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.
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Tony, as an avid RV enthusiast and even with my extreme biases, I think the unflattering perceptions of RV’s will not just endure but grow exponentially.
Ask yourself this question (and be honest with yourself}: Where do old RV’s go to die?
Do the majority get dutifully recycled once the tags come off or do they get repurposed into unsightly sheds, hazardous habitat for the destitute or abandoned for others to deal with?
I’m not referring to the aged but rather the old; The RV’s that aren’t destroyed by fire, flood, tornados or overpasses but rather, simply used up.
That’s the reality that deflection won’t cure but legislation will try. I don’t have the answer.
Those that don’t end up in bone yards, ultimately get shredded and mostly end up placed in construction material landfills. However, as pointed out, they may go through a destitution phase before that ignoble end.
Maybe in urban areas shredding happens, in rural areas they just clutter the landscape for decades.
I just saw a post on Falsebook where someone towed a damaged trailer to a Walmart parking lot, unhooked it and just left it.
Unfortunately tired RVs have almost no scrap value and no value commensurate with disassembling them and getting the more valuable materials out.
We have a bunch of different problems going on here and I, too, don’t know what the solution is.
Sad isn’t it? All the same, I found your article informative and thought provoking so please keep up the good work.
Texas is obviously more friendly to RV parks than many states. That doesn’t mean it is easy to get through bureaucracy speed bumps to open a new park. We leave a largish RV (soon to be replaced by a park model) year-round at a gated 55+ long-stay park. The park’s contract portion regarding 55+ and long-stay reads like a municipal ordinance. And having spent a couple decades volunteering for a small town zoning commission, I am pretty sure an ordinance was the model for the contract language. And it is all in an attempt to prevent this park from becoming the stereotypical trash mobile home park.
Pretty interesting stuff going on at Thor. The automotive industry has been migrating to fewer platforms on a global scale for quite a while now. Scale gives them (and the consumer) better pricing on parts, but the other side of that coin is massive recalls when one of those common parts goes bad. I guess time will tell how it plays out with RVs, but great insight. Thanks!
Yup – fewer nameplates just simplifies manufacturing. Just ask anyone with a Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, Mercury, DeSoto, Edsel or any of the other nameplates that are now just in the history books. Hopefully the RV industry will make fewer brands/nameplates and then choose to use more modern building practices in the nameplates that persist.
I feel you are overly optimistic about Thor’s reorganization. Any move they make is about more money for them, not better product or service. Historical fact. RVs, by and large, are junk, and will continue to be as long as they are being bought by the public. Given, the public has little choice if they want to RV.
As an owner of a vintage class-a, my family has run into both those who admire our classic coach, and can’t believe she is 30 years old. However, we have also had the door of our rv banged on with furious people who say get. out of here.
The worst was a woman who assumed we were homeless, and scared my (then) 11 year old. What I wish legislators (both local city, and state) would understand, rv owners, and those who appreciate the rv lifestyle truly are your brothers, neighbor and community builders. Not homeless, not unhoused, we are families, couples who enjoy a different form of travel and vacationing.
I agree we need fewer models of RVs, built better. I don’t think this reorganization is going to take us there.
Interesting that you mention they gobbled up Hi-Lo, only to kill it. So now you cannot buy that type of trailer in today’s market. Maybe Thor should have grown their own brands organically instead of becoming too big, too fast, and now having to scramble to save profits.
Actually there is TrailManor and they do a good job.
But THOR also bought Livin’ Lite which made outstanding all-aluminum trailers only to kill them off too, but not before ruining them by using wood cabinets and such.
Some of us, RVers that are on the street that don’t leave trash around and pick up after ourselves are being lumped in with those who have no respect for the community and have been put in the same category.
I work a full time job and have been trying to save up to leave my RV life and become a person of my community, but with the rise of shutting down everyone who lives in an RV, it is making it harder. The costs of moving every week and upkeep on my vehicle to pull my trailer is getting harder and harder.
My wife and I, have tried the whole shelter bit, and got screwed because we are not addicts or alcoholics. We try to live a calm and peaceful life. Just trying to make ends meet.
Furthermore, as we are trying to be upstanding citizens of our wonderful community, we are having difficulty with getting into a park, let alone finding one. If there is a call to make more parks that would be a godsend.
It would help clear some of these RVers to go respectable and teach them how to live.
With the rising decline, I fear more and more will be put out on the street and never call a place home.
Then how will cities be able to clear up the homeless and house everybody? Will there be a call to action over this or a drive to further shove down those who are trying to rise up?
I would really like to know. Please give me your opinion and time.
I wish you the best, Tim, and sincerely appreciate your weighing in here. People living in RVs and being productive members of the community have been part of the American landscape since after WWII.
But as RV parks become more and more expensive I see your dilemma becoming more common. I think this is what the story was all about – we absolutely need more RV parks that are affordable without offering a bunch of amenities that many won’t take advantage of.
I hope you choose to speak to the decision makers in your community to help both yourself and others like you and I know there are plenty of people with similar circumstances.
“THOR has been more like a holding company where each individual brand is almost completely autonomous”. Oh give me a break. Pun intended.