The June Shipments report is not in but the RV Industry Tailspin has started. As I predicted in the blog post regarding May shipments (click here to read), this seemed inevitable. Remember last year when Thor was actually sold out through 2022? They said at that time that restocking Dealer inventories would take them into 2023. That meant there would be a long wait for a Thor produced Travel Trailer. It also was reflective of how strong the sales were going in 2021.

The Sales Slowdown is upon us!

Well all of that has started to turn around. As a matter of fact Keystone RV, a division of Thor, is closing two of its plants on Sept. 23 in Goshen, Indiana. A total of 334 RV manufacturing and plant management jobs will be lost.

An employee said that Company Officials stated this was directly related to the high fuel prices and dealers orders dropping off. He said “The high fuel prices, and the dealers don’t want to buy, buy the units that that we’re producing. So, I guess a lot of them is just sitting. And so, with the fuel prices the way that they are, we no longer have orders.”

Winnebago Industries is also feeling the economic hardship that is upon us. During their June earnings call, Winnebago President, and CEO Michael Happe warned of the current downturn saying that it is related to “persistent macroeconomic headwinds, including fluctuations in interest rates, gas prices, inflation, and consumer sentiment”. The consumer sentiment that he is referring to is the overall positive or negative feeling buyers have about their own economic situation. Obviously, the current sentiment is negative.

Winnebago also owns Grand Design Trailers and NewMar Motorhomes in their RV Line. They are now predicting a 17% drop in RV sales this year. I would not be a bit surprised to see them follow Thor in a major cutback on production.

Grand Design announced in May that they were building 4 new plants for manufacturing and support on its Middlebury campus. They planned at that time adding 700 new jobs by the end of 2023. It will be interesting to see if that plan now changes.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, the RV industry is a good predictor of the economy in general. The outlook is not good.

My personal opinion is that the quality that came of the RV lines over the last few years has been substandard; and I believe this has also had some effect in the industry. In today’s social media environment the stories about defective new units spreads like wildfire. While that certainly isn’t the main driver in this situation, it hasn’t helped.

So, while the June Shipments report is not in yet, I expect the news to be a downward trend. I will be back to let you know where things stand when that report is available from the RVIA.