Minnie Winnie Towables
Sooo....Winnebago is now manufacturing travel trailers and I believe that the 2014 models will be their second year of production. We're getting ready to take a serious look at a Minnie Winnie 2201DS...
Forum Discussion
Winnebago acquired Sunnybrook, a small manufacturer with a decent reputation, and has had a couple years for the marketing people to look at the product line and where they want to go with it. Winnebago sometimes pushes the envelope on products, trying something different (even if it is just color) and giving it a few years to find a market, or not. But they don't usually stray much from their existing manufacturing technologies,
Sunnybrook was a fairly conservative company, if they made something it was either something they had made for a long time, or most of their mass market competitors were doing well selling something like it. What I'm seeing with the MinnieWinnie is a move into the lightweight market, beyond what Sunnybrook had tried. That sort of product line expansion is something that larger, well capitalized companies can do, for small ones it is more difficult. Winnebago brings in some capital, and a willingness to risk it.
They are for now still Sunnybrooks, manufacturing facilites and technologies. One thing I expect to see from the Winnebago acquisition is a phasing out of "traditional" TT construction in favor of "modern" contruction only, or perhaps development of new technologies. "Modern" is sort of a relative term, as Winnebago introduced laminated panel walls in the 1960s, it is just that some manufacturers took 20-40 years to adopt it (and some haven't and might never will), and materials choices and fabrication techniques continue to evolve. My expectation is because "traditional" construction is labor intensive, while Winnebago favors automation, plant investment, and more costly materials to dependence on labor remaining cheap.
Sunnybrook was a fairly conservative company, if they made something it was either something they had made for a long time, or most of their mass market competitors were doing well selling something like it. What I'm seeing with the MinnieWinnie is a move into the lightweight market, beyond what Sunnybrook had tried. That sort of product line expansion is something that larger, well capitalized companies can do, for small ones it is more difficult. Winnebago brings in some capital, and a willingness to risk it.
They are for now still Sunnybrooks, manufacturing facilites and technologies. One thing I expect to see from the Winnebago acquisition is a phasing out of "traditional" TT construction in favor of "modern" contruction only, or perhaps development of new technologies. "Modern" is sort of a relative term, as Winnebago introduced laminated panel walls in the 1960s, it is just that some manufacturers took 20-40 years to adopt it (and some haven't and might never will), and materials choices and fabrication techniques continue to evolve. My expectation is because "traditional" construction is labor intensive, while Winnebago favors automation, plant investment, and more costly materials to dependence on labor remaining cheap.
