Well, the first full day of activities has now concluded here at the RVIA show and Linda and I are worn out from walking and talking. We are somewhat overwhelmed with the size of the show and amazed that this show is less than half the normal size. I told Linda there is no way we will be able to see and absorb all that is here.
Today started out at 6:30 AM with the opening breakfast and associated ceremonies including entertainment and several speeches by industry dignitaries including Jim Sheldon RVIA Chairman, pictured below:
Chairman Jim Sheldon
This activity was very upbeat and positive, with information about the current state of the RV industry and predictions regarding future sales. I will be devoting more time to the opening activities in a later post.
The show actually opened at 9am, following the breakfast and we began to explore the many RVs and vendor booths at the show. There were three events scheduled for this day that we didn’t want to miss. First one was at 11am where the new Fleetwood RV was to unveil their first new product, a “crossover” motorhome known as the Encounter. Here is a brief video of the Encounter.
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This RV was introduced by John Draheim COO of Fleetwood RV, and then a tour followed. I will have more on this RV in a later column.
Next we visited the Tiffin area to see Bob Tiffin unveil his “BIG” surprise. This was certainly the most clever event we will see at this show. Tiffin had the new RV covered in a large black veil which revealed only the bottom of the MANY tires on the RV. We could tell there were at least 4 and maybe as many as 6 axles on this behemoth. When the veil was dropped, what we saw was a smaller version of the Allegro, known as the Breeze. Here is a brief video of the unveiling of the Breeze.
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The final major event we attended on Tuesday was the unveiling of the new Spartan chassis shown below:
spartan chassis
It was a long day and we believe we made a lot of progress in gathering information you all may find useful. We will be posting a lot more information in the next several days.
We have one more day left to interview and mine for answers so if anyone has questions, please let us know.
Larry and Linda