Coromal factory for Melbourne

The Fleetwood RV Group is back in business in Melbourne, returning to the vast four-acre (16,000sq.m) site in Sydney Road, Somerton that it shared with now-defunct Cell Caravans and Melbourne Caravan Centre from early 2015 until its closure earlier this year.

Complementing the move, Fleetwood will commence assembly of smaller Coromal and Windsor models in Melbourne by mid-2018, marking a ‘welcome home’ of the former long-standing Victorian Windsor brand after Fleetwood shut its Melbourne Windsor factory in late-2012 and moved production to Perth.

The Melbourne dealership is being run by General Manager Paul Sinnett, who is tasked with rebuilding Coromal/Windsor business in the Victorian capital.

The move back into the Victorian retail market is in line with Fleetwood RV’s plan to establish single-franchise dealerships for Coromal and Windsor products around Australia, with 15 of its 22 outlets currently enjoying that status

It follows in the wake of Fleetwood’s replacement of Camperagent in Adelaide with its own factory outlet, while Fleetwood is believed to be looking for potential sites in Sydney.

GreenRV, which has a retail site for NextGen and Regent caravans just around the corner from the new Melbourne Coromal/Windsor dealership, has been by-passed by the new arrangement, despite being Coromal/Windsor’s major retail outlet in Queensland.

Something for everyone

The new dealership opened its doors for business in mid-November and recently recorded its first sale – a Coromal Princeton.  The new site stocks the full Coromal/Windsor range of camper trailers, hybrids and caravans, with the potential to display up to 80 caravans and campers on site, representing the entire Fleetwood RV range, plus used RVs.

Windsor’s new Silhouette off-road camper and innovative pop-top H390 Hybrid niche models were most prominently RVs displayed when caravancampingsales visited, confirming their role as ‘attention magnets’ for the Windsor brand.

Service, parts sales and an accessory showroom are included in the Melbourne dealership, while a lease has been secured on the property next door to serve as a caravan storage facility from early in the New Year.

The dealership will also become a rental outlet for Fleetwood RV products.

Return to profit

Fleetwood RV’s Executive General Manager, Peter Naylor, said the move to the prominent site in Melbourne was an important part of “building the brand” to make it profitable.

“We have been out of the Melbourne retail market effectively for eight months, and we needed to send out a signal that we are serious about business,” he said.

“Fleetwood has a very long-term view of the RV business and we are currently in the middle of a review of all our activities to ensure we optimise every aspect of it.”

Naylor said an important role played by the new dealership will initially be to serve as a start-up base for assembly of Coromal and Windsor caravans and pop-tops from components sourced from the company’s Perth HQ.

“We have a substantial investment in advanced CNC machinery to cut out laminated walls, while we also have a well-established facility in Perth building internal furniture,” he said.

Chinese parts a possibility

However, Naylor would not rule out some components being sourced from overseas manufacturers, including China.

“Every caravan has something made in China in it,” he said, “but our caravans, hybrids and campers are built in Australia.”

He said the second stage of the Melbourne assembly plan was to re-locate production into a separate facility, probably in the Campbellfield/Somerton area.

“We have already begun looking for suitable partners,” he said.

Naylor said the business case for assembling in Melbourne was simple.

“It costs us about the same to freight a small caravan interstate as it does a large one,” he said, “but the margin to absorb this cost and remain competitive is different.

“So, it makes sense to build smaller single-axle caravans and similar models on the East Coast.”