I recently purchase a dozen of early 90's BCM magazines on Ebay and while reading through them it seemed that at that time everyone and his uncle was some sort of bus/coach converter. The mag then even seemed to have a lot more compaired to the new issues. How many of these converters are still around and have survived. Some examples of ones I found were Wildfang, Custom Land Yachts, B&B Coach Works, Chino Motor Coach, Ramblin Fever, Wilson Custom Coach, Dakota Coach LTD, Dixieland Conversions and many more. Just curious as to where many went. ;D ;D
On that list B&B and he is struggling only 3 Prevost converters left now Marathon was selling 60 units a year and they are down to 7 so far this year with tons of repos unit for sale
.FWIW John Deere Credit has a 140 high end conversions for sale according to the sales letter I received from Deere this month tough market for converters now most buyer are like me no money and afraid to spend what they do have
good luck.
The bus conversion business is a tough row to hoe. Folks had more money back then.
I spoke with Gary today. B&B is still here.
Ramblin' Fever is out of business.
I don't know about the others.
I think some of the following probably happened:
Some folks just got older and no longer do it.
These boards make it a lot easier for novices to convert their own.
The economy is such that there are a glut of converted coaches on the market for a fraction of what you could get for a newly converted coach. That is a lot of competition. The cost of fuel is prohibitive to many potential buyers.
Passengers demand new coaches now. That causes a lot of late model buses to be available now for next to nothing. Good news for the home converter.
There's probably many other things that caused the market for converters to collapse.
Maybe there's a limit to how many '57 Chevys' the market will absorb.
Vantare/featherlite has new 09 stock 1,585,000list offered to me 900,000...I didn't and don't have it .just ask what it would take to buy it..they were laid off 12 yrs back in seniority. just trying to survive..they do a lot of nascar coaches. Midwest Coach went out last winter;that's where the 98 I'm doing came from..pd less than scrap price for it..
No more Featherlite Bob they sold Vantare out to a lawnmower manufacture
good luck
when I was there in march they were trying to keep doors open..day to day.lot of good people lost jobs..
Millenium Coach in Sanford Fl is booming according to their Facebook threads and they have moved into the old Featherlite building making them one of the high end converters at a high end price! Nelson has made the company grow from a little company to what it is today!
Larry and crew at Paradise Coach Interiors in Coburg, Oregon are still going strong. He gets all my business.
http://www.celebritycoaches.com/coaches.asp (http://www.celebritycoaches.com/coaches.asp)
Superior conversions did most of these they are in Tenn and there are also quite a few others there....lurking..waiting things out