This past week, RV Lifestyle took a really good look at the perception of RVs and RVing by many local officials, and it really hit home with me. I’ve been following this for some time, and Mike’s take couldn’t be more aligned with what I’ve seen. And we have a chance to make things better. 

What’s happening is that, with the growing number of homeless people living in what’s left of RVs, they become a visual focal point but also a brand for the RV life in general. If you’re driving down the street and see these RVs surrounded by trash, your immediate reaction is not a positive one. 

If you happen to be a legislator who knows that a clean-looking community means greater tax revenue, you’re going to sway toward limiting the chance of derelict RVs taking over your city in any way possible. These trashy RVs may be the only exposure you have to the RV lifestyle.

Difficulty getting permits for new campgrounds

So, when someone wants to build a new campground in a community, many of these legislators harken back to those RVs they saw on the streets and do a lot to prevent new RV parks from being built. Many of these people only associate RVing with these trashy rigs and work against prospective new campgrounds. 

Further, many local jurisdictions just don’t have legislation on the books to even accommodate a campground. We have spoken to a few people facing this kind of legislative barrier when working to open a campground, and it can mean that new campgrounds are few and far between. Just getting permits to open a campground sometimes is a huge challenge, as there is no provision for a campground on a community’s books. 

Further, by making new campgrounds more difficult to permit, people will buy the old ones and seek to increase revenue to make them worth buying, so all our camping costs go up. Another way this is affecting us all is that campground prices are rising, as Russ and Tiña detail here. 

Work with legislators regarding RV lifestyle

The point in all this is that, if you know of someone who is working to build a new campground or even upgrade one, perhaps be part of the solution and work with your local legislators to let them know that the majority of us RVers aren’t living in squalor. It’s a beautiful way to see this incredible country. 

More and more jurisdictions are cracking down with limits on overnight parking, restrictions on parking for more than one night, limitations on the size of vehicles that can be parked on the street, and more.

Unfortunately, this will spill over and also begin making it more difficult for services like Harvest Hosts, Cracker Barrel, and Walmart to enable overnight parking. So, my advice is to keep an ear to the ground in your community and show how awesome the RV lifestyle truly is. 

Thor is cell dividing

The world’s largest RV company, THOR, announced that it is reorganizing into two larger groups as well as a couple of smaller groups. This is a significant departure from how they have operated in the past. 

Basically, THOR has been more like a holding company where each individual brand is almost completely autonomous, so it has been able to manage its business like a smaller company. Things like floor plans, design, components chosen, processes, and so much more can be wildly different from one THOR division to the next. Incidentally, Forest River works the same way. 

Consider that THOR owns companies like KZ RV, Airstream, Keystone, and Jayco. This decentralized structure has worked pretty well, allowing the individual brands to compete with one another and capture a market segment to the best of their abilities. 

Basically, THOR is going to reorganize into two big companies and two little ones. Sorta.  We reported on that here. There was also more information about the restructuring of THOR in RV Business.

Change in sales landscape at THOR

Essentially, THOR said a change in the sales landscape was part of the decision. Yeah, they’re not kidding. 

Smaller dealerships are going away, and there are more big chains—most notably Camping World, but don’t discount Blue Compass, Camper’s Inn, and Bish’s. As small dealers disappear, there isn’t the need to have so doggone many sticker variations on the same product. 

Now, an RV manufacturer will guarantee a certain geographic territory to a dealership. This is why you have RV twins where the exact same RV is built with two different names. You may have a local dealership with a guaranteed territory under one brand name, but another dealership can essentially sell the same product with different stickers within your territory. 

But with these big chains swallowing the little dealerships, you don’t need this kind of nonsense. So THOR can consolidate brands, reduce staff, and basically simplify production. It makes sense. 

The announcement included the fact that Airstream and KZ RV were going to remain independent, which just boggled my mind. Yeah, I get Airstream. But who the heck is buying KZ RV products?

Sooo many brands of RVs 

Let’s face it: There are so, so, so many brands of RVs that it would make sense to just eliminate the similar names and then automate some of the production of the more popular brands.

As someone who grew up around manufacturing, sort of, watching RVs being built was a shock to me. Even in the 1970s and ‘80s, the company my dad worked for had a good degree of automation, and the floors of the plant were clean. 

Last week, we covered the fact that Leigh Tiffin left the business with his family name on the door, and more details have come out about that. But seeing how the management of this new THOR is working, I think he made a good decision. 

Actually, a consolidation and simplification could be a good thing. It remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a reflection of how RVs are being sold nowadays. 

Imagine each of these smaller brands has a design team, a warranty team, warehousing, marketing, and on and on. By consolidating things, you can simplify a lot of processes, which means costs go down. But you could also see things improving. 

Warranties

For example, what if they choose to consolidate warranty claims and use a more automated process to handle warranties? Theoretically, this could mean better/faster warranty claims service for you. 

When I was handling warranties, we had both THOR and Forest River brands. Keystone, in particular, had a streamlined and well-designed system for handling warranties. But that was unique. I’m eager to see how this reorganization plays out, and I’ll keep my ear to the ground. As always, I appreciate your input. 

There is a lot of speculation about what the THOR brand means, but here’s the real deal. THOR Industries, Inc. was founded on August 29, 1980, when Wade Thompson and Peter Busch Orthwein acquired Airstream from Beatrice Foods. The name “THOR” combined the first two letters of each entrepreneur’s name—THompson and ORthwein.

Airstream had not fared well during the economic downturn of the late 1970s, losing $12 million the year before it was acquired. Thompson and Orthwein had also previously acquired the Hi-Lo Trailer Company.

Oh, one more thing. That photo I used as the featured image for this article of the vintage Aristocrat—that was actually a trailer I owned and was hoping to fully restore. It currently is restored and lives to camp again, but I didn’t finish the process—a good friend did. Scroll back up and take a look. 

Read all recent RV and RV-related news here. 

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