RV Interiors

Jason and Nikki Wynn posted a new video today.

One thing I definitely agree with them on – the interior design in many new coaches. It’s a whole lot better than it used to be, but it still features an awful lot of what I’ve heard described as “Camouflage Beige”.

Versus:

(Yes, that’s the same RV. You can find more of this wonderful conversion by HARBORLIZARD at Rate My Space – here, here, and here.)

I think Airstream is really the most on top of providing excellent interior design that still has a broad appeal across the market – though the reason for that is that new Airstreams have interiors that look like they were designed by the IKEA folks – but built from materials suitable for an interior that should last in good shape for 30-40 years, not 3-4.

The rest of the interiors we’ve looked at? They’re definitely better than they once were, but they’re still not great by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and if you’re listening, Fleetwood, Winnebago, and  “Euro Recliners” are THE WORST THING EVER. Especially when you design a mid-entry coach, and put one between the navigator’s station and the door. It’s not a chair we’ll ever use (it’s getting chucked out the door and onto Craigslist or straight in the bin right off the bat), but after it’s gone there’s almost nothing we can use that remaining space for! At least Eric and Brittany could put Trogdor there…

I would absolutely recommend that the interior design folks at the coachbuilders point their browsers to Houzz and get their learning on. There is SO MUCH COOL STUFF out there – if you insist on building it for the mythical, mystical “broad appeal”, the least you could do is make it easy to customize, before or after the fact.

Better yet, you could take a page from the MINI playbook and build just a FEW coaches, but have a configurator online with an absolute metric TON of options, and expect that your customer will contact their local dealer with a build list – and you’ll build that coach at that time, and either drive it to the customer, or (like Mercedes, Porsche, Volvo, Audi and BMW) offer a factory tour and coach pick-up package.

How often does a customer make an impulse buy of a $200,000 coach, anyway? The least you can do is make the customer feel special.