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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: New Model
    Posted: 13 May 2020 at 7:48pm
Yeah, me an 'ol Warren were sitting around having a beer and he asked if there might be a market for an r-pod on steroids...I said well I dunno....but might be worth a shot....

Cool
r・pod 171 gone but not forgotten!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 May 2020 at 5:48am
Originally posted by crw8sr

Warren drives a 2014 Cadillac XTS.  His modest home has an assessed tax value of $1 million.  It's a very nice house but not a mansion like you'd think.  He apparently sold his California Mansion

His CA house wasn't a mansion either. He bought it for $150K back in 71. Sold it for $7.5M in 18. Don't be fooled by the price, that's just the crazy coastal CA real estate market.  It's only 3500 square feet. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 May 2020 at 6:02am
Originally posted by podwerkz

Yeah, me an 'ol Warren were sitting around having a beer and he asked if there might be a market for an r-pod on steroids...I said well I dunno....but might be worth a shot....

Cool

Next time you're sippin' brews with 'ol Warren remind him of that giving pledge. A think a nice stimulus package to help out rPod owners who are suffering from depreciation on our unused trailers during Covid would be a great long term investment for him in promoting brand loyalty. Doesn't need to be cash, a share each of BRK.A would be fine. Or, an in kind donation of the new rPod 400 series triple axle 5'er would be OK too. Not sure what I'd do with mine but I'd figure something out.  Thumbs Up
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furpod View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 May 2020 at 12:51pm
here is a lot of the deal.. "Forest River"is made up of DOZENS of individual plants. Each plant produces a product line or a few product lines..

The plants are, more or less, treated as individual entities.. The RPod plant in Goshen produces/builds The R-Pod, the NoBo, and the Surveyor TTs. Any time a current owner wants to upgrade, etc, that plant REALLY wants to keep them as "buyers" of their products.. They don't want people to go to other lines.. that doesn't help them keep THEIR jobs..

Back in the crash of '08, the R-Pod line was just cranking up. The people who worked there then, they LOVE pods, and Podders.. Because for about 6 construction cycles, it was the explosion of the first few Pod floorplans and brand, that kept THAT plant open. Most of those people have moved on to other plants or jobs, but the ones that remain.. it's still in their blood so to speak.

So.. if someone is going to be looking for a walk around queen, 25 footer, and they don't want to move to the Surveyor line, for whatever reason(s) they may have, well, a R-Pod floor plan sort of makes sense.. Sort of. When we go back to a pod, and we will, it will be a 178 hopefully, since the 177, the most perfect floor plan, has been discontinued.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 May 2020 at 9:06am
I've seen a few people in here, that had the "I just want something a little bigger" bug, and they are no longer rpod owners. So having no option to go up a size might be great for preserving the original intent, but it isn't helping with the bottomline. I also caught the "little bigger bug" and would not be an rpod owner right now if the 195 didn't come out.  So in my case, and many others trading their 179 for one of the 19- larger models, they kept customers, but they still offer the original. 
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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 May 2020 at 9:26am
I don't think Mr. Buffett cares an iota which FR product the public buys.  The folks that work in the plants certainly do, but not the stockholders or directors.  For most RV manufacturers, they are selling fungibles, like pork bellies.  

Brand names really don't mean much in the travel trailer market.  It's really a question of whether a given trailer meets the expectations and desires of the purchaser and is affordable.  There are certainly some brands that are worse than others, but they all have serious quality control issues.  Brand loyalty in RV's is generally a false hope.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 May 2020 at 6:40am
I think furpod's description of FR's organizational structure offers a good explanation. In some companies corporate marketing is a pretty weak function, their role is mostly to manage the company website, trade show and ad budgets, and encourage/enforce some level of consistency in literature "look and feel" standards.  That leaves regional sales departments making most of the decisions of what to make and how to brand it. Sales is mostly compensated by commission so is highly reactive and has a short fuse, they are looking at what they can sell this month or this quarter, not what might be better in the longer term. 

Sounds like FR is one of those companies, which explains why their product lines overlap so much. In a volatile business like the mainstream RV industry it probably doesn't make much sense to try to invest too much in individual brand consistency and identity, too many boom/bust cycles and too much buyer decision making based on whatever the latest fad is. Just let sales drive things and sell what you can when you can. None of this bodes well for the longevity of any given brand, including the rPod brand, which was my point. 


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jun 2020 at 9:06pm
Originally posted by mjlrpod

I heard there is a new Rpod floorplan coming. The R-pod 202.

I didn't see the Forest River link in the thread:


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Jim
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mjlrpod View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Sep 2020 at 9:06am
I've heard forest river has a new 201 model? haven't seen anything, just heard a " 201 " was seen at an R.V. show 
2017.5 Rp-172
2020 R-pod 195
2015 Frontier sv 4.0L 6cyl
I'll be rpodding
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