Hot News Out of Prevost Car

[Just Plain Jeff]

Apparently, Prevost has determined that they are a 'little late,' in the slide business and now believe that they are losing ground to SOB multi-slide coaches.

So here is what is in the works:

1. They are going to offer a Certified Prevost Owner's warranty (CPO). The CPO will give converters the chance to run a coach through a Prevost facility, giving buyers a 6-month warranty on the chassis, and possibly a 5-year warranty on engine and transmission.

2. They plan to offer a triple-slide VIP coach with deliveries around October 2007.

3. Prevost is going to try to offer a Super Slide coach in January of 2006.

4. They are considering a 4-slide coach, but have concerns about the extra weight that such coaches would be carrying, so that model is not yet ready to get off the drawing boards.

5. The CPO program will have a Gold Level so that owners can pass along the remainder of the warranty to a buyer.

As POG members, you paid a little extra to get the inside story on what is happening in the business.

All this information is from Prevost Car to their converters, and is subject to a whole lot of changes before it is publicly announced.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I'm going to guess you did not mean January 2006 for the super slide. Maybe 2008.

This has the potential to be huge for all future coach purchasers. From my limited perspective a private sale will be for much less than a converter sale because the converter will stand behind the coach and now with the CPO Prevost is also standing behind it.

Will the spread between a private seller's price and a converter's price increase? That remains to be seen, but I can see Prevost treating coach owners without a warranty as second class citizens or extracting large amounts of Lewbucks from them.

The slide issue is another interesting announcement. It drives down the street value of older coaches without slides even more, but it also drives down the value of "old" coaches with only a single slide. But Prevost is entering shark infested waters. Will the announced changes chill the market of new coaches because the buyers of new coaches do not want one that will be old news in a year? If the slide shells start to have problems will the buyers get so mad that the plywood palaces which are eating Prevost's lunch right now draw even more potential Prevost buyers?

What about the price issue? There is a very limited market now for $1.5M coaches. Will the new ones with more slides or bigger slides get so expensive that market dries up?

To be continued........