of course, U.S. RV parks and camped $37,500 in campground improvements
that year. By the same token, camp- grounds still face plenty of challenges,
grounds collectively invested about $1.2 what with developers gobbling up park
real estate nationwide and RV manufacbillion in park upgrades last year.
Profaizer also cited the new survey turers milling out dramatic design
results in making her case that camp- changes without ever communicating
grounds still have work to do on the mar- with park-sector leaders.
However, it’s fair to say that demand for
keting front. While 89% of ARVC member parks have websites, she said, most quality campsites continues to grow. “The
aren’t using them effectively enough. In campground industry looks pretty good
fact, she said, 42% of ARVC-member right now,” noted Mike Schneider, presiparks update their websites only once a dent and CEO of AGI, adding that anecyear, while 31% update them monthly, dotal reports from campground owners
14% weekly and 8% don’t update them at across the country suggest that 2007
all. “That’s not taking advantage of the occupancies are starting off slightly ahead
Internet, where it is so easy to go in and of 2006.
Another factor that bodes well for the
make changes and really sell your park,”
campground sector: Americans’ increasshe said.
The importance of effective website ing focus on family travel. As Yesawich
marketing was underscored at the confer- mentioned in his presentation, the desire
ence during a pre-recorded briefing by of Americans to travel with family is
Peter Yesawich of Orlando, Fla.-based being fueled not only by sociological
Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell changes fostered in the aftermath of
(YPBR), who noted that 68% of website 9/11, but also by the pervasive lack of
visitors experience trouble in finding what leisure time Americans have as a result of
cell phones and e-mail, which lengthen
they’re looking for.
Yesawich said it behooves campground the work week and rob families of
operators to differentiate their parks from precious time together. 6
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CLOSE UP
021-RVB_0705_LO_CCUp_Freig
Page 21
Riding the Rails
C O R P O R AT E
Tony Sippel, RV product manager, Bob Harbin, president FCCC
and Dean Schaper, director of sales and marketing (l-r), inside
Freightliner’s Gaffney, S.C. manufacturing plant. The 288,000square-foot facility also houses the company’s headquarters.
Meeting the needs of motorhome manufacturers is key at
Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. — more than 50 different models are offered on the company’s diesel chassis, by 16 different
coach builders. It’s one reason why Freightliner’s share of the
diesel chassis market exceeded 54% at the end of 2006.
■ BY BOB ASHLEY
■ PHOTOS: RICK HAITHCOX
C
imported Sprinter commercial van out
of Freightliner’s 282,000-square-foot
Gaffney plant, making room for a third
production line that is to be turned over
this summer to walk-in van-chassis
assembly.
At the same time, Freightliner
ramped up its quality control and leanmanufacturing efforts, reconfigured its
internal parts “supermarket” and instituted new procedures up and down the
production line.
Beyond that, the company last year
opened a six-bay Freightliner Oasis
service center two miles from the factory and adjacent to a new campus of
Spartanburg Community College at
which Freightliner will assist in teaching
hange has come quickly at
Freightliner Custom Chassis
Corp., (FCCC) the RV industry’s
leading supplier of rear-engine diesel
chassis to motorhome manufacturers.
The DaimlerChrysler AG subsidiary
in Gaffney, S.C., a year-and-a-half ago
introduced the industry's first frontengine diesel (FRED) RV Class A
chassis since 2002, and late last year
reintroduced the beefed-up, high-end
Powerliner III chassis suitable for
motorhomes up to 45 feet.
Additionally, a short time after the
October appointment of Bob Harbin as
FCCC’s new president — succeeding
Reid Bigland — DaimlerChrysler in
December moved assembly of the
MAY 2007
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21
021-RVB_0705_LO_CCUp_Freig
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12:43 PM
new technicians and welcome its customers to bring their Freightliner-built
coaches for maintenance or repairs. Also
available at the factory service center
for members of the 6,000-strong
Freightliner Chassis Owners Club is
“Camp Freightliner,” a twice-a-month,
two-day consumer-directed orientation
on the customer’s specific chassis configuration.
All of this comes at a time when
Freightliner is adapting all of its chassis
to new federally mandated diesel-pollution standards in both the Cummins
and Mercedes-Benz engines that power
Freightliner chassis. “We are constantly
making changes somewhere,” Harbin
told RVBusiness during a February
interview at Freightliner’s headquarters
and factory two miles west of I-85
amidst South Carolina's rolling hills.
“Executing properly and on time is our
primary goal.”
Harbin joined Freightliner Custom
Chassis after most recently directing a
Brazilian joint venture between
DaimlerChrysler and BMW AG
for five years that produced engines
primarily for BMW’s Mini-Cooper
automobile.
“Freightliner Custom Chassis fits in
well with my personal background,” said
Harbin. “During the ’90s, I had three
different motorhomes when my children were young, so this is a product
that I’m very familiar with from a user’s
standpoint. I understand the issues
22
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RVBusiness
Page 22
that face owners of motorhomes and
I bring a lot to the job based on those
experiences.”
Freightliner’s share of the diesel chassis market at the end of 2006 exceeded
54%, according to Statistical Surveys
Inc., nearly twice that of its nearest
competitor — Monaco Coach Corp.
and its proprietary Roadmaster chassis.
FCCC execs attribute that market position to paying attention to the consumer-oriented basics. “It starts from
our service network,” said Tony Sippel,
RV product manager. “Nobody can
service a customer better than we can.”
Indeed, FCCC, in partnership with
its parent company, Freightliner Group
LLC, offers an extensive network of
service locations across the country.
More than 350 dealers in the U.S. and
Canada sell and service Freightliner
truck chassis — and can work on
Freightliner RV chassis. Eighty-five of
them are Freightliner Customer Chassis
Oasis centers that provide dedicated
service writers, factory-trained techs
and RV customer lounges. Separate
from that is a network of about 50
sister-company facilities and affiliated
RV dealerships that also are able to
service Freightliner chassis. “When
people buy a coach built on a
Freightliner chassis, they know they can
find service,” Sippel said.
FCCC’s 65-year-old parent,
Freightliner Group LLC, headquartered in Portland Ore., generates annual sales of about $9
billion. The leading Class 3-to-8 heavyduty truck-chassis manufacturer in
North America, it builds Freightliner,
Sterling and Western Star truck, and
Thomas Built school buses.
On the commercial side, Freightliner
Custom Chassis, formed in 1995 when
Freightliner Group bought Oshkosh
Truck Corp.’s chassis division, assembles Thomas Built bus, shuttle-bus and
walk-in van chassis in addition to the
RV chassis.
“RVs are the biggest component of
our business, and school buses would be
a close second in number, and walk-in
vans are third,” reports Dean Schaper,
director of sales and marketing.
Although venturing recently into
new territory with the FRED and
reconfigured Powerliner III chassis —
FCCC built an earlier Powerliner platform from 1997 to 2000 — the XC
chassis is the company's mainstay
product line. The XC chassis
features four different rail configurations, engines with eight horsepower
ratings, three radiator setups and nine
different sizes of tires — meaning
many options can be mixed and
matched, depending on a
MAY 2007
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021-RVB_0705_LO_CCUp_Freig
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motorhome manufacturer’s requirements. And all that doesn’t take into
account the customization required for
each individual manufacturer. Taking
everything into account, 16 manufacturers build more than 50 different
coach models on Freightliner chassis.
“It’s a tremendous challenge,” Harbin
said. “But our satisfaction comes from
being able to offer the options that allow
the coach builders to differentiate themselves in the market.”
“Every third chassis that passes down
the line is going to be different,”
explained production supervisor Terry
Belue, above the noise of the production
line on the first of two daily shifts near
the end of February. “There is a huge
variety and variance that our Daimler
Chrysler Production System (DCPS)
has been designed to handle.”
FCC’s ISO 9001 processes and procedures, he maintained, “have created the
discipline necessary to produce this
level of complexity with a high level of
quality.”
Like an array of other RV-oriented
companies for whom a substantial
amount of customization is vital, there’s
not much automation evident on
FCCC’s production floor.
That’s not to say that everything’s
low-tech, only that there’s a lot
of hands-on work taking place at
the South Carolina company. There’s
computer-aided direct-current “nut runners”
with
“transducers”
that
measure torque within extremely small
tolerances, as well as multi-spindle
torque tools for installing multiple lug
nuts simultaneously. A “hydra-vac” system automatically fills the hydraulic
brake system on FREDs. A/C systems
are vacuum-tested and automatically
charged with nitrogen. Every dieselpusher suspension is laser-aligned, and
all chassis go over the automatic ABS
system check.
By the same token, hand scanners
at each station deduct
Page 23
Although chassis manufacturing is highly labor-intensive, Freightliner has automated certain tasks.
The multi-spindle torque tool seen here installs multiple lug nuts simultaneously.
parts from the line inventory and direct
that they be restocked from
Freightliner’s plant inventory as the
company looks to incorporate an
increasing degree of lean manufacturing
processes. “We want no more than two
hours’ worth of material on the line at
any one time,” said Don Chapman,
director of manufacturing.
Computers also keep track of the
parts after they’ve been installed. “Line
workers can pull up the stats on the
vehicle at every station and look up
every nut, bolt and torque value,” added
Belue. “And with our Parts Pro system,
the dealer network can pull up the same
VITAL
information.”
Freightliner’s production schedule
calls for more than 100 total units to be
assembled every day during two 8-hour
shifts. That means, ideally, that a chassis comes off the line every 8.5 minutes.
The production process begins by bolting the frame rails together while
secured in place in the pneumatically
controlled squaring fixture. The assembly sits upside down in a belt system
that allows gravity to set the axle and
suspension assemblies.
After the axle and suspensions are
installed, the chassis roll-over crane
rotates the unit so that it is right-side up
statistics
COMPANY: Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. (www.freightlinerchassis.com).
LOCATION: Gaffney, S.C.
PARENT COMPANY: Freightliner Group LLC, Portland, Ore., a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler AG.
KEY PERSONNEL: Bob Harbin, president; Dean Schaper, director of sales and marketing; Tony
Sippel, RV product manager; Larry Dorer, RV dealer trainer; Missy Grey, RV marketing coordinator.
PRODUCTS: Front- and rear-engine Class A motorhome, walk-in van, commercial bus and
school bus chassis.
Powerliner III tag-axle chassis is intended for
luxury motorhome market, with GVWRs up to
49,000 pounds.
FACILITIES: 282,000-square-foot headquarters and plant with two production lines, all in Gaffney.
EMPLOYEES: 900.
MAY 2007
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Page 24
PRODUCT
Available in 22,000- to 26,000-pound
GVWRs, Freightliner’s FRED (FRontEngine Diesel) chassis is powered
by a 300- or 340-hp Cummins
ISB 6.7-liter engine.
as it proceeds
down the assembly
line. Engines being
installed in chassis are
readily recognizable — red
for Cummins and black and
silver for Mercedes-Benz.
Digital displays along
the production line keep
workers up to date on the
day’s progress, including
the number of chassis completed without error, the
number that should have been
completed by that time and the
amount of time the line has been shut
down.
Production workers are aided by lean
manufacturing techniques that deliver
parts to the line already sequenced and
ready to install. “FCCC works with our
suppliers to receive parts in returnable
containers. Very little cardboard or other
packing material comes into our plant,”
Chapman said. “It makes the plant
almost immaculate.”
“We are team-driven and are empowering teams to take ownership for their
areas of responsibility,” said Chapman,
adding that production staffs schedule
PRODUCT PROFILE: Freightliner Custom
Chassis Corp. makes three types of diesel
chassis for the RV industry: The frontengine MC (marketed as the FRED ), the
bread-and-butter XC PUSHER and the new
high-end, rear-engine POWERLINER III .
■ The 22,000 to 26,000-pound GVWR
“star t-of-shif t
huddle meetings” with
teams to review production issues.
One recent example, he added,
involved two assemblers noticing that
bolts used to attach flex plates were a little different than those that had been
ordered. “They notified the team leader,
who notified quality control — and we
headed off probably millions of dollars
in warranty costs,” Chapman said.
“They were rewarded with a gift certificate to the Outback restaurant. It was a
small pat on the back, but it goes a long
way with folks.”
Freightliner, by the way, doesn't build
“open” units. All chassis have been sold
to manufacturers before they move
down the production line. 6
FRED , which is gaining popularity among
manufacturers as an alternative to a
standard diesel pusher, is powered by a
300- or 340-hp Cummins 6.7-liter ISB
diesel engine in a lowered-engine position
that eliminates the traditional cockpit
“doghouse.” Introduced in 2005, the
FRED features a 55-degree wheel cut
and parabolic leaf-spring suspension
with custom-tuned premium shocks.
■ The versatile XC platform, with up to a
60-degree wheel cut and GVWRs from
26,850 to 44,600 pounds, comes in four
rail configurations — straight (XCS), raised
(XCR), formed (XCF) and lowered rail (XCL).
The XC can be equipped for the upcoming
2008 model year with Cummins ISB, ISC or
ISL power plants, or the Mercedes-Benz
MBE 926 engine built by Detroit Diesel Corp.
Horsepower ranges from 300- to 425-hp.
All engines include the “lowered engine
position” to help achieve a flat or nearly flat
floor in the bedroom.
■ Freightliner introduced the tag-axle,
raised-rail, POWERLINER III chassis in
November at RVIA’s National RV Trade
Show in Louisville. Equipped standard with
the 500-hp Cummins ISM diesel engine
with 44,600-48,660-pound GVWRs,
Powerliner III is designed for motorhomes
retailing for $300,000 and up.
“The Powerliner III takes us to the next
level of chassis above the XC,” reported
Dean Schaper, director of sales and
marketing. Powerliner III also utilizes the
lowered-engine design to allow builders
to minimize the intrusion of the engine
cover in the bedroom and is designed
with a 60-degree wheel cut for maximum
maneuverability. Most XC-chassis options
are standard on the Powerliner III, including Freightliner-logoed beveled aluminum
wheels, all-wheel air disc brakes and
automatic load proportioning on the rear
axles. Tire pressure monitoring system
is an option.
At Freightliner, every third chassis is equipped differently. Its XC chassis, for instance, is offered in four
different rail configurations, with multiple engine-horsepower ratings, radiator setups and tire sizes.
24
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025-RVB05 PG 25 WACHOVIA
4/16/07
10:08 PM
Page 25
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026-RVB_0705_LO_FMCA
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4:14 PM
Page 26
Convention Highlights
Attendance was down
but sales were solid
at the Georgia confab,
which also hosted newmodel debuts for several
manufacturers — among
them the long-awaited
$1.3-million Country
Coach Rhapsody and a
unique supplemental
hydrogen fuel system
developed by Coachmen
said to increase horsepower and fuel economy
Newmar Grand Star
26
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Page 27
Caterpillar’s Jeff Headean answers a question concerning
2007 emissions laws. Four-day FMCA confab was considered
a successful outing by most manufacturers.
BY BOB ASHLEY
■
PHOTOS: SHAWN SPENCE
he Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter, spiffed up
with a $12 million rehab project that included new extra-wide
Tasphalt
roads and improved drainage, drew 3,822 family coaches
to the Family Motor Coach Association’s (FMCA) 77th
International Convention March 19-22.
Fortunately, unlike a spate of recent past international conventions dating back to the ’90s, the new drainage system designed to
expel rain water wasn’t needed as sunshine and moderate spring
temperatures dominated the week.
Unfortunately, although manufacturers generally said show
sales met expectations, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based association
reported attendance for the convention down about 750
“family” coaches from 2005, when FMCA last held its winter
convention in Perry. Nonetheless, attendance exceeded last year’s
winter convention in Charlotte, N.C. (3,107) and Pomona,
Calif. (2,892).
FMCA registered another 1,010 commercial coaches, along with
479 vendors that hawked products and services in outdoor and
indoor display areas.
Speculating on the decline in attendance compared to 2005,
Jerry Yeatts, FMCA director of conventions and commercial services, suggested several reasons — including a daunting history of
monsoon-like rains at Perry.
“I think people were a little gun shy,” Yeatts said. “People are
accustomed to having rainy conventions in that area, so I think that
was one of the reasons. Also, it might have been the result of the
Steve Gerzeny, vice president of Coach
House, explains the features of the new
Platinum Series to conventioneers.
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Country Coach Rhapsody
Carter Yoder of Sportscoach explains the workings of the hydrogen supplemental fuel system to current Sportscoach owner, Greg Lewis, and Norma
Bradshaw of Mid-State RV Center,
Byron, Georgia.
Coach House Platinum 23-footer boasts a
permanent rear bed in one of its two slideouts.
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overall economy and rising gas prices.
“The manufacturers that I’ve spoken to were satisfied with what happened,” he added. “Lower
attendance didn’t seem to affect the buying patterns
of the members. The exhibit areas were swamped
the whole time.”
Indeed, most manufacturers contacted by RV
Country Coach
Business following the convention indicated that
Rhapsody is
they met sales expectations. “Sales were good,”
characterized as
noted Dennis Shaw, general sales manager for
“a coach without
Winnebago Industries Inc., Forest City, Iowa.
limits.”
“Based on the amount of people shopping and the
amount of business we had, I’m encouraged about
the prospects for the rest of the year.”
Shaw said that Winnebago’s Class C Winnebago
View/Itasca Navion, based on the imported 2007 Sprinter
cab chassis, sold well, as did the mid-priced Latitude Class
A, built on the Workhorse UFO gas-pusher chassis.
“People like the wide-open cockpit up front and the flat
floor in the rear,” he added.
Winnebago offered test drives in the gas-pusher Latitude
while Workhorse Custom Chassis LLC, Union City, Ind.,
held ride-and-drives in a Monaco LaPalma Class A concept
coach mounted on a rear-gas UFO that it purchased from
Monaco Coach Corp. for demonstrations. Monaco has not
yet announced that it will build on the UFO chassis.
At the higher end, the long-awaited $1.3 million
Rhapsody diesel pusher from Country Coach Inc.,
Junction City, Ore. — characterized by the company as “a
coach without limits” — made its debut at Perry as the
company’s most expensive motorhome ever.
“We were pleased with the customer activity,” said
Country Coach spokesman Matt Howard. “People were
very, very much more focused on floorplans than in the
past. They were interested in how specific floorplans fit into
their lifestyle.”
Newmar Corp., Nappanee, Ind., showcased its new King
Aire luxury diesel pusher along with its more affordable
Grand Star Class A, available on Ford or Workhorse
gas-powered chassis or Freightliner’s FRED front-engine
diesel platform. “The reception to our diesel lineup was
good, all-in-all,” summed up John Sammut, Newmar vice
president of sales.
Sammut said Newmar sold a dozen coaches — a majority in the $450,000-and-above range — and would be
following up with a handful of potential buyers. “That is
about average for us,” Sammut said. “Given the attendance, I’d say it was a good performance. There was no
discussion about fuel prices at all, which was pleasantly
surprising.”
He said consumers were particularly interested in the
new 2007 diesel engines developed under EPA mandate to
reduce air pollution. “There are a lot of rumors and inaccuracies about the new engines,” Sammut pointed out. “It’s
not clear in peoples’ minds about what is going on.”
Sales for Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. were off
about 10% from 2005’s convention in Perry, according to Dave Cheney, Fleetwood’s national director
of sales for motorhomes “We were a little disappointed with the attendance,” Cheney said. “Having
said that, I think we made the most out of what we
had to work with, and we were happy with the
results. Customer comments were very positive.”
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ALLISON TRANSMISSION, CIRCLE 105 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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Lazydays RV Superstore, Seffner, Fla., sold 85 units during the show, including luxury diesel pushers, van campers
and minimotohomes, according to Stewart Schaffer,
Lazydays’ chief marketing officer. “We did really well across
the spectrum of gas and diesel,” Schaffer said. “It was a
buying crowd.”
For Jayco Inc., Middlebury, Ind., sales were about the
same as at last year’s FMCA spring convention in
Pomona, Calif. “The show met our expectations,” said Sid
Johnson, Jayco marketing director. “It seems like the big
Class Cs are particularly interesting to motorhome buyers
right now. The trend toward downsizing is getting more
noticeable.”
National conventions are a favorite stage for manufacturers to introduce new RVs, and Perry didn’t disappoint.
Product highlights from the FMCA show included:
■ Taking things to the next level, Country Coach Inc.
introduced a $1.3 million, 45-foot Rhapsody 900 diesel
pusher built on the proprietary 54,000-pound GVWR
DynoMax chassis with a 625-hp Caterpillar C15 engine.
Standard is a new Cat CX Series six-speed transmission
(for which the company has a one-year exclusive arrangement). Although the Junction City, Ore., builder continues
to convert Prevost buses in the $1 million-plus price range,
the quad-slide Rhapsody displaces the Affinity 700
Custom — retailing for about $815,000 — as the most
expensive Class A motorhome in Country Coach’s lineup.
“This product allows us to fill the needs of the many customers who said they wanted a Country Coach without
limits,’’ said Matt Howard. “We can do anything that our
engineers tell us is possible. As our customers wants and
desires change, so will the product.”
■ Coach House Inc. debuted a new double-slideout
floorplan with a permanent rear bed in the 23-foot
Platinum minimotorhome. “It gives you a lot of room in
the bedroom,” said Steven B. Gerzeny, vice president of the
Nokomis, Fla., manufacturer. Assembled on a 14,050pound GVWR Ford E-450 Super Duty cutaway chassis,
the Platinum — built around a seamless, one-piece
reinforced fiberglass shell with 6 feet, 2 inches of interior
headroom — is available in eight 23- to 27-foot floorplans.
Standard are 4.0-Kw generators, automatic hydraulic leveling systems, Corian countertops, standup glass showers,
porcelain commodes, ducted roof air conditioning and
30,000-BTU furnaces. Base MSRP: $130,000.
■ Monaco Coach Corp. Coburg, Ore., has added four
new floorplans — including front-kitchen and bath-and-ahalf layouts — to its top-selling Dynasty diesel pusher.
“We are giving customers a reason to trade up,” said
Mike Snell, vice president of sales and marketing. “We also
focused on color fades, which really jazzed up the exterior.”
Built on Monaco’s proprietary, 45,160-pound GVWR
Roadmaster S-series semimonocoque chassis powered by
an 8.8-liter Cummins ISL 425-hp engine, the Dynasty is
available in 2008 in seven four-slideout floorplans in 40- to
43-foot lengths. MSRPs begin at $379,438.
■ Chino, Calif.-based Alfa Leisure Inc. has added a fullwall slideout floorplan to its 40-foot See Ya! Class A dieselpusher motorhome. Along with a rear walk-in closet, this
new See Ya! model incorporates a 42-inch-deep, 291⁄2-footlong street-side slideout that holds a sofa, walk-in pantry
and king-size bed. Built on a 29,500-pound GVWR
Freightliner XC raised-rail chassis with a 7.2-liter,
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Monaco added four new
floorplans to its Dynasty.
National RV offers a full-wall passenger-side
slideout in its new Pacifica.
High-end Newmar King Aire is available in
five 45-foot, quad-slide floorplans.
Alfa Leisure See Ya! features a 29foot-wide slide and full-size pantry.
MAY 2007
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Give Your Towable Customers
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Cummins®, Onan®, JuiceBox and the “C” logo are registered trademarks or service marks of Cummins Inc. © 2007 Cummins Power Generation. All Rights Reserved.
ONAN CORPORATION, CIRCLE 118 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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B W TRAILER HITCHES, CIRCLE 103 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Robert Jones, Prevost
VIP Bus Shell Series
manager, was in Georgia
to give show-goers a rare
glimpse of the HE-45 VIP
before conversion.
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330-hp turbocharged Mercedes-Benz
diesel engine, See Ya! coaches feature passthrough storage, basement air conditioning, 7-foot, 2-inch ceilings, four LCD
TVs, telescoping dinettes with free-standing chairs and outdoor entertainment
centers with Weber grills. A fully loaded
See Ya! retails for $227,295.
■ National RV Inc., Perris, Calif., has
taken a different tack from most of its
competitors by offering a passenger-side
full-wall slideout in one of four 40-foot
2008 Pacifica diesel-pusher motorhome
floorplans. This triple-slideout floorplan is
assembled on a 32,000-pound GVWR
Freightliner XC raised-rail chassis powered by a 350-hp Caterpillar C7 turbo
diesel engine. “Most of the original fullwall slideouts just added an extra hallway,”
said Doug Kollmyer, vice president of sales
and marketing. “This full-wall slide was
designed to give a much more open feel.”
The 28-foot slide is supported by four rails
and features a 20-foot attached awning.
Typically equipped, this Pacifica retails for
$255,000.
■ Luxury bus manufacturer Prevost Car
Inc. gave those attending the FMCA show
a chance to see what the interior of a 45foot Prevost H3-45-based VIP chassis
looks like before one of about 10 independent converters finishes work on one
of the Sainte-Claire, Quebec-based company’s upscale shells. “Sales have been very
steady for the last three or four years,”
reported Robert Jones, Prevost sales manager for motorhomes. The 54,500GVWR VIP’s self-supporting monocoque
chassis with fiberglass exterior is powered
by a 515-hp Detroit Diesel engine and
features lightweight aluminum passengerside living room and bedroom slideouts.
The VIP was last upgraded in 2006 when
Prevost enhanced the front end and
installed Prevost-designed metroplex
technology to control coach systems. The
price of VIP shells to converters begins
currently at $475,000 and increases to
$490,000 when EPA-certified 2007
engines are integrated into the chassis later
this year.
■ Newmar Corp. Nappanee, Ind., has
extended its reputation as a luxury-class
coach builder with the addition of the
high-end King Aire diesel-pusher bus to
its 2008 motorized lineup. “It is a stylish
and powerful alternative for discerning
customers,” said Kyle McCrary, Newmar
director of luxury products. Built on a
54,000-pound GVWR Spartan K3 chassis powered by a 600-hp Cummins ISX
diesel engine, the King Aire is available in
five 45-foot, quadruple-slideout floorplans
with standard one-piece bonded windshields, polished porcelain tile, high-gloss
cabinets, three central air conditioners,
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CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 107 ON READER SERVICE CARD
MBA INSURANCE, CIRCLE 148 ON READER SERVICE CARD
hydronic zone-heating systems, four-door,
17 cubic-foot refrigerators, Corian countertops and 12.5-Kw generators. The
MSRP for the King Aire, Newmar’s second-most-expensive coach (behind the
London Aire diesel bus), is $642,196.
■ A new entrant in the motorhome
market, Silver Crown LLC, White
Pigeon, Mich., has introduced a 2008
Silver Crown S-series Class C
motorhome mounted on a 44,000-pound
GVWR Freightliner Columbia Class 8
commercial truck chassis. “We are taking a
heavy-duty chassis that has the ability to
tow a large trailer and merging it with a
very high-end luxury motorhome,” said
General Manager Chris Miller. Silver
Crown is a new division of Goshen, Ind.based Supreme Corp., a commercial truckbody builder. The laminated fiberglassand-aluminum S-series, featuring two
floorplans with either two or three slideouts, is loaded with amenities that include
heated granite floors, granite countertops,
two home theater systems, cedar-lined
closets, Select Comfort beds, washers and
dryers, marble showers and ultraleatherclad furniture. MSRP: $470,000.
■ As part of a new push into alternative
fuels, Coachmen Recreational Vehicle Co.
LLC, Middlebury, Ind., is promoting a
supplemental fuel system that pumps
hydrogen directly into a 350-hp
Caterpillar C7 diesel engine’s cylinder
head to increase the horsepower and
fuel economy in a prototype 40foot Sportscoach Elite diesel-pusher
motorhome. “This system can be added to
any diesel engine without modification,”
said Carter Yoder, Sportscoach product
manager. “The overall performance of the
engine will be dramatically improved.”
Coachmen’s Sportscoach division developed the system, which occupies a storage
bay beneath the coach and converts water
into hydrogen through electrolysis. It is
available only as an aftermarket add-on at
an initial cost of $15,000.
■ With the introduction of the 2008
Grand Star Class A motorhome, Newmar
Corp., Nappanee, Ind., has completed a
two-year revision of its gasoline products
— and gone a step further. Besides gas versions of the Grand Star on either Ford or
Workhorse chassis, a 26,000-pound
GVWR Freightliner front-engine diesel
platform also is an option in larger floorplans. Grand Star is available in five
33- to 37-foot models — one with a
full-wall slideout, another with familyfriendly bunks and three with three-zone
living arrangements. Standard features
include full-body paint, stainless-steel
appliances, solid-surface countertops,
Flexsteel furniture and 5.5-Kw generators.
MSRP: $134,000. 6
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Q&A
BY: STEVE BIBLER
PHOTOS: MARK SHEPHARD
Coachmen CEO Richard M. Lavers, accompanied by
CFO Colleen Zuhl, inside a Coachmen Freelander
Class C motorhome.
COACHMEN INDUSTRIES’
Venerable RV manufacturer implements a
multi-step plan to redefine its products and
inspire its employees. Steps include
re-emphasizing quality and increasing focus
on product development — both much in
evidence in the company’s new Blast SURV
and Wyoming fifth-wheel.
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he management of Coachmen Industries Inc., a publicly
held company run since its inception in 1964 by the founding Corson family, underwent a sea change last August
when Claire C. Skinner announced her early retirement as chairman
and CEO. Skinner, daughter of co-founder Tom Corson, was
succeeded as chairman by lead director William Johnson. CFO
Richard M. Lavers moved up to president and CEO.
And while the Corson family retains some equity in the company,
Coachmen appears to have entered a new era since Skinner’s departure. According to Lavers, nearly a third of the 2008 products displayed at this past winter’s Louisville Show — most manufactured
by the Elkhart, Ind.-based company’s Coachmen Recreational Vehicle
Co. LLC (CRV) division in Middlebury, Ind. — were new.
Significant among them was the Blast, a multi-purpose sport utili-
T
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ty RV (SURV), and the Wyoming, a mid-priced fifth-wheel line.
These new products are key to the company’s recovery efforts, which
date back to mid-2005 when Coachmen, facing financial setbacks,
began to tighten its belt and sell off underperforming assets.
Coachmen’s consolidated RV enterprise now operates from 37 buildings covering 1.4 million square feet in Indiana, Michigan, Georgia
and California. Its modular housing operations are located in six
states. Coachmen employs approximately 2,500 companywide.
Although this belt-tightening has helped cut costs, Coachmen still
registered a loss of $31.8 million in 2006 on sales of $564.4 million,
bringing its two-year loss to $58 million. The company’s last
profitable year was 2004, when it earned $15.3 million on sales
of $802.4 million.
Lavers, 60, joined Coachmen in October 1997 as general counsel
and assumed the position of executive vice president in May 2000,
serving as general counsel and secretary of the company from March
1999. In December of 2005, he was named CFO and chief administrative officer. Prior to his tenure with Coachmen, Lavers was an
executive with RMT Inc. and Heartland Environmental Holding
Co. He earned both his B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University
of Michigan.
■ RV Business sat down with Lavers, CFO Colleen Zuhl and
Investor Relations Director Jeff Tryka in early March to check in
with the new management team. ■
RVB: Now that you’ve served as CEO for six months, tell us, if
you would, about how you and the rest of the new management team
are redirecting Coachmen.
LAVERS: We’re doing a number of things. Probably the most
important is changing the company culture — and that involves
several initiatives in several directions. We want to move
Coachmen to what’s known as a high-performance culture.
That is characterized by a commitment to quality, knowing the
needs of your customer and then trying to exceed them, being
very flexible and responsive, empowering your employees to act,
having a commitment to innovation, sharing the wealth, shar-
period of time, which means one of the big questions you get
into is, “Why should I change it because we did it this way for a
long time and we did very well at it?” Well, the answer is that it
hasn’t worked that well recently, and the markets have changed
and that sort of thing. We have taken four very specific steps in
accomplishing that (culture change), and I think it will tie in
with what I said were the characteristics of that culture.
No. 1 — and the most fundamental — is to re-emphasize
quality. I think quality is a huge opportunity for our industry.
When you think about it, RVs are all about fun, and you’re not
going to stay in the RV lifestyle unless you’re having fun. And
you can’t have fun with an RV if your slideout is breaking or
things aren’t working. Things have to work. Things have to fit
together and function as they are designed. So, for the first several months, we have been really refocusing on what has always
been part of Coachmen’s business principles, and that is that
quality really is our first priority. We have done many things in
that regard.
The second step is product development. I mentioned that
the culture of change has to have a commitment to innovation.
We have taken the cuffs off, so to speak, and asked people to
really work with their ideas — and some of the products we
came up with at the Louisville Show in a rather short period of
time were a direct result of empowering our people to actually
act on their ideas.
The third thing — and in many ways the most important
thing — is listening. Communications is not just talking; it is
listening to what people have to say. And then, if we’re going to
change, people have to know where we’re going, so we have
been articulating a new vision for our RV Group to define what
we want to be and what our products mean to our customers.
And finally, sharing the wealth. We have to turn the company around. We have to become profitable again, and as we do
that, I want everybody in the company to share in that profit.
We have introduced some programs for that. So, that has been
our menu for the last five months.
Counter-Culture Crusade
ing the profits and sharing the rewards among your employees.
And a real emphasis is on 360-degree communication, all of
which is easier to articulate than it is to accomplish.
We must change the way we have been doing things, and
change is the key word. During the last couple of years we have
been concentrating on reducing costs and that sort of thing —
doing the same things better and more efficiently. But the numbers are reflecting that that is not getting done sufficiently. So
we have to change what we are doing, and that means changing the culture, and changing culture is difficult.
RVB: Essentially, then, you’re talking about altering a culture
that has developed over a period of 43 years. That’s a big job.
LAVERS: Yes, and it was a very successful culture for a long
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“We have been articulating a
new vision for our RV Group
to define what we want to be
and what our products mean
to our customers.”
– Richard M. Lavers
RVB: Tell us a bit more about
Coachmen’s renewed push for quality.
LAVERS: We’ve been emphasizing quality relentlessly, realizing how important it
is for our people to understand it. We
introduced a Quality Incentive Improvement Program last October and ran that
through the rest of the year. It was so
successful that we broadened it and introduced it companywide this year on a
monthly basis as part of the concept I
talked about — rewarding our employees
and sharing the profits. If they deliver the
quality that we feel we need, we are
rewarding them for it.
Actually, in February, four of our plants,
I am very happy to say, received the maximum quality bonuses under that program, which is remarkable improvement
in a very short period of time. We are
hearing that from our dealers. We even
had some dealers call us after delivery and
said, “Mike, (CRV President Mike
Terlep), we have to talk with you about
the quality of these new units ... We didn’t have to do a darn thing with them. We
just put them on the front of the lot.” So
we’re hearing some very, very good things
about the quality of the product.
RVB: So, the incentive program is the
crux of Coachmen’s quality improvement
initiative?
LAVERS: There are other things. I don’t
think you could do it with incentive alone.
For example, we had a driver’s meeting. I
wasn’t at the meeting but Mike (Terlep)
was. At the end of the meeting, for the
first time in a long time they had a bull
session. Drivers had some suggestions.
One of them was a sign that we have
adopted over the punch-in clocks at all of
our plants. It asks a very simple question
in big, bold letters: “WOULD YOU BUY
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WHAT YOU BUILT TODAY?” I think
the message has gotten across.
The other parts of the program are
more technical. We’ve ripped out a lot of
complexity in our designs because the
simpler things are to build, the better
quality you will end up with. We’ve also
tried to standardize a lot of things so they
are building the same thing over and over
and over again and not have quite so many
variations because, once again, when
you’re building the same thing over and
over again, the quality improves.
RVB: What sort of feedback have you
received regarding the designs and marketability of the new products you introduced
at Louisville?
LAVERS: Feedback has been extremely
good, particularly for the SUTs (sport
utility trailers, or SURVs), the Blast, also
for the minis and then for the Wyoming
fifth-wheel, all of which were redesigned
and introduced at Louisville. Our biggest
problem with the Wyoming right now is
production. We have to make enough to
fill the orders we have right now, and
that’s a pretty strong endorsement from
our dealer body.
Speaking of the Blast, we sold more
SUTs in the first two months of 2007
than we sold in all of 2006. That’s in a
down market. It (the Blast) is smaller than
a lot of other SUTs and
is designed for the eastern market. The
SUT began in California and has sort of
a California look and feel, and there is
more of an eastern design for the Blast.
RVB: What makes it an eastern design?
LAVERS: Size, I think, as much as anything else. You don’t have the wide open
spaces here that you might have in
California. You have narrower, twisty
roads.
RVB: What are your specific targets for
2007?
LAVERS: Our target is to increase market
share across the board.
RVB: OK, do you want to be more specific on that, Rick?
LAVERS: No.
RVB: Do you think you can grow market
share in what many expect to be a flat market?
LAVERS: That’s our plan. It looks like in
the SUTs we are already doing that. I
think right now the towables market is
still suffering from [FEMA sales in]
2006, but we have seen some glimmers.
We’ve heard about improvement on the
motorized side. I think by the end of the
year, we’ll be flat. But as of January, we’re
down.
Contined on page 46
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037-RVB05 PG 37 AON
4/16/07
10:05 PM
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IF AN RV LEAVES YOUR LOT
WITH JUST AUTO INSURANCE,
IT’S ON THE WRONG ROAD...
E
verybody who drives needs auto insurance.
So, its only natural for a new RV Buyer to
contact their auto insurance provider about
adding their new RV to their auto insurance policy.
It seems like a simple solution.
It’s also a simple mistake.
Standard auto policies don’t cover the special needs of an RV owner, such as full-timer
coverage, personal contents coverage, campsite
liability, Mexico coverage, and more. Plus, they
don’t provide adequate coverage when an RV
is parked, or in storage.
Aon Recreation Insurance, a Fortune 500 company
and the nation’s largest RV-specialty insurance
company, has been protecting RVers and their
motorhomes since 1966. That gives us the leverage to make insurance carriers listen to the unique
needs of RV owners when it comes to claims and
policy innovation. It also gives dealers confidence
in recommending Aon, because of our experience,
dedication, and outstanding service.
Add to the service you give your RV customers,
by offering them a quote from Aon before they leave
your showroom. And make sure they escape the
problems of day-to-day life on the road.
Call our dealer line today for a quote
800.782.9885
Aonrecreation.com
Aon Recreation Insurance is a division of Aon Private Risk Management Insurance Agency, Inc.
(in California, Aon Private Risk Management of California Insurance Agency, Inc., CA Insurance Lic. 0B33296)
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OEM
The New Frontier
ESTABLISHED IN 2002 AS A MANUFACTURER OF ENTRY-LEVEL TRAVEL TRAILERS AND FIFTH-WHEELS,
FRONTIER RV RECENTLY FOUNDED A SECOND ASSEMBLY PLANT IN GEORGIA. THE GROWTH ALSO
FUELED DEVELOPMENT OF TWO NEW TOWABLE SERIES — AND EXPANSION OF ITS TEXAS BASE.
■ BY BOB ASHLEY
■ PHOTOS: LUISA MORENILLA
fter a notable career in RV manufacturing working for
others, Johnny Hernandez didn’t wander far from home
when he founded Frontier RV Inc., Longview, Texas, to
sell travel trailers and fifth-wheels.
He graduated high school in Longview and then went to
work at Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.’s Longview factory as a
material handler. Before he left in 2000, Hernandez had
worked his way up to director of sales and development for
Fleetwood’s Travel Trailer Division.
“We are in Longview because that’s where I grew up,”
Hernandez says. “We are southern-born and southern-bred
and our products are designed for the South. We know what
it’s like to camp in 100˚F temperature on the Fourth of July.”
Initially selling regionally to dealers within a 500-mile
radius of Longview, Frontier in 2005 opened a factory in
Fitzgerald, Ga., to reach customers in the Southeast.
With the expansion, Frontier established itself across the
lower tier of states stretching from Texas along the Gulf
Coast into Florida and north into Oklahoma, Georgia and
the Carolinas. Currently, 28 dealers do business with the
Longview factory and 13 with Frontier’s Georgia facility.
A 500-mile-radius limit is one of Frontier’s primary principles that Hernandez won’t violate. “We have controlled
growth,” Hernandez said. “We don’t want to be the biggest
manufacturer out there. We just want to be important to the
dealers whose lots we are on.”
Fostering small, regional dealer bases allows Frontier to
provide product more quickly. “We don’t want a dealer to
have to wait 21⁄2 months for a product,” Hernandez said.
“Our average time to get a unit to the dealer is three weeks
— and we can deliver to any of our dealers within one day
of the coach leaving the plant. That is important.”
Hernandez founded Frontier in 2002 with six other industry veterans, all of whom have been associated with some
A
The Explorer, Frontier
RV’s first product, is
now available in 12
floorplans — some
with a slideout.
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aspect of the RV business for at least 30 years. “Some are
dealers who have invested privately and carefully distinguish
between Frontier and their retail operations,” he said. “They
don’t get special treatment whatsoever. What they do for the
company is that they bring a source of retail experience and
they know how a manufacturer should relate to a dealership.”
Also on board is Hernandez’ 22-year-old daughter,
Heather, a regional sales manager who has been with
Frontier for two years.
“I use the products that I sell,” Hernandez said. “She’s been
around the industry her entire life in motorhomes and travel
trailers all over the United States. It’s such a great industry
that you love to bring your children into it.”
Hernandez is intent on keeping the company focused, and
he feels it helps being in Longview — away from the RVmaking hub of northern Indiana. “Elkhart is so different
from the Fleetwood plants I’ve worked in,” Hernandez said.
“There is a whole different mindset in Elkhart, much of it
regarding workers who move around a lot. The first thing
when we came down here was to pay people differently — an
hourly rate plus an attendance bonus and then quality and
efficiency incentives on what they built on that particular day.
That’s an immediate reward for building a good product.”
Hernandez also likes to get himself involved on the
production floor. “Yesterday I spent a half-day operating a
forklift, moving stuff around trying to make the factory more
efficient,” he said.
Curiously, Hernandez said Frontier would not have existed without the guidance through the years of the late John C.
Frontier RV president and founder, Johnny Hernandez with daughter,
Heather, a regional sales manager. “It’s such a great industry that you
love to bring your children into it,” said Hernandez.
VITAL
statistics
COMPANY: Frontier RV Inc. (www.frontierrv.com).
LOCATION: Longview, Texas.
FOUNDED: 2002.
KEY PERSONNEL: John G. “Johnny” Hernandez, chairman,
president and CEO; Judge Finklea, vice president, purchasing;
Bobby Tackett, sales manager; Justin Schooley, product
development manager.
PRIMARY PRODUCTS: Entry-level travel trailers and
fifth-wheels.
PHYSICAL FACILITIES: 60,000-square-foot production facility
in two buildings in Longview and a 120,000-square-foot
factory in Fitzgerald, Ga.
EMPLOYEES: 260.
MAY 2007
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Page 40
BELOW: Frontier recently added a marketing department to
help maintain company growth. BOTTOM: Work progresses on
an Aspen fifth-wheel, Frontier’s higher-priced towable line.
Frontier debuted its Hyperlite travel
trailer earlier this year at the Florida
RV SuperShow in Tampa. It’s available in lengths from 21 to 27 feet.
PRODUCT
DETAIL: Frontier’s entry-level wood-and-aluminum Explorer
travel trailer – MSRP: $12,000 – was the company’s first product. Initially offered with fifth-wheel floorplans, Explorer now is
available in 12 travel-trailer layouts, some with a single slideout.
Features include an island queen bed with hydraulic lift struts, 6
1/2-foot ceilings, dual wardrobes, large windows and raisedoak-framed cabinets.
A higher-priced Aspen towable series introduced in 2005 features nine travel trailer- and fifth-wheel layouts with up to three
slideouts. With gelcoat fiberglass-and-aluminum construction,
Aspen retails from $24,000.
In addition, Frontier debuted its new aluminum-and-hung-fiberglass Hyperlite by Frontier travel-trailer series at January’s
Florida RV SuperShow in Tampa. Though currently offered
in single-slideout lengths of 21 to 27 feet, 18- and 19-foot
floorplans are being developed for the entry-level Hyperlite.
None will have a dry weight of more than 5,000 pounds.
Hyperlite is equipped with fiberglass front caps and heated
and enclosed underbellies. MSRP: $18,900.
Crean, Fleetwood’s founder who passed away in January.
“Our philosophy is to make quality products at an affordable price, provide our dealers with an opportunity to grow
and prosper, and we in turn will make a reasonable profit,”
said Hernandez, who worked for Fleetwood for 27 years
before a short stint at Thor Industries Inc.’s Aerolite operation in Syracuse, Ind. “That was John Crean’s philosophy.
I am the president of a company because of the things that I
learned from John Crean. He is the person I have admired
most in this industry.”
Hernandez has no immediate plans for expansion other
than to add production capacity in Longview. In February he
was negotiating to buy property adjacent to a former oil-distribution facility where Frontier’s Longview plant currently
is located.
With the company firmly established, Hernandez says it’s
time for Frontier to become more marketing oriented, and in
that regard, Frontier recently hired its first marketing director. “From Day One until now, we did our marketing pretty
much by word-of-mouth,” he said. “We were light on
brochures and management because we put all of our money
into product.
“But,” he added, “we are going to focus on sales and marketing this year to keep the growth we have going.” 6
Frontier executives at the Texas facility include (l-r) Judge Finklea,
vice president; Heather Hernandez; Justin Schooley, product development manager; Bobby Tackett, sales manager; and Hernandez.
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DTI RV PARTS & APPLIANCES, CIRCLE 121 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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ARVC
4/19/07
4:22 PM
from page 7
cern about the negative impact of the Western
Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) on U.S.Canadian travel. Many RV parks and campgrounds in states that border on Canada or in Sun
Belt states host large numbers of Canadian visitors. Identification requirements contemplated by
the WHTI, ARVC maintains in Woodall’s
Campground Management (WCM), are likely to
have a depressing effect on that substantial
Canadian business.
ARVC also supports establishment of a nationally coordinated campaign to encourage more
international travelers to visit the U.S., including
visiting and experiencing the parts of the nation
that are not located along either coast or in urban
centers. This “Heartland” of America is where
many of our natural attractions and much of our
Page 42
culture and history can be found. Yet those areas
are often without the experience or resources to
market themselves internationally and would benefit greatly from a nationally coordinated marketing
campaign directed to international tourism markets, WCM reports.
ARVC submitted further comments on Feb. 28
urging that a national tourism strategy should
encompass other significant policy concerns. One
is transportation, especially highway policy since
nearly 80% of all travel occurs on highways.
“Another policy area is that of public lands —
achieving a balance between the preservation of
natural, historic and cultural resources and public
use and enjoyment is an ongoing, formidable challenge and should be considered in any national
tourism strategy while being sensitive to the potential adverse effect on private businesses from
excessive expansion of recreation facilities on the
public lands,” ARVC stated in WCM. 6
RVs bond families...
...we bond RVs
We Succeed When You Succeed
THE PANEL
LAMINATING
EXPERTS
Success is a two-way street between supplier and
customer. As a supplier, National Adhesives strives to
understand the needs of RV manufacturers and their
component suppliers and then deliver the right mix
of products and services that meets those needs.
And that’s how we both succeed.
If you have an RV bonding application that you would
like to improve, call 1-800-797-4992.
www.nationaladh.com
NATIONAL STARCH PANEL CONSTRUCTION, CIRCLE 126 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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RPTIA
from page 7
“The members would like the square
footage to migrate upward,” said Diane
Farrell, RVIA vice president of governmental affairs. “We’ve done some deep
thinking about it, and we hope that it’s
doable. Under federal rules that exist
today, we could change the square
footage for travel trailers to 400 square
feet, but a change in federal law would be
required for fifth-wheels.”
Units exceeding 400 square feet are
considered by law to be manufactured
homes, falling under the authority and
housing regulations of the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
The proliferation of slideouts in fifthwheels makes measuring square footage
more difficult. “Because manufacturers
can install multiple slideouts, they sometimes get in trouble when they calculate
the square footage,” Farrell said.
Among manufacturers’ concerns, said
Bruce Hopkins, RVIA vice president of
standards and education, is that travel
trailers exceeding 320 square feet must
be displayed in the park-model area of
the National RV Trade Show in
Louisville and that fifth-wheels exceeding 400 square feet aren’t allowed to be
displayed at all under current RVIA
show rules. “They aren’t RVs if they are
larger than that,” Hopkins said.
In any event, Hopkins noted, the
process to change the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) standards regulating the size of travel trailers
can’t formally be completed until 2011.
There is no telling how long it would
take to pass a new federal law governing
the square footage of fifth-wheels.
The RVIA board could temporarily
adjust the travel trailer square footage,
Hopkins said. But the board motion calling for the revisions says that the changes
for travel trailers and fifth-wheels should
go into effect at the same time.
Meanwhile, RPTIA stated in a Mar. 1
release that the stable growth record of the
park trailer business has gotten the attention of national lenders, including
Minneapolis, Minn.-based U.S. Bank,
Kansas City, Mo.-based Commerce Bank
and Triad Financial Services of
Jacksonville, Fla, each of which this year is
rolling out new indirect financing programs for park trailer dealers. They join
GM Money, which has long been the only
national lender in the park trailer business.
“Indirect lending brings with it the
opportunity for younger families to own
and enjoy these delightful vacation and
seasonal dwellings with affordable rates
and extended terms built to work within
their budget,” said Garpow. 6
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TOP OF THE NEWS
will be making some immediate
investments in the property, including
[adding] lodges and recreational
amenities, to ensure that our campers
have an even more enjoyable stay at
Virginia Beach.”
Along with RV sites, the campground offers tent sites, cabins and
RV rentals. The park has two large
swimming pools and mini golf.
KOA acquired the Tower Park
Resort and Marina from Westrec, the
world’s largest marina operator. The
company had been operating the facility’s campground, called Stockton
Delta KOA, for the past year through
a lease agreement with Westrec.
Under the purchase agreement, KOA
will own both the campground and
marina, but will lease the 365-slip
marina portion back to Westrec.
The Stockton Delta KOA and the
Tower Park Marina are located on 29
acres of the total 140 acres involved in
the transaction. The campground
portion of the facility has 380 fullservice campsites, including lodges,
as well as a pavilion, swimming pool,
pet playground and outdoor movie
cinema.
In Reno, KOA will operate the
Boomtown’s RV park, located next to
Boomtown Reno and overlooking the
Truckee River. The park, with 203
full-service sites, will now be called
the Reno KOA at Boomtown.
For several years, KOA has operated
the Reno KOA adjacent to the former
Reno Hilton. That location has been
designated for an alternative use by its
new owners.
The new Reno KOA at Boomtown
will offer campers more amenities and
convenience than the former location.
The facility has its own outdoor pool
and spas, Wi-Fi access, cable TV, 24hour security and easy access from
Interstate 80. There’s also a free shuttle from the park to the casino.
“Reno has always been a fantastic
location for KOA, and there is no way
we wanted to leave the Reno market,”
said KOA President and COO Shane
Ott. “We’re thrilled that we now have
the opportunity to work with a firstclass operation such as the Boomtown
Reno.” 6
CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 108 ON READER SERVICE CARD
from page 14
MaxxFanTM Is the ONLY RV
Ventilator on the market
with a Built-In Rain Cover! AND... It’s Fully Remote Control!
Its unique patented rain shield
moves into position, protecting
your RV’s interior.
Retracts securely at the touch
of a button. Low-Profile and
aerodynamic when closed!
One Touch Does It All!
• Remote control operates all fan functions
from the palm of your hand
• Easy to use Remote Control always displays
room temperature
• No more step ladders or stretching to reach the ceiling fan
See our entire line at www.maxxair.com
MAY 2007
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.com
MAXX AIR VENT, CIRCLE 154 ON READER SERVICE CARD
KOA
User Guide
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Contents
43
4/18/07
12:07 PM
Page 44
COMBI-CAM LOCKS DRAWERS,
DOORS & MORE WITHOUT A KEY
The Combi-Cam is a secure solid-metal cam lock
that is said to offer 1,000 possible combinations. It
is handy when keys are a hassle or when frequent
lock changes are needed. It requires no expensive kits or the arduous task
of entirely taking apart the lock, replacing disks. With the lock set on the
opening combination, push in the reset button while setting the new combination. Combi-Cam Cabinet Locks, 18424 Highway 99, Lynnwood, WA 98037;
S E R V I C E S
CUT TING edge
044-RVB_0705_LO_CuttingEdg
(800) 654-1786, FAX: (206) 523-9876; www.combi-cam.com; info@combi-cam.com.
SCARE THE NIGHT AWAY
Manufacturers’ Select Hawk Scare Light by
ITC measures 6-1/2” wide and 5” high. The
depth of the clear housing tapers from 2” on
T R E N D S E T T I N G
P R O D U C T S
A N D
top to 1” at the bottom. The tapered, acrylic
44
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RVBusiness
lens design directs light down toward the camping area. The six-position bulb holders grip two
20-watt halogen bulbs which draw a total of 3.33
amps. Suggested retail price starts at $32. Manufacturers’
Select by ITC, PO Box 8338, Holland, Mich. 49422-8338;
(888) 871-8860; FAX: (616) 396-1152; www.itc-marine.com.
AQUARIUM TOILET BRIGHTENS BATHROOMS
Fish-n-Flush is a patented, clear, two-piece aquarium toilet tank that fits most two-piece toilets and cleverly
contains a fully functioning aquarium
inside. The Fish-n-Flush’s insert can be
filled with water for fish or left dry for use
as a terrarium for a pet reptile or to
house colorful plants or foliage. The 2.2gallon aquarium piece can be easily
removed for cleaning without obstructing the toilet from working. The toilet tank
itself holds 2.5 gallons, which offers sufficient head pressure to flush properly.
The power level is set at a safe 12 volts.
The Fish-n-Flush sells for $299. Aqua
One Technologies Inc., 14726 Golden
West Suite J, Westminster, CA 92683;
(714) 898-7016; www.fishnflush.com.
MAY 2007
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BUSINESS PROFILE
All The Right Connections
COLIBERT ENTERPRISES WAS FOUNDED IN 1976 AS A SMALL INSTALLATION SHOP FOR CUSTOM
HITCH RECEIVERS. TODAY, THE COMPANY MANUFACTURES ITS OWN LINE OF CLASS III AND IV
RECEIVERS AND REMOVABLE FIFTH-WHEEL HITCHES — TO THE TUNE OF $2 MILLION ANNUALLY.
J
an Colibert, president of hitch manufacturer Colibert Enterprises Inc.,
Salt Lake City, Utah, recalls when
the company consisted of her husband,
Floyd, who installed and customized
hitches in a small shop, and herself as
the receptionist and bookkeeper.
“It’s a far cry from that today,” she said
of the company that today — absent
Floyd Colibert, who died in a 2001
motorcycle accident — employs 11
workers in a 20,000-square-foot factory.
Her daughter, Jacque Colibert Clark, is
general manager and son, Greg
Colibert, is vice president in charge of
production and R&D.
Sales for 2006 were a little more than
$2 million.
Floyd and Jan Colibert started out in
1976 with an installation facility. “He
had worked as a metal worker in hitchinstallation shops,” Jan Colibert said.
“We started in a little hole-in-the-wall
doing sales and hitch- and wiring installations. Most of it was custom work.”
By 1997, Floyd Colibert had
designed an under-bed gooseneck hitch
system that could be removed from the
bed when a pickup truck wasn’t being
used for towing. With it, he decided to
change the company’s focus and
become a manufacturer and distributor
of his own products.
“My husband was the ultimate
inventor,” Jan Colibert said. “He was
a genius. Unfortunately, he had new
ideas for patents that he didn’t even tell
me about.”
The primary change in the hitch
industry since the company was founded is that almost everything today is
standardized. “When we started out as a
manufacturer,” she said, “it was pretty
much custom work for each unit. Now,
there’s a fit for everything. You just pull
it off the shelf, including the wiring
RVBusiness
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harnesses, and put it on the
vehicle. It’s so much easier
than it was 30 years ago.”
A major reason for the
company’s success, she contends, is that her husband
started on the custom-installation side of the business.
“He always looked at creating
a product from the installer’s
point of view,” Colibert said.
“What was the best, safest
and easiest way to install a
hitch. He thought about
things from the ground, up,
instead of the bumper,
back.”
The reason the
company was founded — to make
hitch receivers
for trucks —
has pretty much
disappeared.
“That industry
has really gone away due to the fact that
most of the major manufacturers now
install hitch receivers standard on their
trucks and SUVs,” Jan Colibert said.
Today, Colibert Enterprises produces
a full line of Class III and Class IV
hitch receivers, including the Free Ride
fifth-wheel hitch, Good 2 Go gooseneck system and Rail Rider fifth-wheel
hitch for shortbed pickup trucks. A key
feature of all three is that they all can be
easily removed so that the truck bed is
flat when the vehicle is not being used
for towing.
Colibert Enterprise’s factory is
equipped with a computerized plasma
table and six custom presses designed by
Floyd Colibert that cut and form the
metal used to build Colibert hitches.
Last year, Colibert Enterprises licensed
to Blue Ox a patented weight-distribu-
MAY 2007
While the company has added employees, Colibert
Enterprises remains a family affair. Jan Colibert
(center, top) serves as president, with son, Greg, as
vice president in charge of production/R&D and
daughter, Jacque, as general manager. Among the
company’s products is its Good 2 Go gooseneck
hitch, shown with different-sized adapters.
tion hitch that Colibert developed. “One
of the contributing factors was that that
was a new patent and we were just starting to try to market the product ourselves,” Colibert said. “A bigger company
with better name recognition could do a
better job marketing than we could.”
Colibert Enterprises hitches are sold
at RV dealerships and Camping World
stores, and marketed via industry trade
shows and through almost all of the
major RV industry distributors. Retail
prices range from $500 to $800. 6
— Bob Ashley
MAY 2007
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12:33 PM
Coachmen’s Lavers
Contined from page 36
RVB: You’ve reported consolidating
Coachmen’s toy hauler division, combining two
plants in Fitzgerald, Ga. How is that going?
LAVERS: I think it is working out
extremely well. Georgia before was making a selection of different products,
building things that were designed up
here (in northern Indiana) for the local
market. We took everything out of
Georgia and dedicated the whole Georgia
facility to SUTs and made SUTs their
own baby — design, sales, everything. I
think they’re (employees) excited. The
whole production crew down there is
enthusiastic about what they’re doing, and
I think the results with the Blast and the
Adrenaline and some of the sales results I
talked about speak for itself. It’s worked
out extremely well.
RVB: What price markets are you focusing
on at this point, product-wise?
LAVERS: Primarily, we are much more
focused on the entry to mid-level. The
sandbox we want to play in is there, not in
the high end or ultra-high end. We made
some mistakes in walking away from
where our strengths have been. We are
emphasizing energy efficiency, the whole
Page 46
‘green’ emphasis, not just as a marketing
gimmick, plus more use of electronics in
ways that make things more convenient
and reliable. We’re also focused on styling
— trying to get beyond the traditional
designs we see so much of today.
RVB: When you mentioned staying out of
markets that don’t play into Coachmen’s
strengths, were you talking in part about
some motorized products?
LAVERS: Mostly, yes. I’ll give you a specific example: Georgie Boy used to be
very, very strong on the entry level. Then,
it [was] decided to jump out from their
sweet spot with the Belagio [higher priced
Class A]. It was a big mistake. We need
to get Georgie Boy back to what we’re
really good at. We’re going to simplify
the Georgie Boy line to be very easy to
understand and define.
But it goes beyond Georgie Boy. We
looked at every one of our brands and
asked, “What does this brand mean?” A
lot of people say brands mean nothing in
the RV industry. They say it’s a commodity because, again, so many products look
so much the same. I don’t believe that. If
you can brand water, you can brand an
RV, and we have one of the strongest
brands in the RV industry.
RVB: You mentioned in your year-end
conference call that you were undertaking a
CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 109 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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RVBusiness
strategic sourcing program for the RV Group.
What’s that all about?
LAVERS: What most people don’t realize
is that about 75% of our product costs are
in materials, and we found that we really
weren’t doing a top-notch job in the supply-chain management of our raw materials. I’m not criticizing our purchasing
people. Our purchasing people were
negotiating and all that sort of thing, but
there is a lot more to strategic sourcing
than just negotiating the price. Part of it
is product simplification and standardization so you can buy in larger quantities
and negotiate discounts. But a lot of it is
just becoming easy to do business with.
Over a number of years, we have
become kind of rigid in our ways. It goes
back to culture change. We’ve invited our
suppliers to help us by making us easier to
do business with and, in so doing, reducing our costs and increasing our quality.
We’ve launched a major initiative in that
regard. Part of it is acquiring materials
from new sources, low-cost countries,
that sort of thing.
RVB: Low-cost countries?
LAVERS: Sure. You can get plumbing
parts from Mexico or China that meet all
our quality standards but are inexpensive.
But that’s not the major thrust. The
major thrust is eliminating the process
costs that are involved in handling our
materials, putting them into our manufacturing processes. We hired a new vice
president of strategic sourcing (Mark
Hatley). He’s jumped into it in a big way.
We’ve added some support staff for him
with people focused in acquiring certain
types of materials. It’s a major emphasis.
The other part is the design of our products and eliminating unnecessary variations which increase our costs. And, as
part of all this, we’re reducing our number
of suppliers.
RVB: You’ve already done that?
LAVERS: We’re in the process of rather
radically reducing the number of suppliers, corporatewide. Why? I’m not going
to say the particular type of item because
I don’t want to send the wrong message
to people, but, as an example, we have
one item we were supplied by more than
20 suppliers, and we have reduced that to
three. And in many cases, items were
made specifically for Coachmen, so we
ended up paying a heckuva lot for, say, a
door and storing that door and having
replacement parts for that door. It just
ripples through the whole business, and
the whole business is changed. So what
used to be an advantage became a cost
disadvantage.
RVB: Do you plan to keep a hand in the
MAY 2007
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housing business?
LAVERS: Yes, what we’re trying to do is
develop some internal synergies between
those two operations (housing and RVs).
In the past, they hadn’t been what you
would consider counter-cyclical. But they
are not on the same cycles either, so the
housing group has been able to buoy up
the RVs when RVs were down a little bit.
This is the first time in our history that
both of those markets have been down at
the same time, which makes it a little difficult. But we think there may still be
some advantages to working those two
groups more closely together, like engineering, making our products more energy efficient or using some of the electronic wizardry that is available today in the
supply-chain management area.
RVB: Then, you still view modular housing as a growth area for the company?
LAVERS: Absolutely. It’s a huge opportunity for the company. The conventional
wisdom is when the housing market reemerges from its current funk, it’s going to
be more toward multi-family houses,
more urban type things, and we’re trying
to reposition ourselves to take advantage
of that. But we also have a huge opportunity on the modular side in military construction because the Army wants to go
modular at its bases. If things go as we
think they will, we’ll probably have to add
a plant in the South.
RVB: Are you picking up Gulf Coast
reconstruction business?
LAVERS: Partly. That’s one of the drivers.
Right now, we’re shipping houses to New
Orleans from Decatur, Ind. There’s a lot
of freight charge there.
RVB: We were wondering, in closing,
whether the Corson family still exerts any
influence here at Coachmen with respect to
day-to-day operations?
LAVERS: No, there is no Corson family
member who is active on the board or in
management. I believe we still have a
young man working in our service department who does a very fine job. They are
still major shareholders who are interested
in how the company is doing and they are
available if we want to call on them. But,
basically, there’s not a significant investment of any time by the Corson family in
the management of the company … But
I’ll tell you one thing that is still very evident and that we cling to: Tom Corson
built a company that was based on some
business principles that we have no intention of changing and which we all ascribe
to. And that is: “Our word is our bond;
integrity is our commitment.” We try to
use this Golden Rule in dealing with our
customers. 6
Page 47
PUBLIC DOMAIN
BY BOB ASHLEY
On Gas Prices, Parking
Spaces, Parking Wars and
Pennsylvania Park Trailers
A
nyone who’s traveled a bit this
spring has to wonder, like I do,
about the rationale behind gas
prices. They seem to rise and fall for
no particular reason — and pricing
often seems to be arbitrary.
My evidence is anecdotal, but
nonetheless significant, I think.
When I drove to the Indianapolis
airport in mid-January to attend the
Florida RV SuperShow in Tampa, I
was surprised to see prices
as low as $1.83 per
gallon. In Tampa, however, I found prices in the
mid-$2.40s for the same
gallon’s worth of petrol.
When I returned home
to central Indiana, prices
had begun to inch up
again. They settled — for
about a week — at around
$2.20 a gallon.
At the end of February,
when I visited Freightliner Custom
Chassis Corp. in Gaffney, S.C., I
found local prices there were $2.03 a
gallon — almost 20 cents a gallon
cheaper than in Indianapolis where, 10
days later, prices had climbed to $2.53.
And as I write this during Easter
weekend, regular gasoline hovers
around $2.88 a gallon — although
three days earlier in Augusta, Ga.,
while attending the Masters golf tournament, I’d paid just $2.49.
My point here is that the RV industry seems to prosper when there is predictability in both interest rates and
gasoline prices. It’s the volatility that
makes people nervous and causes them
to postpone buying decisions until
things calm down — and if the volatility I saw this spring in gasoline prices
is a harbinger for what’s in store for
this summer, I’m less optimistic about
how the RV industry will do for the
rest of the year than I was earlier.
•
•
•
I recently pulled off Interstate 69
into the parking lot of the Indianapolis
version of a popular restaurant chain
and was pleased to see four prominent
pull-through parking places clearly
reserved for recreation vehicles. I was
somewhat chagrined, however, to see
that there was nary an RV in sight.
Instead, all the RV parking spots
were populated by cars
and trucks.
RV friendly? Indeed.
•
•
•
There are some universal truths about RVing,
extending even from the
U.S. to Great Britain
where RVing is enjoying a
boom, relatively speaking.
The Western Mail in
Wales reported recently
that parking wars have
broken out between car and caravan
owners (“caravan” is British-speak for
“motorhome”). In fact, the issue even
has reached the desk of Prime Minister
Tony Blair — where a petition has
landed to force UK communities to
provide motorhome-only spaces in
public-parking lots.
In the U.S., where homes and yards
typically are larger than in Great
Britain, disputes usually concern the
“unsightliness” of RVs parked in side
yards or on subdivision streets.
Communities from Maine to
California have imposed restrictions,
prompting many RV owners to pay to
park their units in storage lots.
In Wales, though, local councils are
under pressure from residents who say
motorhome owners should pay special
fees to park in public spaces.
The newspaper reported that 8,639
motorhomes were registered in the UK
MAY 2007
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RVBusiness
Contents
47
034-RVB_0705_LO_Coachman_Q
4/17/07
12:34 PM
Page 48
DON’T PUT YESTERDAY’S TECHNOLOGY
IN TODAY’S AVANT-GARDE RV.
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performance and value. Its advanced high-def technology delivers a
remarkably crisp, clear picture in vivid color. Samsung’s home theater
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RIVER PARK INC., CIRCLE 104 ON READER SERVICE CARD
top-of-the-line, too. Customers have
48
Go To:
come to expect our exceptional
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along with the finest electronic brands, to RV customers since 1981.
Offer your customers the best in contemporary electronics. Choose high
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RV Business Senior Editor Bob Ashley
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and a 25-year newspaper veteran. He focuses on
the RV industry and national recreation issues.
W W W.RIVERPARKINC.COM
RVBusiness
in 2006 — up dramatically from 4,477
in 1998.
•
•
•
Grow Boating Inc., the marine
industry’s version of the Go RVing
market-expansion campaign, is offering a $1,500 subsidy to dealers
who become certified by the Marine
Retailers Association of America. At
the end of 2006, 421 dealers were
enrolled in the program and 165 had
been certified.
•
•
•
The Pennsylvania Recreation Vehicle
and Camping Association (PRVCA)
recently determined that recreational
park trailers can be sited on private
land for use as vacation cabins, contrary
to the popular belief that they could be
parked only in campgrounds.
Dan Saltzgiver, a PRVCA board
member and park trailer dealer, characterized the new interpretation of the
law as “significant” with regard to the
potential of increasing park-trailer sales
in the Keystone State.
•
•
•
Seven former National Park Service
(NPS) directors have signed a letter
urging Interior Secretary Dirk
Kempthorne to continue a transition
away from snowmobile use in
Yellowstone National Park. They noted
that four NPS studies since 1998 have
been consistent in their findings that
a greater volume of snowmobile
traffic would dramatically increase
air and noise pollution and disturb
Yellowstone’s wildlife … A Go RVing
Canada tracking study found that
more than 50% of non-RV-owning
Canadians were aware of the Canadian
market-expansion program that consists of print, TV and Internet adds
that run primarily from February
through May… The not-for-profit
SUV Owners of America (SUVOA)
has created an online guide at
www.suvoa.com to help owners determine the proper towing capabilities of
their vehicles … The National
Wildlife Federation (NWF) is sponsoring the Great American Backyard
Campout June 23. As part of that
effort, an NWF website (www.back
yardcampout.org) provides recipes,
nocturnal wildlife guides and exploration activities. The NWF said 60,000
families participated last year. 6
MAY 2007
.com
User Guide
Contents
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP3.qxd
4/19/07
4:23 PM
Page 49
AIRSTREAM from page 7
CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 111 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Willys-Overland Jeep, a 1959 Volkswagen
Beetle, a 1963 Jaguar E-type Roadster, a 1990
Ferrari Formula 1 racing car 641⁄2 and a 2002
Mercedes-Benz Smart Car.
Interviewed after the ceremony, Richard
“Dicky” Riegel, group president for Thor
Industries Inc., Airstream Inc.’s parent company, noted that Airstream travel trailers are
unique within the RV industry.
“There are few products in our industry that
promote an emotional response,” Riegel told
RV Business. “Even to touch an Airstream
trailer is so different than anything else in the
RV industry — indeed, among all products in
the world.”
Among those attending the ceremony in
continued on page 52
Thor Industries executives Bob Wheeler, Wade
F. B. Thompson and Richard “Dicky” Riegel (l-r)
attended the MoMA ceremony in New York City.
Dometic Corporation is continually committed to maintaining a
high level of satisfaction and excellence now and in the future.
That is why Dometic is voluntarily recalling certain refrigerators
that may have a potential safety defect. The recall affects
Dometic two-door refrigerators manufactured between April
1997 and May 2003.
The well-being of Dometic customers is of highest concern.
A serious problem resulting in a fire may occur in an
exceptionally small fraction of Dometic two-door refrigerators,
but to address that potential risk, please contact us
immediately for more information.
1-888-446-5157
www.DometicUSA.com
RECALL O6E-076
MAY 2007
Go To:
.com
User Guide
RVBusiness
Contents
49
050-RVB_0705_LO_Ad Index
4/19/07
4:08 PM
ADVERTISERS’ INDEX
RS# Advertiser
105
116
103
106
107
108
109
111
110
113
121
112
117
115
141
Page 50
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION on products and services advertised in this issue, circle the number on
the attached Reader Service card corresponding to the number of the company that interests you, and mail.
Pg.#
Allison Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Aon Recreation Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
B W Trailer Hitches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Camco, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56-57
Coach Glass Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Country Coach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
DTI RV Parts & Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Dometic Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Firestone Industrial Products Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Flight Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Freightliner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
GE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
GE Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
RS# Advertiser
163
135
148
154
152
114
126
118
102
104
167
170
169
119
153
132
169
Pg.#
Girard Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
KeyCorp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
MBA Insurance, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Maxx Air Vent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Maxxis International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Monaco Coach Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .CV2
National Starch Panel Construction . . . . . . . . . . .42
Onan Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Pennsylvania RV and Camping Association . . . . .51
RV Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
River Park Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
S&S Mobility Products, LLC (DBA Coach Lift) .54
Sunbrella Brand Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Systems 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
TrailManor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Transfer Flow Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Wachovia Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Zurich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
While every effort is made to maintain accuracy and completeness, last-minute changes may occasionally result in omissions or errors.
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50
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RVBUSINESS ◆ MAY 2007
.com
User Guide
Contents
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:51 PM
Page 51
TOP OF THE NEWS
MONACO
ufacturers have formed alliances and have
worked together for years. As long as the
joint venture can produce the best diesel
chassis in the business, it would be to others’ (motorhome manufacturers’) advantage to use it over a Freightliner or Spartan
chassis.”
Monaco already used Workhorse Wseries gas as well as Ford chassis in its
gas-powered Class A motorhomes.
Because of a general sluggishness in the
Class A motorhome market in the last couple of years, however, Monaco had excess
capacity at diesel-chassis factories in
Indiana and Oregon.
“It’s mostly about the efficient use of
resources,” Olson said. “This is the way
things are going.”
Toolson said the joint venture will benefit
from International’s purchasing power and
that the arrangement particularly will help in
developing chassis under new EPA rules that
will go into effect in 2010 and 2012. “There
is a lot of engineering time, and to do it as a
smaller chassis manufacturer is difficult,”
Toolson said.''
The Elkhart plant, with about 125 people
operating three production lines — two for
from page 12
of Monaco's board — announced in January
that they had formed a new company called
Custom Chassis Products LLC (CCP) that
would lease Monaco’s 210,000-square-foot
Roadmaster chassis plant. The facility,
known as Plant 50 and located on Ind. 19
on Elkhart’s south side, will manufacture
both Roadmaster and Workhorse R-series
chassis.
A Roadmaster factory in Oregon will continue to build only Roadmaster chassis
under contract to CCP. International owns
51% of CCP, while Monaco owns 49%.
Monaco Chairman and CEO Kay Toolson
said the company has “no plans at this time”
to sell the Roadmaster chassis to other
motorhome manufacturers. He acknowledged that some motorhome builders may
consider the Workhorse diesel chassis being
produced by a company owned in part by a
motorhome manufacturer as doing business
with a competitor.
“There always is some of that thrown out
as criticism,” Toolson said. “But auto man-
the Roadmaster and one for the R-series —
will be under the supervision of General
Manager Terry Wells, a former Monaco
employee. A five-member board will oversee
the operation.
CCP expects to build about 5,000 chassis the first year, with a little more than half
going to Monaco for its Monaco, Holiday
Rambler, Beaver and Safari motorized
lineups.
Previously Workhorse R-series chassis
had been manufactured by Autocar LLC,
Hagerstown, Ind., a subsidiary of
Workhorse’s previous owner, Grand Vehicle
Works (GVW) Holding Corp., which sold
Workhorse to International in 2005.
Workhorse introduced the R-series chassis in 2002, but so far only one manufacturer — Gulf Stream Coach Corp., Nappanee,
Ind. — has built motorhomes on the
28,000-32,000 GVWR platform. “We have
been less than successful in that area,” said
Olson. “It’s a disappointment for us.
“Obviously, our goal is to significantly
increase our quantities of the R-series chassis coming out of that facility. There are
through-put advantages, design advantages
and supplier advantages.” 6
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PENNSYLVANIA RV & CAMPING, CIRCLE 102 ON READER SERVICE CARD
MAY 2007
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:31 PM
Page 52
TOP OF THE NEWS
CAMCO, INC., CIRCLE 110 ON READER SERVICE CARD
AIRSTREAM from page 49
MAXXIS INTERNATIONAL, CIRCLE 152 ON READER SERVICE CARD
http://www.
rvbusiness.com/
GLB/trx.cfm?d=T|
116|1345|1|{pID}|
52
Go To:
RVBusiness
MoMA’s six-floor, 630,000-square-foot museum
on West 53rd Street in mid-town Manhattan were
Thor Chairman Wade F.B. Thompson; Airstream
President Bob Wheeler; all but one member of
Thor’s board of directors; J Mays, Ford Motor
Co. group vice president for design; Helmut
Weiser, Alcoa group president; noted artist Vija
Celmins; and a number of prominent New York
galley owners.
In the last decade, Airstream has raised the bar
in terms of design as the company’s travel trailer
line has evolved.
The company hired noted designer and architect Christopher C. Deam to create a modern
interior for one of its models that became
Airstream’s best seller. Also, Jackson Center,
Ohio-based Airstream partnered with Nissan
Design America to create a diminutive BaseCamp
sport utility travel trailer (SURV) that recently
went into production. And in January, Ford Motor
Co. debuted a capsule-shaped, hybrid-fuel concept vehicle stylized with Airstream’s assistance.
Riegel said Thor is proud Airstream was chosen to represent an aspect of American culture.
“MoMA is the Pantheon,” Riegel said. “And that's
not just for people who pay attention to design or
to art. It’s really the Pantheon of culture because
[it features] the most important examples of the
most influential modern artists, designers and
architects.”
He credited Airstream founder Wally Byam for
establishing Airstream’s uniqueness from the
beginning. “All you have need to do is look back
at 76 years of Airstream’s history and acknowledge that the same basic design tenants that
Wally Byam used in his first trailers continue
today [using] the same materials and the same
basic construction method,” Riegel said.
The New York Times marked the debut of the
MoMA Airstream exhibit with a mid-April feature
article on Airstream’s origins and its history,
including notable occasions that included
Airstream trailers being used by NASA to quarantine astronauts returning from the moon and in
February by Vice President Dick Cheney as a
command center in the belly of a C-17 cargo
plane when Cheney made a trip to Asia.
“On The Road: Airstream Bambi Travel Trailer,”
including photographs and posters, will be displayed in the museum’s main lobby through Nov.
12, after which the trailer will be moved to a display gallery. 6 — Bob Ashley
Airstream Safari Bambi
MAY 2007
.com
User Guide
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4/19/07
Winter Texans
1:32 PM
from page 7
subject to taxation as real property. The 70
participants got no resolution of their decadeold complaint. Richard S. Talbert, the appraisal
district’s long-time attorney, said that the time
for protest was in May or June when Winter
Texans have headed back north. He suggested
hiring an agent and the proper forms were
distributed.
Talbert also stressed that resolution of the
Winter Texans’ beef would come only with the
outcome of lawsuits now inching through
Hall of Fame
Page 53
courts in Hidalgo and Cameron counties that
will most certainly end in the Texas Supreme
Court in the far-distant future. “When that case
is resolved,” Garza said, “we will get a court
order saying ‘strike all those from the rolls’ and
the first thing (we) will do is strike them all from
the rolls.”
The lawsuits, brought mostly by Winter
Texans, plead for exemption from property
taxes for RVs that are not “substantially affixed”
to their sites.
Specifically, the audience objected to taxation as real property of recreational park trailers that are rolled into an RV park and
frequently outfitted with porches, decks,
awnings and skirts. Despite such modifications, the RVers claimed their park models
could be made mobile in an hour and thus
don’t fit the “substantially affixed” requirement
of Texas law to be taxed as real property.
One protester brought large dramatic pictures
of park model RVs being prepared for moving
and actually being moved.
Said Karen Rankin of Iowa, “We pay almost
$300 in property tax on a park model that sits
on rented property. And we already paid about
$1,000 in Texas sales taxes. That sure doesn’t
seem fair to me.” 6
from page 10
historian David Woodworth’s 1,800piece collection of antiques and camping memorabilia. A separate hall now
houses the foundation’s own collection
of about two dozen RVs with historical significance.
“The purpose for the ‘soft opening’
was to allow visitors to come through
and begin to see any areas that
need to be revamped in preparation
for the grand opening,” said B.J.
Thompson, president of B.J.
Thompson Associates, Mishawaka,
Ind., the Go RVing Coalition’s liaison to the foundation.
The foundation’s staff in December
moved into the building, which also
houses a library and meeting room.
The hall of fame/museum previously was located in downtown Elkhart.
In part because of the museum’s
prominent location and a tie-in to the
Indiana Department of Tourism, visitation is expected to increase to about
30,000 annually. 6
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Exhibits at the new Hall capture
the history of RVing in America.
MAY 2007
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53
SUNBRELLA BRAND FABRICS, CIRCLE 170 ON READER SERVICE CARD
007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
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GOOD SAM from page 8
Gonser, chairman of RVOAC. “As the
council said in its report, it's as if RVers
were saying ‘build it right’ and if you don't,
get it fixed the first time. And if you fail on
the first two, I want lemon-law protection.”
S&S MOBILITY PRODUCTS, LLC (DBA COACH LIFT), CIRCLE 167 ON READER SERVICE CARD
SYSTEMS 2000, CIRCLE 169 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Gonser added, "RVers would not be at
all surprised at the high rankings of these
three items. The real surprise is that RV
owners now have a forum through the
Good Sam Club to express their concerns,
and potentially have them represented
in meaningful discussions with industry
Page 54
leaders. RVOAC members intend to use
the survey as a means to bring constructive focus on the issues pertaining to RV
quality and service.”
Gonser, a retired attorney and former
executive director of the American Bar
Association who founded the popular
website www.rversonline.org, chairs the
council. Other members include: Jan
McNeil, a retired realtor and full-time RVer;
Leo Everitt, a former executive with engine
builder Cummins Inc. and RV maker FMC;
and Bill Estes, who recently retired as
group publisher of Trailer Life, MotorHome
and RVBusiness magazines. 6
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54
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SURVEYS
from page 8
The following offers a market share rundown among the top 10 manufacturers in
the motorized, towable and recreational
park trailer arenas.
Motorhomes
The top 10 motorhome OEMs for 2006
was comprised of essentially the same
players as the previous year, led by
Winnebago Industries Inc. with a 19%
share of the market. The only shift was
Jayco Inc. replacing Newmar Corp. for the
No. 10 ranking. But three manufacturers
showed significant market-share gains.
High-end Class A builder Tiffin Motor
Homes Inc. registered a 32.9% market
share increase to capture 5.1% of the overall market and swap spots with National
RV Inc. to assume the No. 7 position.
Forest River Inc. moved from No. 7 to No.
6 while posting a 22.6% gain in market
share and Thor Industries Inc. moved
from No. 4 to the No. 3 slot with a 12.5%
increase. Monaco Coach Corp. and
Coachmen Industries Inc. both experienced double-digit market share declines,
which Walworth said could be attributed
to tightness in the diesel market.
Towables
Benefiting from acquisitions and riding
a wave in the toy-hauler market, Weekend
Warrior Trailers Inc. posted a 19.2% market share increase, claiming 3.1% of the
overall market while jumping from No. 9
to No. 6. Like the motorhome market, the
towable top 10 featured the same companies as 2005. “The top OEMs in terms of
market share have remained pretty consistent in the past several years,” Walworth
said. The top two towable builders again
accounted for the bulk of market share.
Thor remained perched atop the pack with
a healthy 29% share of the market while
Forest River owned a 16.1% share.
Companies incurring double-digit drops
in market share were No. 3 Fleetwood
(-14.6%), No. 7 Coachmen (-27.4%) and
No. 10 Skyline Corp. (-13.1%).
Park Trailers
The top three park-model builders captured more than half of the sector’s overall
market share despite showing declines
from 2005. Thor, primarily through
its Damon Motor Coach subsidiary’s
Breckenridge division, was No. 1 with a
22.5% share of the market followed by
Skyline (15.2%) and Chariot Eagle Inc.
(11.2%). Cavco Industries Inc., a major
manufactured home builder, remained at
No. 4 but showed a 19.3% jump in market
share and owned 8.3% of the overall market. Woodland Park moved from No. 9 to
No. 6, registering a 40.5% market share
increase to capture 4.3% of the overall
market. Athens Park Homes cracked the
top 10 at No. 7 with 3.6%. 6
MAY 2007
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TOP OF THE NEWS
OPINION
RETAIL TRENDS
from page 12
The RV business is an American
icon — invented here and built here
with ideas and many decades of sweat
and passion. To allow the Chinese to
ship product into the United States
and steal this industry away from us
is crazy.
The ‘invasion’ has already started.
I-Camp trailers from China were
shown last year in the parking lot of a
hotel outside the RVIA’s National
RV Trade Show in Louisville, Ky.
They are not RVIA members and
did not pay to exhibit. Rather, they
leeched off the industry. They also
ship units directly via container to
dealership lots, where dealers unload
them instead of using haulers to
transport them.
We are fairly experienced in
exporting campers to other countries.
Twenty five percent of our business is
overseas, and our largest account is in
Australia. Last year, there were no
Chinese companies marketing RVs in
Australia: This year, there are nine.
We had one [dealer] with I-Camp in
the U.S. last year. Next year you can
count on many more.
No American company is afraid of
competition or quality competition.
But to [compete with] dollar-a-day
worker’s pay along with [virtually]
non-existent tariffs to bring units
into U.S. is unfair.
Imagine a product that is [built and]
sold for $10,000 in the United States.
That same product can be copied in
China, then shipped and sold here for
$6,000. How long do you think
American companies will last?
We are lambs grazing in a field
without a care, while the wolves are
circulating around us ready to wipe us
out.
Please join me in this in the cause
to expand awareness among the
American people and government
officials. It is the single-largest
hurdle that this business has faced in
its history. 6
Rex C. Willett is vice president of Cedar
Falls, Iowa-based R.C. Willett Co. Inc.
manufacturer of Northstar Campers.
February ’07: Inventories Up Across the Board;
Small Dealerships Report Large Sales Gains
This is the financial report for the 2-month period ending February 28, 2007. While inancial results represent only a small portion of the year, they may reveal early trends worth watching. All dealership sizes
reported increases in new-unit inventory levels, but only the $1 million-to-$5 million segment noted an
upswing in new-unit sales. However, that same group reported total dealership gross margins below
last year, with a two-month net loss almost 25% greater than the net loss experienced in the first two
months of ’06. Larger dealerships also reported net losses for the period, of smaller increments.
$1 Million to $5 Million Dealers
FEBRUARY YTD
New RV Sales
Used RV Sales
Total Dealership Sales
2007 AVERAGE DEALER
$208,176
$44,886
$331,681
14.8%
16.3%
2006 AVERAGE DEALER
$177,999
$54,821
$314,652
13.3%
30.1%
.com
17.0%
-18.1%
5.4%
GROSS MARGINS
Total Company GM
$88,961
GM %
26.8%
$89,414
GM %
28.4%
-1.6 pts.
Expenses
Personnel Expense
Advertising Expense
Total Expenses
$76,979
$14,912
$149,105
% GM
86.5%
16.8%
167.6%
$71,757
$13,295
$138,120
% GM
80.3%
14.9%
154.5%
6.2 pts.
1.9 pts.
13.1 pts.
Net Profit/Loss
Net Profit % of Sales
($60,144)
(18.1%)
(54.5%)
23.5%
(67.6%)
($48,706)
(15.5%)
$5 Million to $10 Million Dealers
FEBRUARY YTD
2007 AVERAGE DEALER
14.0%
20.7%
2006 AVERAGE DEALER
$437,369
$134,236
$736,859
GROSS MARGINS
Total Company GM
$192,514
GM %
26.1%
$192,512
GM %
25.9%
0.2 pts.
Expenses
Personnel Expense
Advertising Expense
Total Expenses
$118,664
$18,422
$238,011
% GM
61.6%
9.6%
123.6%
$113,741
$19,201
$232,167
% GM
59.1%
10.0%
120.6%
2.5 pts.
-0.4 pts.
3.0 pts.
Net Profit/Loss
Net Profit % of Sales
($45,497)
(6.2%)
(20.6%)
14.7%
(23.6%)
$447,412
$135,073
$742,035
($39,655)
(5.3%)
13.6%
20.8%
CHANGE
New RV Sales
Used RV Sales
Total Dealership Sales
-2.2%
-0.6%
-0.7%
$10 Million and Higher Dealers
FEBRUARY YTD
New RV Sales
Used RV Sales
Total Dealership Sales
2007 AVERAGE DEALER
$1,487,879
$465,767
$2,425,277
13.5%
17.9%
2006 AVERAGE DEALER
$1,512,931
$449,014
$2,395,516
13.5%
19.0%
CHANGE
-1.7%
3.7%
1.2%
GROSS MARGINS
Total Company GM
$559,968
GM %
23.1%
$551,909
GM %
23.0%
0.1 pts
Expenses
Personnel Expense
Advertising Expense
Total Expenses
$305,120
$47,428
$579,953
% GM
54.5%
8.5%
103.6%
$288,512
$47,537
$549,303
% GM
52.3%
8.6%
99.5%
2.2 pts.
-0.1 pts.
4.1 pts.
Net Profit/Loss
Net Profit % of Sales
($19,985)
(0.8%)
0.5%
-866.8%
(3.6%)
$2,606
0.1%
MAY 2007
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056-RVB CLASS 2007-MAY
4/17/07
12:31 PM
Page 56
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
ACCESSORIES
WINEGARD SATELLITE DISHES
AND ANTENNAS
Authorized Winegard Distributor
Established 1967
800-527-4662 • Huntington, WV
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
$ BUSINESS OPORTUNITY $
El Monte RV is expanding its Dealer Rental
Network across the U.S.A. With 46 present
locations, it will expand to 90 in ’07. El Monte
RV supplies the motorhomes, reservations, and
necessary training and software. For additional
information, please call “Dealer Program” at
(800) 367-4707 or visit our website at
www.elmonterv.com and click on the “Contact
Us” link and select “New Dealer Inquiries”.
BUSINESSES FOR SALE
SO. FLORIDA RV S/P/S. Been in bus 25 yrs
& wife wants to retire. Fantastic opportunity
to live, work, & fish in paradise. 300' on hwy,
paint booth, RV lift, 2 acres, 5 work bays, and
a 2-story sales, parts & service bldg. This is an
opportunity for you to walk into a business
& make money now! Reply: RVB-765, PO Box
8510, Ventura, CA 93002-9912. Email:
Classifieds@TL.com, with subject RVB.
RV SALES & SERVICE. Past 5 years grossed
$728,582. Priced to sell at $49,000 + inventory.
Long lease avail on 3 bay shop, parts & sales.
Now is the time to buy while inventory is low.
jomarrv@juno.com or (386) 985-4968.
CONSULTANT/TRAINING
JOHN MANCINELLI
35 year RV industry veteran
Consultant – to all RV retail segments
Trainer – 2 1/2 day sales training workshop
johnmancinelli@insightbb.com
270-793-0509
OPERATING/CASH BUDGETS/
RESULTS ANALYSIS
Do you have Meaningful Budgets?
Do you Forecast Operating & Capital Cash
Flows & Needs? Credit Lines Adequate?
Hardee McAlhaney, RV Solutions, LLC
30 Years CFO Experience
Hmcalhaney@cfl.rr.com • 321-689-9238
DEALERSHIPS FOR SALE
RV DEALER FOR SALE!
Great Gulf Coast Location.
Gross revenue $3 Million, Cash flow $240,000.
Seller Financing.
800-816-6064
©
HELP WANTED
ONE OF THE MIDWEST’S LARGEST
and most progressive thinking RV Dealers is
looking to take its Parts Department to the next
level. Good qualified staff is already in place, all
they need is you to guide them. If you are a
successful RV Parts Manager who wants to be
recognized for his/her accomplishments, this is
an opportunity for you. If you possess strong
Marketing, Personnel Motivation, and
Inventory skills, we should talk. Send resumé
to Bill Petty, Howard RV Supercenter,
PO Box 510265, Oakville, MO 63151.
NATIONAL ADVERTISING SALES
Dominion Enterprises, the leading US photo
guide/classified publisher, seeks an individual to
sell and manage national advertising accounts
for RVTraderOnline.com. Qualifications:
proven track record exceeding sales goals &
developing new business. Excellent computer,
as well as oral & written communication
skills. Strong understanding of the Internet
and advertising. Respond with ad code
KA-RVTOL, including resumé & salary history
to: RVTraderOnline.com, Attn: KA Manager,
150 Granby St., Norfolk, VA 23510. Or email
chris.cook@dominionenterprises.com, Fax
(866) 703-4084. (No calls.)
EOE, Drug Testing Employer
CLASSIFIEDS
Use this form or your own stationery to submit your ad copy!
Classified Ads — Priced at $16 per line, 40 characters and spaces per line, five-line minimum.
Ad closing for the July issue is May 8. This issue reaches subscribers June 29.
GENERAL INFO: Blind Box service is available at an additional cost of $15. Allow one line of billable space for Blind Box address.
For ad with photo, limited to RVs and real estate, please add $30. • For your ad to appear in red type add $25.
All classifieds are prepaid by check, credit card or money order. No agency commissions or cash discounts.
Name:
Address:
Phone/Fax:
Credit Card Number:
Run for
Expiration:
issues
Category:
Signature:
Mail to RV BUSINESS Classifieds, P.O. Box 8510, Ventura, CA 93002-9912, or Fax to (805) 667-4379, Attn: Classified Ads Department
56
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007-RVB_0705_LO_TOP
4/19/07
1:33 PM
Page 57
TOP OF THE NEWS
EXPERIENCED RV LOT SALESPERSON
needed immediately for Five-Star Motorcoach
Resort in Pahrump, NV, located in the vicinity
of Las Vegas. Contact Natalie at
nataliev@lvcm.com
REAL ESTATE
EXCELLENT RV DEALERSHIP LOCATION—Near Camping World on IH-35, New
Braunfels, TX. Up to 16 acres w/Hwy frontage.
All utilities available ••• Contact Tim Cronin
830-608-5436 or email tim@timcronin.com
RECREATIONAL VEHICLES
WANTED
$ WE BUY $ MOTORHOMES
CLEAN—LOW MILES—NO SMOKE/PET
CASH Payment & NATIONWIDE Pick Up
Contact Bill Fishfader @ 1-509-993-0321
RVs NORTHWEST • SPOKANE, WA
PACKRAT STORAGE — Consigns, Buys RVs
Class A, B, C Motorhomes
Not Picky! Cash for Referrals.
Nationwide Pickup. 1-877-520-MINI
www.packratsa.com
RV PARTS
FLEETWOOD PARTS DEALER
Fast Service, Knowledgeable
Discontinued Parts, FDN System
Major Damage Repairs, We Buy Wrecks
1-800-720-0484 • www.rvpartstore.com
www.WINNEBAGOPARTS.com
Parts for all WINNEBAGO/ITASCA products
including Renault/LeSharo. For personal
service at fair prices, call 800-933-7742
(641-896-2222 non USA) 8-5 Central M-F
Parts are our ONLY business
Coachmen Wholesale Parts Depot
An Authorized Coachmen Parts Distributor.
Call us for all your Coachmen Sportscoach
Shasta needs. Courteous, experienced staff.
Wholesale Pricing. Same Day Service. 8-5 EST
(866) 412-7936 www.coachmenparts.com
SERVICE TRAINING
INCREASE PROFIT for your service department! Have your people certified as MASTER
RV TECHNICIANS. Call (941) 722-5256.
RV SERVICE ACADEMY in Palmetto,
Florida. www.rvsa.net
Licensed and approved for VA training
WARRANTY
COLLECTION
ARE YOU BEING PAID
for all the warranty work
your service department is doing?
If not, call (614) 440-2014
BRIEFS from page 18
2006 it sold 6,875 new and pre-owned
RVs in the retail market.
Lazydays Profits Shrink. Lazydays
RV Center Inc., the nation’s largest single-site RV dealership, reported a net
loss for its fourth quarter, contributing to
a decline in net income for the year. The
Seffner, Fla.-based dealership reported a
fourth-quarter loss of $864,900 on sales
of $170.5 million, down from $185.4 million a year earlier. For the full year, net
income totaled $1.8 million compared
to $4.06 million the year prior, while revenues dipped to $757.3 million from
$804.2 million. Lazydays reported that in
’06 Conversion Shell Shipments
Down. Although wholesale shipments
of inter-city motorcoaches increased
15.7% in 2006, deliveries of conversion
bus shells used to build luxury Class A
motorhomes
and
other
vehicles
fell 11.8% to 281 units, according to
National Bus Trader magazine. Motorcoach shell shipments for 2006 totaled
2,381 units, an increase of 332 compared
to 2005, the vast majority of them
equipped with seats for use by bus lines
and tour companies. 6
PATRICK IND.
from page 12
revenue in 2006, has three facilities in
Elkhart as well as manufacturing facilities in eight other states.
Patrick said the acquisition will be
funded through “both debt and equity
financing, which will be structured to
provide additional liquidity to facilitate
the combined companies’ future
growth plans and working capital
needs.”
Financing will include the purchase
of 980,000 shares of Patrick stock by
Tontine Capital Partners LP, currently
TRANSPORT
from page 10
created in the province in the last decade,
according to the Alberta Department of
Economic Development.
The demand for RVs in Alberta is spread
among residential housing, work use and
traditional recreation, according to Daryl
Dnistransky, a salesman with Leisureland
Camper Village Ltd. in Grand Prairie. He said
some of the units are going to the gas-andoil industry for housing into areas such as
Fort McMurray, six hours northeast of his
city. However, units for year-round use must
be built for temperatures that reach minus
40˚C., he noted, which rules out most of the
towable units built in the states.
Goodwin said U.S.R.V. Transport used to
employ some Canadian drivers for deliveries
but dropped the policy several years ago.
It’s necessary to revive it, he said, because
of the shortage of U.S. drivers plus the frequency of Canadian authorities denying
entry to some of his drivers. He’s had 50 of
his drivers denied access to Canada already
this year.
He estimated that one in 10 U.S. delivery
people “get turned back at the border
a significant shareholder.
“Adorn’s products provide a strong
complement to our existing product lines,
while broadening our reach in the industrial sectors,” said Paul Hassler, president
and CEO of Patrick Industries.
With Patrick Industries reporting
2006 revenue of $348 million, the combined entities together account for
approximately $588 million in total
revenue.
Todd Cleveland, president and CEO of
Adorn, noted, “I am truly excited about
the new opportunities the combination
will provide for our valued customers,
team members and suppliers.” 6
because they have an infraction that prevents them from going in.”
Right now the company uses 125
American drivers to deliver the RVs to dealerships in Alberta cities such as Calgary,
Red Deer, Edmonton and Grande Prairie,
Goodwin said.
He identified OEMs such as Keystone RV
Co., Gulf Stream Coach Inc., Adventure RV
Manufacturing, Heartland RV LLC and Forest
River Inc. as the leading U.S. firms sending
RVs to Canada. “All of these companies are
doing a huge Canadian business,” he said.
“Our industry is alive and it is well.”
Most of these firms are based in Indiana’s
Elkhar t County where, according to
Goodwin, an estimated 6,500 drivers for a
variety of transport firms are based.
Goodwin hopes to hire 200 Alberta-based
drivers who would make the long trek to
Wakarusa to pick up the RVs and tow them
back to Canada, usually over four to five
days, Goodwin said. The trip pays about
$1,800 U.S., expenses included. Some drivers, after their initial orientation, may be sent
to Oregon to relieve that depot’s backlog,
too, Goodwin said.
If he gets enough drivers, he’ll integrate
them into deliveries for the rest of Canada as
well, he added. — Steve Bibler
MAY 2007
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57
Calendar
058-RVB_0705_LO_Calendar
4/18/07
6:50 PM
Page 58
OF EVENTS
MAY 1-3
ARVC’s National Issues Conference
Cherry Hill Park
College Park, Md.
(703) 241-8801; www.arvc.org
MAY 2-6
Puyallup Home & RV Show
Western Washington Fairgrounds
Puyallup, Wash.
(425) 277-8132; www.mhrvshows.com
MAY 17-20
Spring Mall RV Show
West Palm Beach Mall
West Palm Beach, Fla.
(813) 741-0488; www.frvta.org
JUNE 2007
JUNE 1-3
Tampa RV Super Show
Tampa Fairgrounds
Tampa, Fla.
(941) 827-7144; www.rvexpo.net
SEPT. 13-16
Atlanta Camping & RV Fall Show
Atlanta Expo Center South
Atlanta, Ga.
(770) 447-3334; www.atlantarvshow.com
SEPT. 27-30
Indianapolis Fall Boat & RV Show
Indiana State Fairgrounds - West Pavilion
Indianapolis, Ind.
(765) 641-7712; www.renfroproductions.com
JULY 2007
SEPT. 13-16
Fall RV & Outdoor Recreation Show
Qwest Field & Event Center
Seattle, Wash.
(425) 277-8132; www.mhrvshows.com
SEPT. 28-30
RV Marketplace
Rockland Community College Field House
Suffern, N.Y.
(845) 343-2772; www.rocklandexpo.com
SEPT. 14-16
2007 Fall RV & Boat Sale
Kansas Speedway
Kansas City, Kan.
(816) 931-4686; www.fallrvandboatsale.com
SEPT. 28-30
New York State RV Show
New York State Fairgrounds
Syracuse, N.Y.
(800) 542-6017; www.eastcoastshows.com
SEPT. 20-23
Mid-America Spectacular Show & Sale
Fort Worth Convention Center
Fort Worth, Texas
(817) 335-1211; www.ftworthrvshow.com
SEPT. 29-OCT. 7
Salon Des Vehicules De Loisirs Leisure
Vehicles Exhibition
Parc des Expositions de Paris - Le Bourget
93350 Le Bourget, France
(33)0143378661;
www.salon-vehicules-loisirs.com
JULY 7-14
North American Truck Camper Rally & Show
Lake Ogallala State Park
Ogallala, Neb.
(604) 575-0911; truckcampershow.com
AUGUST 2007
AUG. 13-16
FMCA’s 78th International Convention
Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center
Redmond, Ore.
(513) 74-3622; www.fmca.com
AUG. 15-19
Lake County RV & Camper Show
Lake County Fairgrounds
Grayslake, Ill.
(847) 934-8300; www.lakecountyrvshow.com
AUG. 24-26
Georgia RV & Camper Show
North Atlanta Trade Center
(770) 279-9899;
www.northatlantatradecenter.com
SEPT. 8-9
Vermont Fall RV Show
Champlain Valley Expo
Essex Junction, Vt.
(800) 542-6017; www.eastcoastshows.com
SEPT. 10-16
PA RV & Camping Show
Hershey Park Entertainment Complex
(888) 303-2887; www.largestRVshow.com
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RVBusiness
OCTOBER 2007
SEPT. 25-28
RV Dealers International Convention
Expo, featuring the RV Learning Center
Rio All-Suite Casino Resort Hotel
Las Vegas, Nev.
SEPTEMBER 2007
58
SEPT. 23-24
RVIA Board Meeting
Venetian Hotel
Las Vegas, Nev.
OCT. 3-7
Detroit Camper & RV Show
Rock Financial Showplace
Novi, Mich.
(517) 349-8881; www.marvac.org
SEPT. 27-30
Southwest RV SuperShow
Dallas Market Hall, Dallas, Texas
(512) 327-4514; www.trva.org
OCT. 11-14
Fall RV Show & Closeout Sale
Oklahoma State Fairgrounds
Oklahoma City, Okla.
(405) 376-3897
SEPT. 27-30
2007 Fall RV Show
Cal Expo, California State Fairgrounds
Sacramento, Calif.
(800) 782-7469; www.rvshow.com
OCT. 12-21
55th Annual California RV Show
Fairplex
Pomona, Calif.
(951) 274-0696; www.carvshow.com
MAY 2007
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059-RVB05 PG 59 TRAILMANOR
4/16/07
10:00 PM
Page 59
“Instead of looking for customers,
what if they found you?”
We have a terrific product.
A great marketing team.
And over 1 million names of current RV buyers on our
mailing lists.
See why dealers can sell over 1 million dollars a year,
at some of the highest margins in the industry.
The New TrailManor. It’s something to see.
For your dealer pack and DVD, call 1-800-707-7061
www.trailmanor.com
T h e Tr a v e l Tr a i l e r T h a t To w s L i k e A P o p - U p
TRAILMANOR, CIRCLE 119 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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004-RVB05 PG CV4 GE COMMER
4/16/07
9:59 PM
Page CV4
Driving Growth
Our goal is to help drive growth for your dealership, no matter what the
future may look like. At GE, we’ll tailor financing programs so you can
maximize cash flow, stock more units and increase your sales.
Our financing solutions include:
> inventory financing > consumer financing > business credit cards
> equipment financing > real estate financing
To find out how to offer consumer financing, please call 866-838-0654.
To learn more about our inventory and other financing programs, call us
today at (800) 289-4488 or visit us online at www.ge.com/cdf.
Proud Supporters of
GE, CIRCLE 115 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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