Bob Ashley

Like his own 1978 Newell diesel pusher, Al Hesselbart keeps pushing on. The former historian for the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum in Elkhart, Ind., Hesselbart is ”retired” in the most generous meaning of the word as he continues to present seminars and promote his two books on the RV industry’s history. ”I retired […]

The Family Motor Coach Association’s (FMCA) iconic monthly magazine — Family Motor Coaching — will have a new name and page design when the May issue hits the stands. And the association itself will take a new approach by emphasizing its traditional ”FMCA” acronym instead of the full name of the Cincinnati-based membership club. Both […]

The Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA) is again looking for record crowds at the 33rd Annual Florida RV SuperShow Jan. 17-21 at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. Last year’s attendance of 70,528 topped the previous year by more than 7,500. ”What we are hearing and from what they did at the Hershey Show and at several […]

RVillage, an online social network whose founder describes as the “Facebook for RVers,” has accumulated some 82,000 members and garners 60,000 to 100,000 page views a day since its launch 3 1/2 years ago. ”We are not a ‘club,’ we are a social network,” said Curtis Coleman, founder and CEO of Tempe, Ariz.-based RV Friend Network LLC, […]

Larger financial institutions involved in the RV industry made floorplan loans totaling more than $10.8 billion in 2016 with financed wholesale RV stock averaging $34,575 per unit. That and a plethora of other information concerning wholesale and indirect retail financing is contained in the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s (RVIA) annual Survey of Lenders’ Experiences. The survey is designed […]

OnlineTruck Camper magazine Publisher Gordon White thinks slidein truck campers don’t get much respect from the Go RVing Coalition, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) and Statistical Surveys Inc. (SSI), the Michigan-based repository for RV retail registrations. He said as much recently in his weekly publication. ”I’m just trying to give truck campers a fair […]

Canadian RV sales — towable and motorized — are making a strong recovery this year after two years in the doldrums. ”It’s great,” said Eleonore Hamm, president of the Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association (RVDA) of Canada. ”We had a bad 2015 and 2016. Economically, people are feeling better, and people who have delayed their decisions […]

Communities from Oregon to South Carolina are preparing for an influx of visitors Aug. 21 — many of them pulling or driving RVs — to experience the first total solar eclipse to sweep across the U.S. in nearly 100 years. Some 12.2 million people in 14 states will be in the path of totality after the […]

About 120 dealer and supplier personnel attended Canada-based RV Care Network’s 2nd Annual Dealer Meeting April 3-4 at the Westin Hotel in Toronto. ”The main topic of discussion was the future direction with our programs and initiatives,” said Earl Manning, vice president and CEO of the 53-dealer organization headquartered in Langley, British Columbia. ”We want […]

Ketelsen RV in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, suburb of De Soto, has opened a new 14,000-square-foot dealership in the central Iowa community of Hiawatha, a Des Moines suburb. ”We felt as though we had a lot of customers from the central part of the state where we could build a dealership where we could have […]