Why are Truck Campers so poorly made?

I know I sound like a broken record, so please forgive me, but I long for an America that actually made things.

67Avion,

Fleetwood made Avions and at that time Fleetwood was in the top five Fortune 500 companies. What happened to that? They went downhill and fairly fast. Same thing with Greyhound, at one time the Fortune 500 top company. Some of our airlines stopped buying from Boeing and started buying from European manufacturers. Times change. America got all caught up in Asian cars back in the 1970's, mostly from Japan. At one point the American makers were not concerned since the cars were mostly for college students and second cars for families and were less than 10 percent of all cars sold in America. We built large comfortable and powerful cars. Asia built small cars with good gas mileage. Just before 1973, the oil embargo, there were over 700,000 asian economy cars on American soil on docks waiting to be sold to dealers. Nine months ater they were all sold. American car makers just stood there with their mouths open in disbelief. Then Asian sales went to around 25 percent and Ford and others started paying attention. Today, a Ford, Chrysler or GM car is every bit as good as any Toyota or Nissan for quality, keeps the American worker working, and brings pride back to American cars and trucks. Just last week we witnessed Toyota re-recalling 600,000 vehicles that had been recalled prior for the same thing as prior! Really! All we need to do in America is reclaim what once was ours and some of that has started with the auto industry. Instead of letting Asia build our RV's, lets just build them better so Asia has no ability to compete. We should not have to go through the same number of decades with RV's that the auto industry did with cars and Harley did with motorcycles, etc.

You are correct, Avions were built like a tank and built to last. They were the only real competition that Airstream has ever had in 80 years but Fleetwood vacated the market after getting a good toe hold on it. Sometimes it is not about RV quality, it is about poorly made management decisions.

People often remark on these forums that Airstreams are too expensive. That is almost totally contrary to the economic truth. They are among the least expensive considering long term ownership and longevity. While many RV's won't make it to the end of payments before major repairs like new roofs, delam on sides, rotted floors, etc, Airstreams can be passed down from parents to sons/daughters to grandsons and granddaughters. How is that not far less expensive than buying a new $30,000 coach every seven or ten years. Unfortuately, most Americans only look at the entry fee and not the real costs of an RV or car or whatever. We do it to ourselves. RV builders build what we want and that is 'make it cheap'.