Posts Tagged ‘RV industry’

Prior to the recession, Winnebago Industries and the current Monaco RV were giants among motorhome manufacturers. But high fuel prices followed by the crash of the housing market left the entire motorized segment of the RV industry — including Winnebago and Monaco — stalled on the side of the road.

At the 49th Annual National RV Trade Show, both companies have been showcasing their plans for re-establishing themselves in the market. They are confident the recreational vehicles they have on display will resonate with retail customers and create new jobs in their Elkhart County, Ind., factories.

New Towable Line for Winnebago

Winnebago has chosen to return to producing towables after a 30-year absence while Monaco is drawing upon the components and expertise available from its new owner, Navistar International Corp.

While standing in the new Winnebago brand travel trailer, Fred Hershberger, national sales manager, expressed his company’s self-assurance.

“If you can dream it, you can build it,” he said. “We can do anything we want to do.”

New Winnebago Travel Trailers & Fifth Wheels

Innovation, Quality & Customer Service Focus for Monaco

Since the summer of 2009, when Monaco Coach Corp. was bought out of bankruptcy by Navistar and renamed Monaco RV, production has returned to the once-closed plant in Wakarusa, Ind. This summer, the Indiana operation was given a boost when Navistar announced it was consolidating motorhome production from Oregon to Wakarusa and creating about 400 new jobs.

Although it is a smaller company trying to regain market share, Monaco has the advantage of the Navistar name and experience, Crews said. Monaco motorhomes, in particular, are built with a Navistar engine on a Roadmaster (a Navistar subsidiary) chassis.

“We are the only manufacturer in the world that builds the engine, the chassis and the house,” Crews said. “We’re not a house builder. We’re a motorhome builder.”

To grow, the company has chosen to focus on innovation, customer service and quality, Crews said. Customers have a “Lexus mentality,” meaning they want the RVs to function properly, which makes quality especially important.

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According to press reports, the Super Committee is eyeing elimination of the second home mortgage interest deduction as part of a package of spending cuts and tax increases aimed at closing the federal budget gap. RVs qualify for a second home mortgage interest deduction because they are a very popular weekend and vacation “home” for middle class Americans, according to a news release. The second home mortgage interest deduction serves as a powerful incentive for consumers to purchase RVs.

To preserve this important industry sales tool, the RV industry has launched a Congressional e-mail campaign aimed at preserving the deduction. With the deadline for the Super Committee looming, the industry only has this week to influence the U.S. Congress.

In order to expedite and simplify the RV industry’s communication with Congress, RVIA is urging industry members and RV owners to visit RVACT at www.rvact.com which contains all the tools needed to let members of Congress know their feelings about any effort to repeal the second home mortgage deduction as it applies to RVs.

Available at the site are a letter for generally interested parties, a letter for dealers, and a letter for suppliers and manufacturers to send to Congress. All of the letters are completely customizable so that interested parties can add specific information and views on the proposal. By entering their name and address, the site will automatically match the individual with their Senators and Congressman and have an email sent to their office.

Once the Super Committee makes its recommendations there is likely to be an up or down vote on the package, so it is seen as critical that any views for input be made before the Super Committee’s deadline.

The recreational vehicle industry and the housing market traveled much of the same road during the last decade.

And when the housing market crashed, the RV industry suffered a similar fate.

Now the RV business model has changed dramatically: Much like the housing market, bigger no longer is necessarily better.

Bus-like gas and diesel motorhomes — many carrying six-figure price tags — dominated dealer inventory five or six years ago. Today, north state lots are full of fifth-wheels and travel trailers.

“The mix for big dealers used to be 70 percent of sales would be motorhomes. . . . Now it’s 30 percent motorhomes and 70 percent fifth-wheel and travel trailers,” said Wayne Barnes, owner of B&B RV Center in Anderson, California.

Not only do the smaller RVs cost a fraction of a new motorhome, but there can be a savings in gas to pull a trailer.

“There was a time that if we saw one tent trailer a month, that was a lot. Now we have two or three tent trailers coming in to be repaired,” said Tom Williams, who has owned Northern Trailer & RV Supply in Redding since 1974.

While the RV industry is still down from its peak in the middle of last decade, sales have started to rebound.

The RV Dealers Association expects 260,200 units to be shipped in 2011, a 7 percent increase over 2010, but down from the 390,500 motorhomes and travel trailers that were shipped in 2006.

“It has become more of a motorized towable industry,” RV Dealers Association spokesman Phil Ingrassia said. “It used to be that between 20 and 25 percent of RV shipments were motorhomes. Now it’s less than 10 percent.”

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