Grand Design to Unveil Solitude at Tampa Show

Fledgling towable manufacturer Grand Design RV Co., Middlebury, Ind., will debut its first model — the 38-foot triple-slide Solitude fifth-wheel — at the 28th Annual Florida RV SuperShow next week at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa.

An industry preview of some 1,100 units will be Tuesday (Jan. 15) followed by a five-day retail show sponsored by the Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA).

The Solitude, retailing in the low- to high-$60,000s, depending on equipment, is a product of a new company launched by former Thor executives Don Clark, and co-owner brothers Ron and Bill Fenech, respectively the former president of Thor Industries Inc., and Thor Motor Coach.

Two Grand Design Solitude fifth-wheels will be on display in Louisville with the company expecting ”to start shipping in earnest in February,” Grand Design President Clark told RVBUSINESS.com.

The high-profile, extended-stay Solitude features high-gloss beige fiberglass sidewalls with a painted brown front cap and is equipped with 7-foot-tall slideouts. ”The floorplan has a very spacious feel,” Clark said.

Solitude features include a large amount of pass-through storage with slam-latch doors, hydraulic 6-point leveling system, frameless windows, LED puck lighting throughout, solid-surface countertops, two recliner sofas and a 40-inch HD TV sitting atop a radius fireplace.

Two other floorplans will be available by late February, Clark reported.

Also at the Florida SuperShow for the first time: Germany-based HYMER AG, Europe’s largest RV manufacturer, will display its European-built product as it gauges the North American market. Additionally at the show, Ohio-based startup Advanced RV will display its first Class B motorhome, Ocean One, as will Augusta RV, a new company that opened last year in Bristol, Ind., which will exhibit its Flex-brand travel trailer and fifth-wheel series for the first time.

Dealers Warm to Grand Design RV Game Plan

Grand Design, a 7-week-old RV company, has been well-received by dealers at the National RV Trade Show in Louisville, Ky.

Grand Design was created by Don Clark and Bill and Ron Fenech, RV industry veterans who created Keystone RV Co. and rocketed to the top of the RV industry with that company before selling it to Thor Industries Inc. The three then held leadership positions with Thor, before leaving those behind in the past year, The Goshen (Ind.) News reported.

“I think it’s great,” said Jim “Dandy” Cooley, president of Dandy RV Superstore in Anniston, Ala.

Cooley and a couple hundred other dealers and RV industry people attended a breakfast Wednesday morning sponsored by Grand Design. At the breakfast the three founders outlined their plans for the new company, and Cooley liked what he heard and from whom he heard it.

“The Fenech boys and Clark are the same kind of human beings,” Cooley said. “They are incredibly high-quality people who separate themselves from the crowd. I am going to be their very first dealer.”

What the trio said was that Grand Design will be located in the former Four Seasons Housing industrial complex on C.R. 2 north of Middlebury. There the company is building a prototype extended-stay fifth-wheel. They expect to begin producing and delivering one unit per day in January.

Prior to the breakfast, the Grand Design team, which includes the founders and Marc Houser, general manager, and Jerry McCarthy, vice president of service operations, spent Monday and Tuesday at a small table on the trade show floor meeting and greeting dealers and old friends in the industry. They drew a constant crowd.

“The whole industry is abuzz about what we are doing,” Clark said during a short break from his meet-and-greet duties. “Everyone is rooting for us.”

At the breakfast the founders outlined how their creative business plan used to move Keystone to the top tier of RV companies will be discarded in this new venture. At Keystone they created “competitive cells” within the company, where one trailer line was competing against others in the company. When Thor purchased Keystone, that model was adopted by other Thor companies, according to Clark, and those companies also grew.

“In a blink of an eye we were a very large, huge corporation,” Clark said of Thor.

But the Keystone founders didn’t want to be in a large company and one by one decided to leave.

Now the model for their new company will be to create products for six segments of the RV market, starting with the “Solitude” fifth-wheel. From there, they will add a mid-size travel trailer and fifth-wheel later in 2013 and then maybe a toy hauler late in the year. But each segment will have just one product under the same Grand Design name.

“We are not going to have sisters or clones,” Clark said.

The new fifth-wheel will have a wide, 101-inch body, a 7,000-pound capacity axle, 40-inch slideouts and three 20-pound LP gas bottles that can be changed out for full ones at gas stations.

No Cut-Rate Internet Pricing

The company will also try to address one gripe common among RV dealers — cut-rate pricing on the Internet from a few dealers.

Bill Fenech said the company will enforce minimum pricing standards so Internet pricing wars don’t break out. And some Internet RV dealers won’t be asked to sell the company’s products.

“We are not going to do business with them,” Bill Fenech said, which drew loud applause from the dealers present.

He said dealers do have to have a strong Internet presence because consumers are doing research on the Internet before going to a dealer to shop. But, he said, a line has to be drawn for online discounts.

“We are going to stay away from that class of dealer that is causing problems,” Bill said.

Nationwide Service Policy

The founders also floated an idea about service that causes RV owners to grumble — the lack of a nationwide service policy.

Ron Fenech said they would like to create a nationwide service policy, where a Grand Design owner could get their unit serviced under warranty at any Grand Design dealer nationwide. He said the model would be based on what the automotive industry does, where, for example, a Ford owner can obtain service at any Ford dealer in the country.

“I think we have to get our arms around this,” Ron said.

Asking for a show of support for such a program the response was about 50-50 among the dealers present.

But overall, the dealer response to Grand Design was positive.

“They are very credible guys, which is hard to find these days,” said Frank Roberts, owner of Longview RV in Windsor Locks, Conn. He has been selling RVs since 1959 and seen RV people and companies come and go.

“We are interested in selling. I have not even seen the product and I’m a buyer, Roberts said.

Fenechs and Clark Reveal Plan to RV Audience

More than 350 people turned out Wednesday morning (Nov. 28) to hear details about Grand Design RV Co., a new RV manufacturer formed by a trio of former Thor Industries Inc. executives that will enter the market with an extended-stay Solitude fifth-wheel brand.

Led by Grand Design President Don Clark and brothers Ron and Bill Fenech — all co-owners in the company — Grand Design will start building RVs in December with two other yet-to-be-named brands scheduled be in production by the end of 2013.

”We are going to be a full-line manufacturer,” said Clark, the former president of Dutchmen Manufacturing Inc. ”The very small niches, we are not going to focus on. We want to hit the six major categories that are the bulk of the market.”

Ron Fenech is the former senior president of Thor’s RV Group and Bill Fenech is the former head of Thor Motor Coach (formerly Damon Motor Coach).

All three took turns presenting their vision for the company and the strategy they will employ to a standing-room-only crowd at the Crown Plaza Hotel during the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s (RVIA) 50th Annual National RV Trade Show in Louisville, Ky.

”We wanted to make a statement to all of you that we are in this for real, that we are in this for the long term,” said Ron Fenech. ”This is not something to keep us busy a couple days a week in retirement. We are really into this.”

Although the Fenech brothers carry no official title other than ”co-owner,” both said they will be involved in the day-to-day operation of the company but that Clark will be the decision-maker. Grand Design general manager will be Marc Hauser, while Jerry McCarthy serves as vice president of service operations. Both are former Dutchmen executives.

Grand Design has set up shop in a 67-acre complex with 400,000 square feet of production and support facilities near the Indiana Toll Road north of Middlebury, Ind.

”We’ve got our first proto on line,” said Ron Fenech.

Solitude, which will retail in the low- to high-$60,000 range depending on equipment, will feature a 101-inch-wide body, 6-foot 6-inch ceilings, king-size beds, walk-in closets, 40-inch-deep slideouts, solid surface countertops and slam-latch baggage doors.

The retail introduction of Solitude at the Florida RV SuperShow in January will be followed by a mid-priced laminated travel trailer and fifth-wheel series in spring and probably a luxury toy hauler fifth-wheel brand by fall. A luxury fifth-wheel, along with a lightweight travel trailer and an entry-level travel trailers are in the planning stages.

”We are taking it slow,” Bill Fenech said. ”We are going to take our time. We are going to do what the market says. We want to brand the company as much as our individual brands. We want to sign up Grand Design RV Co. dealers. There will be one Grand Design RV dealer in a (specific) marketplace. You won’t have to worry about it being shopped down the street with another (Grand Design) brand.”

Clark, Fenech Brothers Roll Out ‘Grand Design’

Former Thor Industries Inc. executives Ron Fenech, Bill Fenech and Don Clark plan to address the “vision” and gameplan of their new company — Grand Design RV Co. — from a booth at the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s (RVIA) 50th Annual National RV Trade Show, Nov. 27-29 at the Kentucky Exposition Center (KEC) in Louisville. They’ll also present their case at a special 8:30 a.m., Wednesday (Nov. 28) kickoff breakfast in the Whitley Meeting Room at the Crown Plaza Hotel right after the RVI Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

Grand Design RV is currently setting up shop with fewer than 20 employees in a 67-acre, 400,000 square-foot former manufactured housing plant near the Indiana Toll Road north of Middlebury, Ind.

“It’s something that we’ve had on our minds now for a lot of years,” reported Don Clark, president and co-owner of Grand Design who formerly served as president of Thor’s Goshen, Ind.-based Dutchmen Mfg. Inc. “You know, we’ve all had our own careers, and we always had this in the back of our minds — to take what we’ve learned in the industry and really do something special and unique that we could totally control. We knew it was going to happen, but we just didn’t know when, and we wanted the timing to be right.”

“We’ve all been talking about what brought us to this point,” added Ron Fenech, who exited his position as president of Thor’s RV Group in September of 2011. “And for me it was just time for a different chapter, as much as anything. I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I really felt that pull.”

Clark and the Fenech brothers, also operating as co-owners, are preparing for the debut of their first line of mid-priced Solitude-brand “extended stay” fifth-wheels at the Florida RV Trade Association’s (FRVTA) Florida RV SuperShow in January with a startup staff that includes General Manager Marc Hauser, and Vice President of Service Operations Jerry McCarthy, both former Dutchmen executives.

In the big picture, meanwhile, they’ll operate from the perspective of a company in a post-recessionary market that’s inhabited by fewer dealers, but often by larger and more multi-store retailers.

“We’ll talk at our breakfast about the vision of our new company and hold a Q&A session,” said Bill Fenech, who resigned as president of Elkhart, Ind.-based Thor Motor Coach Inc. in mid-2011. “We’re going to be real strategic in who we sign — we’ve got to get dealers who buy into our philosophy of what we’re doing, and we want dealers who want to carry our full line of products.

“We’re going to market Grand Design RV as much as we’re going to market the individual brand names,” he added. “We’re not going to have sister products or clones at the same price points in the same market as another dealer. We’re not going to produce them at all. We’re going to be very selective in the dealers we sign.”

All three, in turn, say their driving interest in launching Grand Design, for which a serious ramp up in production will begin in December, is to have the opportunity to build a privately held RV manufacturing firm in which they retain plenty of control.

“The bottom line is that we’re not doing this just for the money or for an exit strategy,” added Bill Fenech. “We don’t have a ‘Plan B’ to go sell it or anything like that. We want to build a great company — whether it’s a 25-year company or a 50-year company or less if something happens before that. We’re going to let the market tell us that. But at the end of the day, we’re going to build a great company, and we’re going to do it our way and we’re going to build it slowly and methodically.”

Clark, Fenech Brothers Roll Out ‘Grand Design’

Former Thor Industries Inc. executives Ron Fenech, Bill Fenech and Don Clark plan to address the “vision” and gameplan of their new company — Grand Design RV Co. — from a booth at the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s (RVIA) 50^th Annual National RV Trade Show, Nov. 27-29 at the Kentucky Exposition Center (KEC) in Louisville. They’ll also present their case at a special 8:30 a.m., Wednesday (Nov. 28) kickoff breakfast in the Whitley Meeting Room at the Crown Plaza Hotel right after the RVI Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

Grand Design RV is currently setting up shop with fewer than 20 employees in a 67-acre, 400,000 square-foot former manufactured housing plant near the Indiana Toll Road north of Middlebury, Ind.

“It’s something that we’ve had on our minds now for a lot of years,” reported Don Clark, president and co-owner of Grand Design who formerly served as president of Thor’s Goshen, Ind.-based Dutchmen Mfg. Inc. “You know, we’ve all had our own careers, and we always had this in the back of our minds — to take what we’ve learned in the industry and really do something special and unique that we could totally control. We knew it was going to happen, but we just didn’t know when, and we wanted the timing to be right.”

“We’ve all been talking about what brought us to this point,” added Ron Fenech, who exited his position as president of Thor’s RV Group in September of 2011. “And for me it was just time for a different chapter, as much as anything. I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I really felt that pull.”

Clark and the Fenech brothers, also operating as co-owners, are preparing for the debut of their first line of mid-priced Solitude-brand “extended stay” fifth-wheels at the Florida RV Trade Association’s (FRVTA) Florida RV SuperShow in January with a startup staff that includes General Manager Marc Hauser, and Vice President of Service Operations Jerry McCarthy, both former Dutchmen executives.

In the big picture, meanwhile, they’ll operate from the perspective of a company in a post-recessionary market that’s inhabited by fewer dealers, but often by larger and more multi-store retailers.

“We’ll talk at our breakfast about the vision of our new company and hold a Q&A session,” said Bill Fenech, who resigned as president of Elkhart, Ind.-based Thor Motor Coach Inc. in mid-2011. “We’re going to be real strategic in who we sign — we’ve got to get dealers who buy into our philosophy of what we’re doing, and we want dealers who want to carry our full line of products.

“We’re going to market Grand Design RV as much as we’re going to market the individual brand names,” he added. “We’re not going to have sister products or clones at the same price points in the same market as another dealer. We’re not going to produce them at all. We’re going to be very selective in the dealers we sign.”

All three, in turn, say their driving interest in launching Grand Design, for which a serious ramp up in production will begin in December, is to have the opportunity to build a privately held RV manufacturing firm in which they retain plenty of control.

“The bottom line is that we’re not doing this just for the money or for an exit strategy,” added Bill Fenech. “We don’t have a ‘Plan B’ to go sell it or anything like that. We want to build a great company — whether it’s a 25-year company or a 50-year company or less if something happens before that. We’re going to let the market tell us that. But at the end of the day, we’re going to build a great company, and we’re going to do it our way and we’re going to build it slowly and methodically.”