Vantare/Featherlite Scuttlebutt

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Originally Posted by Joe Cannarozzi

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Are there any other converters out there who could jusifiaby be compared, or is it just, THE BIG TWO?

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Joe, you and others make some excellent points. Having said that, will Liberty and Marathon, The Big Two as you refer to them, keep raising their prices again and again? Liberty, IMO, already asks inflated prices for their coaches vying on the fact that the service end and support are there to help you forever and ever amen. For folks that feel they have to have this, that is an excellent choice for them. For others who work on their own coach, have a good team of support businesses locally, how important is spending that extra 100K?

Personally, I am waiting to see what becomes of all this with Featherlite/Vantare. If they take their service and sales people from across the country and set them up and train the new folks then who's to say this will be a big negative factor? It may open up more convenient service and support across the country. (I can see Jon groaning and calling me a pollyana:-) As far as lowering the value, maybe the new coaches are already over valued? As with any market, sometimes a big change needs to happen to bring pricing back into reality. It happens in the horse industry all the time. If anyone remembers what happened with the syndicated Arabian horses in the 80's they will know what I mean.

We have owned two Vantare conversions and have enjoyed both of them. One was an H3 the other that is for sale is an XLI. Both were very well constructed, have nice floor plans and design, and any support we ever needed from Vantare we received prompty and effectively. I am just waiting to see how it all plays out before claiming the sky is falling. It may very well fall, who knows? It also may end up not being that big of a deal.......

Debi

Deb

You ever heard of or seen another Hickox other than ours?

Me neither.

We resemble my remarks quite a bit.

Our converter along with a long list of others including Angola and Royal just to name a couple put together a great product and now because of that have greater value in the hands of someone who has the ability to own and service one without that extra support.

As for there price differences who's to say? I think the market will dictate that. Hasn't it been posted here before that it should be a 10 or 15% discount for a bus from a defunct converter?

Combine that with the premium for a purchase of one from the big 2 and that could reflect as much as a 25% difference between the two products. Many of the off brand converters used ALL the same components and the quality of construction was also very comparable.

IMO ours, now 22yrs old, will be around just as long as any current new, non-Prevost camper as well as many Liberty and Marathons of the same vintage.

I'm knocking none, just trying to add to the discussion. For us if money were not so much a factor I'd be looking at Thompsons and Marathons, polar opposites:confused:

As for Vantari/Featherlite I do not think they should be placed in the defunct catigory when they are still in buisness and there are a whole bunch of new Featherlight owners that just took advantage of some really great prices.

Scuttlebutt Update:

It seems that the culmination of the Featherlite deal with Camping World was to have happened on January 15, with a kick-out date of January 17, 2008. From the grapevine only--it seems that Camping World has had a change of heart and has decided not to proceed with the arrangement.

You'll have to make 2 stops; one for a coach and another for the Japanese awning lanterns.

Let's look for updates as they occur.

Paulette and I were at Featherlite/Vantare in Sanford last week and talked to a salesman for about an hour. He made a coulpe points about recent developments. He said Featherlite/Vantare had sold several new coaches for less than $1m, because they had an abundance in inventory and having an "Inventory Reduction Sale" made good business sense.

He made a point of the fact that although scuttlebutt was that Featherlite would now be selling million dollar coaches on the same lot with horse trailers, this was not a fact. They would be completely separate divisions. I will admit that I didn't see any horse trailers on the lot.

When I mentioned the fact that many customers prefer Liberty and Marathon because of the level of "Customer Service" and trained technicians, he indicated that they are fully aware of this issue. He said they had just hired two of Liberty's best technicians, and one of their top priorities will be to train and staff all locations with professional technicians and sales personnel.

Of course, I agree that he would have been a nut to say negative things, but I'm just passing on what I was told. Time will tell.

As a side note, I was at Marathon in Florida also, and I made a genereal statement about the beautiful paint jobs on the Country Coaches. The salesman said they realized that CC had some of the best paint schemes, and they have recently hired CC's lady paint designer to head Marathon's paint division.

I am on my way to Sanford, FL right now (actually in Brunswick, GA right now). I have a service appointment at Featherlite Monday morning. I guess i will get the scope then. When i talked to the service manager in early January to schedule the appointment he had no clue what to expect by the end of the month as far as any changes with the management of the Sanford facility.

There were two Marathons (1-H3-45, 1-XLII), and two Featherlites (1-H3-45, 1-XLII) at Barett-Jackson. I toured all 4 Buses and spoke to the salesman for both. Marathon salesman was very cordial and eager to sale me a Coach. The Featherlite Sales people were vertically challenged and incapable of putting a handful of words together. Both had sales prices of around 1.6 mil. posted.

Any news on Featherlite and the deal with Camping World?

I just got back from FL on Saturday. We had a weeks worth of work done on the coach. The service was excellent and they took care of a couple items that should have worked when we bought the coach at no cost even though it was an as is sale. I did ask my service rep what was going on with Camping World and he said he unfortunately had no idea which he did not think was a good thing. He said they are all set up to become Freedom RV employees but as of now they are still getting paid by Featherlite. He said the switch was to be Jan 1st then got moved to Jan 15th and still nothing yet. The service bays were all full and there were about 10 coaches camping at the dealership on there way back from the Tampa show.

On RVONLINE a new Featherlite H3 is now $999,000.Does this mean that there is a change in their marketing plan?

That coach has been on their lot for a long time. What I dont understand is that Featherlite has Robin McCracken listing these but appartently cant keep up with what has been listed. For example the bus on RVonline right now that says SOLD for 975K has been listed and relisted and relisted and after awhile marked SOLD. Then as we roll by we would see the coach for sale on the lot. Remember the 2.5 million dollar bus? I saw many times over the internet that the bus sold but it could be found on their lot still for sale. Now I am not speaking as of right now, but I can say within the last year they plastered over the internet a bus was SOLD when it was not. I think the strategy is to get people talking and show that they are moving units when they may not be. Again I cant say for a fact about anything current but I can speak of what I saw in the last 12 months. I think they think people will forget what is listed but I have found the RV world of buyers to have good memories.