Excel Closing Its Doors

gitane59 wrote:
Recreational vehicles are all a matter of what trade off's can you live with. When trading our 2001 Newmar we narrowed our search to DRV and Heartland. Many models including Excel, Lifestyle, Redwood and Nuwa's all were considered and passed on for various reason's
(serious quality gaps, weird layouts, weirder interior decoration colour scheme's).
Final decision was again a trade off decision. How strong was the investment climate to earn investment returns and how much saved retirement capital were we comfortable liquidating to pay down a large portion of our purchase versus how quickly would investment returns grow our nest egg back before retirement in 2 years.
In the end a skeptical lack of confidence in the markets and a decision to postpone selling our S&B lead us to purchase the Heartland over the DRV.
Overall I am quite satisfied with the HL Landmark.
It will never be on par with our old Newmar. Is it comparable to the Nuwa, Excel, Lifestyle, Redwood, absolutely!
It is a step down from the DRV product's in build design (frame and walls), weight, cost, available customization's and a few options.
From what I saw in numerous factory tours build quality of all the brands I have mentioned can be hit and miss even with the DRV.
As I see it money no object the New Horizon is and has been the cream of the crop. But you better be ready to purchase a F450 as a minimum for a TV and plan on spending another 175K for the trailer.
For serious well-heeled fulltimer's sack I hope New Horizons continue to produce unit's for many years to come.
Perhaps then if something happened to my Heartland Landmark in the future I might be able to afford and find a used New Horizon.

Thank You! For a long time I thought I was the only one who felt this way...we made the exact same decision, and do not regret one bit buying our Heartland Landmark over the DRV and all the others that you listed. We too carefully looked at each one and came to the same conclusion...however, if something happened to my Landmark I think I would be looking toward Forks RV...