Hi Dan:

Enjoyed your editorial in the July issue of RV NEWS. Your assessment of AGI is dead on. How many times have we seen outsiders enter our industry and underestimate the players? Clearly this occurred with Recreation USA which has done an unbelievable job at destroying a once profitable and great corporation.

Our very best wishes to you and your team. We are enjoying the beginning of our 4th year in retirement. We still enjoy following our beloved industry via your great publication.

Newt and Joanne Kindlund
Founders of Holiday RV Superstores, Inc.

Greetings Al,

I have just read with interest your great article on the 'history of the travel trailer in the US', courtesy of the rv-news.com website.

We publish a small quarterly motorhome, caravan & camping magazine here in New Zealand and I was wondering, as an interest article for our readers, if I could have your permission to reprint it here. In addition, would you have any accompanying images you could e-mail to include with the article? I'm sure our readers would find it a fascinating read.

Look forward to your reply.

Richard Pooley
Editor
New Zealand MCC Magazine
Whangarei New Zealand

Bob,

I wanted to thank you for writing the June 2002 Cover Story (A Tough Act to Follow: Fowler after Fowler) about DTI and Jess Fowler in particular. Your article accurately portrayed DTI and the successes and challenges Jess is facing currently and in the years to come. He has had some pretty big shoes to fill and it is nice to see people take notice that he is doing so very successfully.

Trey Miller
VP Sales & Marketing
DTI
Middlebury, Indiana

Bob,

Please allow me to introduce myself....I am very interested in opening a full service RV dealership in my area. I currently am principal in a successful sales & marketing organization for the office interiors industry. I recently have purchased an RV and really enjoy the RV lifestyle.

I truly believe that the sales and marketing models are changing for the RV distributor. Most of the facilities I visited were dated and the personnel was either untrained or had the personality of a used car salesman. This was probably the largest dealership in my area but they could care less what I did after I signed the contract.

I believe I can create an environment that will cater to the younger buyers and older alike. I know how to run a business but I really do not have much experience when it come to launching an RV dealership. I have some cool ideas that will create an enjoyable atmosphere, but I really need some guidance on inventories. I have an idea on which mfg's I want to market. I am wondering if the mfg's models are changing. Do we really need to stock 100 units? I believe I can create an environment where you display only a few units and most purchases are ordered per the clients specification.

I would like to talk to you and discuss other ideas. I am not just interested in moving inventories, but linking the mfg to the client and the client to cool vacation spots.

Please let me know if we can discuss.

Mike Denney

Bye Bye RV’s
"The ‘circle’ is going to kill our lifestyle."

All of us who have RV’s have for many years faced a myriad of regulations and restrictions implemented by communities that restricted or caused us much concern imposed by individuals who either didn’t understand our lifestyle or sought to restrict it! Nothing proposed or implemented will be as permanent and devastating to our lifestyle as the European round-a-bouts being constructed all over the Unites States, mostly at this stage in residential areas, but spreading out to commuter areas very rapidly.

Most round-a-bouts are too small to navigate around counter clockwise for even a small RV and even round-a-bouts 50 feet plus in diameter such as at Frisco off I-70 west of Denver can barely accommodate a legal length 65’ vehicle combination and only then if multiple vehicles are not in the pattern when you are.

The time is already here when without prior warning you’re at a round-a-bout you cannot maneuver around such as in the northeast Albuquerque area of our town. All lots in this area are one acre plus sites with horses and RVs allowed. Five round-a-bouts installed have left some property owners with RVs and horse trailers (the very reason these large home sites were purchased) where they cannot maneuver around these "speed control devices". In some instances a truck and horse trailer can make an illegal left turn against the round-about flow but not a large rig that needs room to swing.

In our area, school buses are running over the curb height wall that forms the round-a-bout, damaging tires and jeopardizing the safety of the kids in the vehicle. These are incidents documented in the 51% responses to a mailing on round-a-bouts in our area. All but five of the 223 mailing responses were against rounda- bouts, but getting the County to remove them is a long ongoing process – it’s much easier to prevent than remove what’s done. In many cases, like Frisco, Colorado, the wall height is several feet high so running over the round-a-bout perimeter in not an option.

The round-a-bouts will never be anything but a serious, to non-negotiable, obstacle for America’s larger vehicles and certainly to all of us in the RV lifestyle. We need to call our planning departments, city and county officials and make our concerns known. I believe those who are promoting round-abouts have found a way to gradually choke our lifestyle and they will be successful unless we stop it now! 

James H. Paxton
President, CEO
American RV & Marine
Albuquerque, New Mexico