ED'S REPORT:
I spent the afternoon looking up the state of the RV industry on the web and am astounded at my findings. Monaco, which makes Monaco brand RV's, Holiday Rambler (the brand of our RV), Safari, and Beaver, is out of business. Elkhart, Indiana has the highest unemployment rate in the country - one of the 2 cities that President Obama visited recently - because most RV manufacturers are situated there and a lot of them have gone out of business. It looks like Winnebago can hang on for a while. Fleetwood shares closed on the NYSE at 16 cents a share and will probably be out of business before the end of the year. So it appears that the RV industry will virtually be gone by the end of 2009.
Obviously, if the companies are out of business, anyone who owns one of the brands involved, which is most of them, will be unable to get parts. We need several parts for our damaged RV and a local dealership told us that parts are no longer available. Now we have the challenge, as will all RVers, to find workarounds.
1 comment:
Your research is very interesting. I wonder what will people do when they want to travel for an extended period without "roughing it"--surely there will be another option besides hotels, resorts, or timeshares? Not everyone can afford those. As you said, existing RVs will continue to need replacement parts and service.
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