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GM to Halt Production
of Luxury Motorhomes
By Ted Goozkowski, News Staff Writer
General Motors plans to discontinue production of luxury motor homes and convert its facilities in Pontiac to truck production. The switch isn't expected to cost any jobs. A GM spokesman said the 325 persons currently involved in motor home production will be transferred to other positions at the GMC Truck & Coach Operations.
No date has been set for the end of luxury motor home production at GMC. The plant currently has about three to four weeks of orders on hand and dealers will continue to take orders, a spokesman said.
"It will be a gradual phase-out," the spokesman said. "It's really up to the customers. It's possible that people who have deferred the purchase of this 'Cadillac' of the motor homes will enter the market now to get one before they go out of production."
Parts, service and warranty provisions also will continue through existing GMC motor home dealerships.
Although rising gasoline prices have moved a number of customers from the large, low-mileage Class A motor homes toward the Class C mini-motor homes, the spokesman said this isn't the "prime" reason for GMC getting out of the luxury motor home market. Instead, GMC believes it makes better business sense to increase its capacity for the booming truck market.
"There are a number of factors involved and energy is one of them," the spokesman said. "But we aren't saying that the big motor home market is dead. "We have 230,000 square feet of space in the motor home plant and with the truck market growing as it is, we feel we can use that floor space better." We build 100 trucks for every luxury motor home and that ratio would have increased over the coming year."
At the same time, GMC is increasing its production of vans which continue to grow in popularity as recreation vehicles. A "high percentage" of the GMC vans are supplied to independent companies which install special bodies for use as mini-motor homes.
GMC began building motor homes in Pontiac early 1973. In the 1977 model year, the company produced 1,694 motor homes plus 708 "transmodes," which are motor homes with unfinished interiors. GMC's transmodes come in 23 and 26 foot lengths, and the motor homes are 26 footers. All GMC motor homes were in the top luxury class, generally selling for $35,000 to $40,000. The luxury motor homes, which resemble buses on the outside, have all the comforts of home inside. Most include furniture, sleeping quarters, a kitchen, dinning area, bath facilities, and air conditioning.
A GMC spokesman said GM did about 25 percent of the business in this motor home class. Most of the other manufacturers of this type of vehicles are in California.
Last modified February 1, 2005