My guess is that unless vehicle-related costs for petroleum products come
way down, the market for highway recreatioal and "camping" vehicles will
continue to shrink.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geza Polony" <gezapolony@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Going towards a new era...

> Nothing wrong with dreaming, but I wonder if there's any sizeable market
> for
> campers like you're describing, especially at higher prices and with the
> competition from larger RV's presently available. It's easy to think along
> the  lines of "because I like it, everyone else will," but whether there's
> a
> real market larger than what Ben and a few other people are serving
> remains
> to be seen. Didn't VW try this with the Eurovan, sort of?
>
> What seems to be selling right now is large-wheeled, military-looking
> SUV's
> with names like "Nitro" and "Armada."
>
> As far as price goes, I see tons of late-model, primo Westies listed on
> the
> local CL for over 10K...for many months. What do they really sell for?
>
> Part of the charm of these, to many of us, is precisely that they ARE
> cheap
> rides. That's part of VW bus/Vanagon culture, and it's hard to work
> against.
> VW itself has tried, pretty successfully, to dissociate itself from its
> Volksy roots in the past couple of decades, but the first thing that comes
> to mind when thinking Vanagon, for most people, is "hippy bus." How you
> gonna sell hippy buses for $60K?
>
> These are the kinds of questions you'd have to answer to potential
> investors. Building them would be relatively easy. Selling them is another
> matter. Let alone at a profit.
>
> It seems to me that given current automotive tastes, the Syncro platform
> would be the place to start. That you could market as distinctly different
> from a VW bus, and go from there.