Heading to Hershey tomorrow (Friday, Sept 12)

[Davydd]

archeogal,

GWVan I understand took some of their skilled and knowledgeable work force with them. The Legend I saw built in Alabama was every bit as good as what they were building in Canada and is better quality than the Roadtreks. BTW, it wasn't their first. Avanti online here took delivery of an Alabama Legend. Their first Promaster Classic as they call it has photos on their Facebook page. It is designed more as a family short tripper in my mind with four seats, bath with no shower, twin beds on the floor in the back that serve as a dinette and a king bed that lowers from the ceiling in the back. How much you can modify that to your desires I am not sure. Also, we don't know if they have anything else in the works.

Pleasure-way's Lexor is a solid interpretation of their past floor plan designs which are good and best for two people only. Pleasure-way's business plan is to keep things simple and solid to keep their prices as low as they can but they do not sacrifice quality to do so. They don't give you any tinker room like GWVan nor do they have a myriad of options as Roadtrek. So they are kind of like it fits you or it doesn't.

black88mx6,

I will be curious to read what RT and LTV think of the 4 cyliinder Sprinter. Advanced RV's company owner built one, fully loaded, last January and has personally driven it to Florida and back and Arizona and back (from Ohio) in some adverse weather. They know first hand how it performs with no speculation. I test drove that same B they call Mzungu. My opinion is it is a cut above the older T1N 5 cylinder Sprinter in performance. Acceleration up to speed was not as good as the V6. I considered it but at the time felt I did not have enough feedback as to how it would handle through Rocky Mountain passes. I've since read it was OK.

[avanti]

It is true that a significant number of folks from the Canada factory accompanied GWV to Alabama. In addition, one of the reasons they picked Winfield is that there is (was?) a significant trailer manufacturing business there and they have a skilled workforce in a related industry to draw from.

I can't say that my van (literally the first GWV made in the USA) was perfect, but honestly, pretty much all of the issues were (a) minor and (b) had to do with my special requests, some of which were peculiar from their perspective. The thing is that the quality of the GWV is pretty much built in. By that I mean that the cabinetry and hardware are designed to be very robust (e.g., all plywood is 1/2", screwed not stapled, etc) and cut from standard templates that they have used for a long time. These are traditional construction techniques that have not been subjected to "value engineering"--they are hard to mess up.

There were some small items that were probably related to the move, but I think it had more to do with the disruption of the move than to unskilled workers. There was one issue in which the glides on one of the front privacy curtains was sewn on the wrong edge, which we didn't notice until later. They are just mailing us the correct piece, which I will install. If I preferred, they would have sent me to a local RV place under warranty. Their communications have been a little spotty lately, but I'm sure that is due to the fact that their new business office is still under construction combined with getting ready for Hershey. They are good people and I have every evidence that they stand behind their product. The rest, I suspect, is growing pains.

So, I can't give them a 100% score, but I still give them higher marks than any other manufacturer whose work I have examined carefully (which is most of them), with the exception of Advanced RV, and GWV's prices are very competitive for the high-end market.

As for four cylinder vs six. We just drove about 1800 miles from PA to New Mexico being pulled by our four. This, combined with our last trip in steepest West Virginia permits me to endorse the four totally without reservations. We ended up with the four due to a communications error. I am thanking our lucky stars that we did. I would never go back. There has been no case in which the van didn't perform as well as I could have wanted. I'm sure the six does accelerate faster. But it has been a total non-issue for us.

BTW: GWV orders VERY well-equipped Sprinters. The driver safety stuff (lane-keeping assist, blind-spot assist, high-beam assist etc) is amazing. I find myself missing it when driving our other vehicles. I even like the Becker Navigation, although some others disagree.

Hope this helps.

[archeogal]

Thank you much to both davydd and avanti for your comments on the quality of the Great West Van build. I've been watching them for a few years, but not had the money to buy. We are excited about the Promaster option, which is more within our budget, and within the size of what we want to drive around. Dave from GWV called me shortly before the Hershey show, in response to an email I sent to their website contact. He told me that they are flexible in producing the GWV Promaster. He said it can have only 2 seats, with the 3 drawer chest behind the driver's seat as an option. In fact, another GWV sales person said that the floor plan of the Legend can be had on the Promaster, with appropriate adjustments for the shorter and wider chassis. We are pursuing that with them. However, a PleasureWay guy in response to a query about swivel seats in the PW Lexor Promaster, told me that those swivel seats will not be available from Ram until early 2015.

[Davydd]

archeogal,

My 2011 Great West Van Legend is for sale.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3175&p=21158#p21158

[stanw909]

The swivel seats are already available now. They are in Travatos and after market manufacturers have them as well.

[stanw909]

I reread your post. A salesman told you they're not available. Either he's ignorant or a salesman.

[archeogal]

Yes, Davydd, I do know that yours is for sale. And, a year ago I would likely have jumped at it--your eventual buyer will benefit greatly from the modifcations you have done and explained in the Sprinter forum. But, over the past few months we have decided that we really want one under 21 feet long.

Thanks stanw909 for the information on the swivel seats! That encourages me that we really could get one in the next few months--i'm excited! The Born Free is showing its age a bit. It was the guy who answered my query on the PleasureWay website who said the seats weren't available. It is disappointing to hear that a guy in that position would be so ill-informed!

[Simply Cid]

Thank you to all the members who posted here about their Hershey RV Show experience.

But would any of you offer some distilled wisdom from all the current data?

For instance,

Is Travato likely to become a big Class B player? Is there any hard sales figures or projections?
(I am close to buying a Travato, because it fits our needs. (BTW, I am first time poster.)
Are Promaster chassis conversions likely to proliferate?

What is in, what is out?

Who is hot, who is not?

[stanw909]

Welcome to the forum. The Promaster is only a year old here in North America so it is too early to tell how popular they will become for outfitters. I like how quickly Winnebago improved the Travato. It appears they listened to criticism. I hope they get a couple more floorplans but I'm sure their competitors hope they don't.

[markopolo]

Great West Vans, Safari Condo, Winnebago and Pleasure-Way have units based on the Ram ProMaster platform.

The unknown factor is what effect will the new Ford Transit van have in the Class B world. Will the manufacturers build on both? The Sprinter is here to stay and will most likely be the choice for luxury models. Roadtrek seems overdue for a new model (the TS was first introduced Oct 2013 in Pomona, almost a year ago). They must be waiting for the Ford Transit.

Was there any talk about the Ford Transit at the Hershey show?

[wincrasher]

It was kinda strange.

Ford had a display with a plain white panel van and some truck stuff in it. It was like they were trying to introduce it to the manufacturers or some such nonsense. Maybe during the closed part of the show (for the industry types) they did some introduction.

It was silly, as vans have been shipping out to dealers for 6 to 8 weeks now. My local dealer has one that I was able to crawl around in. He still has it (6 weeks later) 'cause he won't discount it a bit, so it's still sitting there.

None of the vendors had any Transit based RV's on display, and of course, the salesman types really knew nothing, as is usually the case.

I wasn't able to corner any of the manufacturer reps, as there were so few and hard to find.

[gerrym51]

sportsmobile has updated its transit info. there is a pdf of transit info and prices