By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
modendahl@etruth.com
NAPPANEE -- Newmar Corp. is remaining silent about media reports that the recreational vehicle maker is planning to shut down operations for a week some time in March.
"We are not confirming and we have no comment," said Holly Nunemaker, Newmar spokeswoman.
The RV industry has been watching shipments slump and production slow in recent months. Rising fuel prices, high interest rates and concern about the national economy are often cited as reasons that consumers are deciding to hang onto their money rather than buying a motorhome or towable RV.
No one is predicting a quick recovery. Richard Curtin, director of surveys of consumers at the University of Michigan, is forecasting a downturn that will last through 2008 and into 2009, according to a report by RVBusiness.
Curtin is expecting wholesale shipments of RVs to decline 13.8 percent in 2008 from 2007, nearly three times greater than the 4.8 percent decline predicted by Richard Coon, president of Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.
The contraction in the RV industry is particularly hurtful to motorhomes. Shipments of motorhomes in 2006 tumbled 9 percent below 2005 totals and in 2007 slipped 0.9 percent below 2006 figures, according to the RVIA. In January 2008, motorhomes suffered a jolt as shipments fell 21.4 percent below January 2007 results.
Jerry Miller, salesman at Coplen Coleman Center in Fort Wayne, has seen motorhome sales sagging for the past seven years. While customers coming onto the lot used to buy the motorhome they liked, they now ask questions about gas mileage, taxes and warranty.
Smaller, lighter towables are selling but the heavier travel trailers and fifth wheels that require bigger pickup trucks to haul them are not selling as well. And motorhomes, Miller said, "are dead in the water."
The drop-off in demand for its high-end diesel luxury motorhomes forced Fleetwood Enterprises, headquartered in California, to stop production for two weeks earlier this year at its plants in Decatur, Ind. Company officials hoped the move would avoid a layoff, said Heather Everett, spokeswoman, but in late February 195 workers were dismissed.
In Elkhart County, Monaco Coach Corp. and Travel Supreme have laid off employees in 2008 and Newmar let go about 100 production workers in January. A call to Forest River Inc., another maker of motorhomes, was not returned Thursday.
Still, the news is not all grim. Fleetwood did post a 26 percent increase in overall sales of motorhomes in 2007 and, if the market rebounds, it wants to hire back the furloughed workers, Everett said.
Coachmen Industries, targeting consumers weary of gasoline prices, has started production of its Prism Class C motorhome, which gets 17 to 19 miles per gallon, compared with the typical Class C which averages about 10 mpg.
Dealers responded well when the new unit was unveiled at the 2007 National RV Trade Show, said Bill Martin, spokesman for Coachmen. The company hopes to have the motorhomes on dealers' lots within the next couple of months.
At Chariot, a small manufacturer of motorhomes, workers have not been laid off and production has not been cut, according to Denny Peterson, vice president of sales and marketing, who explained the company runs lean and does not have a lot of fat.
"Our market has been pretty steady," he said. "We're not seeing any real surge but we don't see any drop-off either."