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NEWS
Aussie campers hit hard times
More local manufacturers of premium tent trailers switch to hybridsDemand for Australian-made hard and soft floor canvas camper trailers is slipping, causing many established local manufacturers to move to more lucrative micro-hybrid pop-tops.
Meanwhile the few locally-made campers still in the market are in many cases now priced out of the range of most first-time buyers.
In the void, premium manufacturers like Australian Off-Road, Pioneer and Rhinomax have stepped up production of their micro-hybrid hard lid models that are finding favour with the growing number of today’s time-poor adventurers, who are prepared to trade comfort and rapid set-up for the traditional joys of canvas camping.
Caloundra-based Australian Off-Road, who were once a dominant player in the hard floor canvas camper market, stopped offering its award-winning Odyssey nearly three years ago as a regular production model, but until recently built a trickle to order. That’s all changed since the launch of the new, Odyssey Series 2 Off Road Pop Top in mid-2016, with the Series 1 Odyssey camper no longer offered.
Sharing only its name and its impressive approach and departure angles with its canvas predecessor, the Odyssey Series 2, like all micro hybrids, offers more comfort, more equipment and a much faster set-up time for travellers on the fly.
Typically, AOR founder Steve Budden read the tea leaves of change a lot earlier than most of his rivals, realising that even hard floor folding campers take a lot longer to build than a composite-walled pop-top, yet hit a price glass ceiling in the marketplace.
In a motoring industry parallel, Porsche recently reversed the pricing position of its latest Type 718 sports models, pricing the (cheaper to build) hard top Cayman models below their electric folding top Boxster equivalents for the first time.
Neighbouring Sunshine Coast manufacturer Rhinomax recently dumped its soft and hand floor camper ranges to concentrate on is new micro-hybrid Scorpion, which is now accounting for around half of its full pop-top hybrid camper sales.
Former WA-based Pioneer Campers, is the latest traditional camper manufacturer going through that transition.
Despite having five hard-floor campers priced from the $32,235 Argyle to the all bells and whistles $58,895 Gascoyne LE in its range, half of the now Melbourne-built Pioneer campers sold in 2016 were the new $63,450 Mitchell Hard top model launched at Melbourne Leisurefest in October 2015.
“Because of the cost of building quality campers, we really can’t compete at the bottom end of the canvas camper market,” Pioneer’s National Sales Manager Scott Forbes told caravancampingsales.
“With their price and quality, we attract the equivalent of a second home buyer. People new to campers will often buy a cheap import first, but will later graduate to a more solid Australian-made hard floor camper when they realise the limitations of the cheaper, imported product. That’s where we come in.”
While Pioneer’s top-of-the range Gascoyne LE camper is priced $2000 more than the cheaper Wilpena of their new two-model Hard Top range, Forbes said that cost wasn’t necessarily a major issue for folding hard floor buyers.
“There are fewer enthusiasts each year who want the full canvas experience and up to a point they are prepared to pay for that lifestyle choice,” he said. “But we can see that market shrinking every year.
“In 2017 we expect our Hard Top Mitchell camper to outsell all our folding hard floor models combined by as much as two to one. That’s where the future lies.”
That’s not to say that specialist canvas camper trailer manufacturers like Kimberley, Aussie Swag and Mountain Trail have got it wrong, but Kimberley can offset any dips in sales of its canvas hard-floor Kamper by ramping up production of its folding Karavan, larger single axle E and S Class and top of the range Kruiser models.
In contrast, Mountain Trail remains a camper trailer specialist, at least for the moment, albeit one at the very top of its game that attracts customers through that status alone.
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Written byMichael Browning
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
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