Thor Forums

[Chance]

Originally Posted by dstankov

Having spent a few years in Europe on a couple of different tours I will tell you that one reason for the smaller motor homes in Europe is due to the high cost of fuel and the limited size of secondary roads. Most roads are narrower and some within villages are more like cobblestone sidewalks rather than roads. My family, on my mother's side, still resides in Germany and you could not get a Ford F250 crew cab dually around some of those roads without doing numerous 3 point turns just to get around curves.

The motorhome manufacturers in the states do market research as does the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (a trade group for RV manufacturers and dealers. The manufacturers are not going to open a production line on a model that only promises to sell 3 or 5 units nationwide. That is the reason why the custom RV industry is relatively large over here they make a fortune on meeting the demands of the onesy twosy market.

Have you checked with the European manufacturers to see if they can build one to US safety specs and then ship it to the states? More than likely their market research is telling them their units won't sell on this side of the pond.

Hymer is very large in Europe, if not largest, and is expanding into US. Their first and only offering at this time that I'm aware of is a Class B based on ProMaster. They call it the Grand Canyon I think.

A couple of years ago I saw a compact Hymer Class A at the Grand Canyon North Rim exit filling up. I liked it's size a lot. It was similar to one pictured below.

I would not consider ordering anything special. That goes against my KISS policy about most anything, but specially RVs. I enjoy traveling and camping, not working on stuff that is any more complicated than necessary, or that I can't find parts for, etc.

Regarding marketing research, I don't doubt they do it, but I'm not sure how they analyze the data to see new or changing opportunities. Until recently there were no compact Axis/Vegas for a generation or two, yet they seem to be successful. Who's to say that slightly smaller or simpler versions wouldn't find their niche also?

I know most people want big, spacious RVs with many slides. There is no doubt about that. But if some, say 10 percent of buyers, are interested in something simpler, or smaller, easier to drive, cheaper, more environmentally friendly, or whatever, why ignore that market?