Austin RV Expo..

[cwf]

Yeah..
So, my lovely bride asks "Can we go to the RV show today?"

"Sure! "

We are walking around... and yes, there were Airstreams. Wife walks into the 28' Land Yacht.. starts opening and inspecting.... (this is huge because she really 'dislikes' the 'modern' stuff... but she was her usual 'ok, let me look'...openness..

When opening the fridge door, her hand was scraped by the main 'covering door' latch. That nearly ended the 'openness'... but, she kept smiling..

Later, we were approached by an Airstream rep... from the Mothership.. not from the dealership. We tell him about our 34'... and the conversation takes off... He says.. "we are often considering bringing back the '34..with the triple axles..." Of course I mention the 'Slide out' and a couple other 'concerns and hope'.. and he states.. "those are really manageable possibilities"...but.... it's the current 'customer set' that keeps them in the 'trendy' area... I tell him.. "That is good for more AS to be built!!! and I hope you guys are in business for a long long time...!!"

My wife says.. "Oh.. so glad to hear that you guys listen to AS owners.." She proceeds to explain "You have a safety issue on the Land Yacht right here... " He is very interested, follows my wife into the AS where he says, "We don't make the fridge, but we should be able to do something about that."

hmmmm... ok.... so, let's see...

[paiceman]

Interesting, the comment "should be able to do something about that". AS makes the unit, but much of what goes into them as we all know is not made by AS. So having run several facilities in my work like to make a change from a supplier takes effort, time and usually perseverance as the supplier company is hesitant to make any changes, unless like in your wife's case it is a safety issue.

But again this is often how changes come about, through customer input. We always had customer focus groups, both for our dealers and end users. These groups were never invited to the factories at the same time, but during many of them for both dealers and end users they got very spirited. Which I enjoyed as it showed a passion for the products we made and that both dealers and end users wanted them perfect. Would be interesting to see AS put together and End User focus group on current products and then one on future products.

Thanks for posting

Bud

[SteveSueMac]

Just having Airstreams - let alone someone FROM Airstream - at your RV show is something else! We went to one in New England - hundreds of SOBs and not a single Airstream.