Question to Class B manufacturers
I am a satisfied owner of a 2006 Roadtrek 210 V on a Chevy chassis. A very fine piece of equipment that has performed well on my many trips. The quality of craftmanship and design tells me that the ma...
Forum Discussion
Davydd,
We all get that you are deeply in love with you new van and with Mike Neundorfer. And, as far as i know, no one on this list has ever suggested that ARV does less than excellent work. But, honestly, is it really necessary for you to beat your ARV drum so incessantly while simultaneously taking subtle jabs at every other product on the market? When you owned your GWV, you praised it to the skies (the net doesn't forget--your old narrative is easily found). In one post, you praise ARV because they take ideas from their customers. In the next post, you imply that GWV doesn't deserve credit for their innovations because Neundorfer was their customer at the time.
As a careful Google search will reveal, the spinoff of ARV from GWV is not as simple as you suggest. And, in any event, to suggest that ARV's starting point was anything but a straight clone of GWV's long-standing design is ridiculous. They copied the floorpan; they copied the screen door; they copied the rear screen; they copied the Espar system; they copied the totally-unique trifold sofa/bed, and more. I am not judging their actions one way or the other. I am just saying that it is a fact.
Another fact is that I looked very carefully at ARV before deciding to purchase our new GWV Legend. I was tempted, and I could have afforded one. In the end though, I decided that, wonderful though ARVs work was, the Legend was, for us, a far better value. Along virtually all the dimensions that we cared about, the Legend was the equal of the ARV as it existed when we were shopping. The extra features were mostly things that we simply didn't value, or considered a negative (the excessive use of automation at the expense of direct control being the biggest example). You made a different choice, but that doesn't mean that ours was irrational.
I am a big fan of ARV, and I wouldn't be surprised if we owned one some day. But it isn't the only rational choice on the market, as almost all of your posts imply. Respectfully, you might want to consider turning it down a notch.
We all get that you are deeply in love with you new van and with Mike Neundorfer. And, as far as i know, no one on this list has ever suggested that ARV does less than excellent work. But, honestly, is it really necessary for you to beat your ARV drum so incessantly while simultaneously taking subtle jabs at every other product on the market? When you owned your GWV, you praised it to the skies (the net doesn't forget--your old narrative is easily found). In one post, you praise ARV because they take ideas from their customers. In the next post, you imply that GWV doesn't deserve credit for their innovations because Neundorfer was their customer at the time.
As a careful Google search will reveal, the spinoff of ARV from GWV is not as simple as you suggest. And, in any event, to suggest that ARV's starting point was anything but a straight clone of GWV's long-standing design is ridiculous. They copied the floorpan; they copied the screen door; they copied the rear screen; they copied the Espar system; they copied the totally-unique trifold sofa/bed, and more. I am not judging their actions one way or the other. I am just saying that it is a fact.
Another fact is that I looked very carefully at ARV before deciding to purchase our new GWV Legend. I was tempted, and I could have afforded one. In the end though, I decided that, wonderful though ARVs work was, the Legend was, for us, a far better value. Along virtually all the dimensions that we cared about, the Legend was the equal of the ARV as it existed when we were shopping. The extra features were mostly things that we simply didn't value, or considered a negative (the excessive use of automation at the expense of direct control being the biggest example). You made a different choice, but that doesn't mean that ours was irrational.
I am a big fan of ARV, and I wouldn't be surprised if we owned one some day. But it isn't the only rational choice on the market, as almost all of your posts imply. Respectfully, you might want to consider turning it down a notch.
