New Age owner reaches for the stars

New Age Caravans' goal of attaining 'caravan perfection' via 'fault-free' auto-style production at its Melbourne factories is taking longer than expected, according to Walkinshaw Auto Group Director Ryan Walkinshaw.

Speaking at the official opening of new Melbourne RV retail outlet The Touring Hub last week, Walkinshaw said that trying to transfer more than 30 years of local automotive engineering and design expertise to caravan manufacturing had not been as easy as the business expected since taking full ownership of the big-selling Australian caravan builder around four years ago.

"We thought the transition would be a lot simpler than it was. We thought we were going to have the same ability to deliver as we do on the car side of things," he told an audience of about 200 people from the RV, sport and entertainment industries.

The Walkinshaw Group has been rolling out significant engineering and styling changes across the New Age caravan, pop-top and camper trailer range in recent years, including adding some special models like the Limited Edition Walkinshaw camper.

However, its reputation in Australia was established back in the 1990s and early 2000s with Holden Special Vehicles (HSV), and it now generates a significant part of its revenue down under converting RAM and Chevrolet pick-ups to right-hand drive, as well as collaborating with various automotive manufacturers on locally engineered 'tough trucks' like the Mitsubishi Triton Xtreme.

"The amount of engineering that goes into those things is really heavily advanced," Walkinshaw explained. "We have the best part of 100 engineers, we have 1500 employees, building these vehicles out in Clayton (Victoria), and I think we'll be very close to being the largest employer in the automotive industry in Australia very soon..."

"It's a big business with a lot of engineering talent, and we thought it was going to be a lot easier to transition that to caravans.

"The caravan industry is such a unique industry; the suppliers are completely different, the dealers are completely different, the way you have got to sell a product is completely different," he continued.

"You don't spend three or four months flirting with a buyer to get them into a caravan like you do in the car industry.

"And we thought some of the technology we wanted to bring into caravans would be a lot easier to do... We'll do a car program and it will take two years or even longer. We just did a Toyota program and it's been three years plus we've been working on that."

"And so being in the caravan industry and being quick and nimble and making these sort of changes to adapt and compete was something we weren't quite used to, we thought it would be a lot simpler.

""I think we've learned a lot. I think what we've focussed on is what we're good at, and we're very good at engineering. So in the caravan industry the big issue is the areas of quality, safety and design, and a lot of caravans out there don't actually look very good, and what we've done is we've tried to impart some of the knowledge we have in the design side of things, to make caravans that actually look cool.

"We design caravans that are safe; we believe our Walkinshaw chassis is the best chassis in the industry and the styling we put into cars like the upholstery, are some of the things that we've brought from the car industry into caravans."

"It's been a lot slower than we wanted it to be... I'll be honest with you, we wanted do it very, very quickly and it's taken us a lot longer, but I think the products we're now producing, the MY24 range of Manta Ray and Road Owl (caravan) models, we're really starting to hit our straps there. We've got a lot of more great stuff coming as well..."

The Walkinshaw and New Age Caravans' boss said his goal for New Age is for it to be the most aspirational caravan brand in Australia.

"I got asked this question at another dealer launch in Sydney a couple of years ago when someone said: 'What do you want New Age Caravans to be?' My answer to that is I want it to be the Mercedes-Benz of caravans. It's not something that's a Ferrari that's hyper-expensive or unattainable for the majority of people, and it's not Skoda down the bottom (of the market) that's a lot cheaper and will just go from A to B...

"We build cars that people are passionate about, that people love, and aspire to own, and that's what we want for caravans. We want it to be a Mercedes-Benz; something that everyone who works hard and is into that sort of product and is passionate... We want New Age Caravans to be that kind of brand.

"I think we're getting there. We still have work to do, but I'm really, really proud of the stuff we're doing and part of that is the dealers that come along for the journey; dealers that do stuff like this and build fantastic facilities," he said, referring to the new multi-brand retail facility in Melbourne's north that is the new home of New Age Melbourne.

"You guys help us elevate our brand, and the product that we're proud to build is being represented proudly by our dealer network."