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Featherlite Factory Tour
I finally got to see multiple
Prevosts in one spot. Up to now, I’d only seen one XL in person. Here
are my thoughts, although many of you already know most/much of this
information, but I thought I’d share for others who have not gotten to one of
the Converters’ factories yet.As a rookie, I didn’t know that in
2008, Amadas bought out Featherlite to basically save it from going
bankrupt. They equated it to Volvo
buying out Prevost, where Prevost still builds the Buses, but Volvo still owns
the company.
Our tour guide, Shannon, was
wonderful and knew more than I thought she would. I was able to ask numerous questions about
the coach and only on a couple occasions did she reply, “Let’s stop at
engineering and ask them.” It speaks well of this forum that after a
little more than four months on this forum, I’m able to ask good specific
questions to the engineering, design, and specifications. We didn’t
discuss the Prevost chassis that much other than how Featherlite modify’s the
Prevost Bus once it comes into their shop. Here’s Shannon & I in the service bay in front of an XLII and XL. (Tom needs to fix some of the photos’ orientation)
However, given the tour time was only
2-hours, I could not get thru all the questions I wanted, but enough to be
impressed with the Featherlite product.
I believe she stated they build about eight coaches a year or one every 6-8
weeks. Does this seem to be in line with
Liberty, Marathon, or Millennium?The Featherlite Factory tour was exciting for me since
it’s the rare time you get to see the Shell of a coach and what each converter
does to it from the beginning … which is certainly significant, but the
Prevost Shell is unique.My general impression, which has no technical
basis, are these Prevost Buses are basically rolling Tanks on rubber wheels.
O.k., so maybe not that beefy, but I was blown away by the structural
integrity of the Prevost shell and the entire steel structure. Since the
new Featherlite’s were all in different stages, I was able to look under the
skin in many of them before they covered up the walls, floor, or ceiling. I’ve done three other SOB factory tours and
there is nothing that compares to the Prevost for safety and technical
advancement. That’s why my next coach will be a Prevost!This XLIII was being built for Bearing US.com which is a
luxury leasing bus company which converts Prevosts into a rolling Executive
Board room. They ordered 7 of these
Buses from Featherlite who were obviously very happy with getting the order. I believe she said they rent for around $7K a
week.
However, that’s the only new XLIII they’ve built over the
last few years. Everything else rolling
off their factory are H-3s, double, triple, and quad slides, although the
triple slide is their top seller right now.
Featherlite’s bed reclines “up” like a sleep number bed and
when it does, it makes more room like you had four slides, which is why many
customers are ordering only three slides.All roof airs since they have come down in price far, that
way when they go bad, they just pop a new one in and you’re off and
running. No more cruise airs are being
put in … unless the client specifically orders one since these are custom built
for each customer … which means they will still do OTR w/roof air or
cruiseairs.This H-3 is their 2016 show coach for the Tampa super
show. The large slide was still sitting
out while they still had a bunch of work to do before the slide could be
re-installed. Maybe the other converters
do this as well, but Featherlite takes the Prevost slides and then installs
their own floor to ensure it’s a flat floor across the RV. Definitely has a nice look to it. They also don’t use the bladder around the
seal like others do, but use a compression seal around the slide. The bladder probably is more air-tight, but
probably more expensive to replace.
This post has been long enough, but this factory tour was
the official start of our search for our Prevost which we hope to locate by
January 2016, if not sooner.Thanks again to all who contribute their significant knowledge,
to those of us seeking the right answers with these very complex machines.Cheers,
Tim
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7 Replies
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Great write-up and pictures.
Thanks, Tim.
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Tim,
We toured the Marathon factory in June, and like you, we were also impressed by the sturdiness of the Prevost shell. The guide at Marathon said they were looking at building 18-20 coaches over the next year. We also took one of their used coaches for a ride, and the ride is definitely a level above scratch-built motorhomes. One of the reasons we like the Prevost conversions also is the quietness when you are driving, and the quietness of the CruiseAirs. Roof ACs are not as quiet in the coaches we have looked at, but they are cheaper to replace. -
The eight motorhomes she told me they were set to build in 2015 were only motorhomes and didn’t include the seven BearingUS Executive Suite Buses they were going to build. But it’s certainly not to the level of 2005-2006 where they built 30-40 per year.
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Great post Tim.
The only way anyone can fully appreciate the structural integrity and quality of our coaches is to see them under construction. We tease a lot on this and other forums about one conversion versus another but as our 45,000 plus posts reveal all conversions are good and selecting a coach is personal preference. Every coach converted shares the Prevost chassis so the heart of every conversion starts with the industry’s best.
As to production numbers, I think it is safe to say that even today with a healthy economy the number of new coaches being converted is likely 25% or 30% of the volume levels prior to the economic crunch. What is consistent with every converter Tom and I speak to is the greatest impediment to increasing production is no one wants to compromise quality in the conversion by ramping up production levels. A look at the complexity of the conversion and the skill levels required to do a conversion and we realize we are driving the best there is.
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Hey Tim, I hope you bragged about PC to Shannon.:)
We would live to see more input and activity from Amadas and Featherlite, they have supported us right from the beginning and we very much appreciate that support.
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I told her I belong to the PC and that’s why I was asking so many questions … she laughed!
I know everyone has their own wish list when it comes to converters, but Featherlite does give you a lot of “bang-for-the-buck” … if there is such a thing when it comes to these Buses 🙂
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Tim,
Great presentation for all PC members. Nice work and I’am sure your questions were appreciated as you did your homework for the visit.
I second Jons opening line….great post
AL
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