Motorhome dealer specials – vehicles designed for one particular dealer to sell as new, usually with loads of extra goodies tacked on and all for a competitive price – have been a regular feature in the market for some years.
It’s true that motorhome dealer specials have never been quite as popular or as widespread as they are with caravans. Walk into the caravan hall at any NEC show and you’ll come across no end of caravan dealerships exhibiting what on first sight appears to be an entirely new range of tourers – until you realise it is an existing line-up from one of the manufacturers that the dealer already sells, with extra spec and exclusive exterior graphics and upholstery.
However, the same system has been operating in the ‘van market, too, and they can make attractive prospects for consumers looking for the best motorhomes. In fact, for example, towards the end of the previous decade, dealer specials accounted for 75% of Elddis’s motorhome output.
Why consider a dealer special?
It’s easy to see why such an offering should prove attractive for dealers. They get to sell what is, in effect, a new range, but from makes of motorhome they have worked with, thus reducing the risk of trying anything new.
Gary Morgan, managing director of Richard Baldwin Motorhomes in West Yorkshire, says his firm’s dealer special adventure started in 2011.
As a company, it was not doing a lot of business with what was then Elddis, and he and the account manager of the day looked at ways of improving that position. Having initially started out with just three models, the range has since evolved, through several name changes, into today’s 10-strong Masters Collection.
Vehicles in the Masters Collection are based on Elddis Autoquest low-profile motorhomes and van conversions (with a brief stint last year when Hillside Leisure was providing campervans).
Both Gary and Steve Sharpe, group managing director at Lowdhams in Nottinghamshire, say dealer specials can also be exciting for customers.
Steve explains: “They get to choose unique designs and interiors, and some of the dealer special ranges over the years have garnered a good following, which means that dealers are happy to take them in for used stock.”
Industry issues
Of course, there have been upheavals in the industry in recent years, caused first by the pandemic and then the well-publicised supply chain issues that the industry suffered as a result of it, including in the case of Stellantis, the company producing those Fiat, Peugeot and Citroën base vehicles that are among the best vans for a camper conversion.
Marquis Leisure, Britain’s biggest motorhome dealership network, currently offers a dealer special range known as Majestic. It’s based on Elddis coachbuilt and motorhome van conversions, yet is a big and popular enough brand on its own to often be identifiable in marketing surveys. The Marquis Majestic 150 certainly proved popular with us when we reviewed the 2021 model, with its upgraded engine, excellent storage and comfortable island bed among the standout features to impress our reviewer.
But during the past few years, supply chain issues meant that for a short time, the company was selling standard Elddis products alongside the Majestic – something it has not done before. Marquis marketing manager Emma Franklin says: “Owing to the pandemic and a very limited chassis supply after the lockdown, special edition motorhomes took a back seat for manufacturers.”
Emma is optimistic that in the years to come, things will change for dealer specials. “You will see a resurgence in these over the next 18 to 24 months,” she predicts.
Emma also points out that the dealer special proposition makes sense for both manufacturer and consumer: “As a volume dealer, our customers want their purchased leisure products as soon as possible. By selling special edition vehicles, we make them one specification with no options available. This allows the constructors ease of manufacturing, with one motorhome, one specification, one price!”
New horizons for the dealer special landscape
Steve Sharpe of Lowdhams, though, is less convinced that there will be a significant return to dealer specials. He says that the supply chain issues have not been so much of a problem at his end, but also that he believes that Swift has perhaps had a change of heart about the idea of dealer specials.
The company has moved away from providing dealer specials for a wide range of ’van dealers (including, at one time, Marquis), to the point where it currently only makes dealer specials (two ranges) for Lowdhams, its biggest dealership.
Steve explains that, as he understands it, Swift as a whole has been reassessing its product offer, particularly in a market that has new customers, who have only come in since lockdown, may have bought in a hurry and are now looking to change. As such, they might not be too interested in whether something is a dealer special or not. “Swift has taken a different path,” he says.
It’s certainly the case that not all motorhome manufacturers have gone down the dealer special route.
Since it started building motorhomes in 2011, Bailey, for example, has only briefly flirted with dealer specials, and hasn’t done such a range now for many seasons. And Auto-Trail has always steered clear of them.
There is a strong feeling among some in the leisure vehicle industry that these days, with more than 500 different low-profile models alone on sale at the current time in the UK, many of them with additional option packs and special alternatives, the ‘van product offering is complicated enough already for buyers who are choosing a motorhome.
Dealer specials, the feeling goes, just make things more complicated.
And even among those companies that are still producing dealer special vehicles, it’s clear that nowadays, they are only going to be dealing with the high-volume retailers.
You are unlikely to find a dealer special, for example, on that little forecourt just down the road that’s actually not much more than an expanded garage.
The advantages of motorhome dealer specials
That said, there remain real advantages to some dealer special offerings that make them worth considering, while those dealerships that have stuck with them over the years have in some ways developed something that is now distinctly different from standard fare, and are often innovative motorhomes.
Gary Morgan says he has always looked for something beyond the optional extras list the manufacturer provides when he devises his dealer specials. Some years back, he decided the thing to go for was the base vehicle manufacturer’s electronic stability programme (ESP).
“At the time, ESP was not standard on most chassis, but it was a Peugeot option. We managed to secure this as an exclusive for one year before others followed suit,” he says.
More recently, for the new Masters Collection, his company has included a 360 CCTV system on all models.
If you want the total peace of mind of being able to see absolutely all around you when you take your motorhome down a twisty road or out into busy traffic, at present, the only other firm offering this level of visibility as a factory-fitted option is Le Voyageur, on some of its models. And they are a great deal more expensive than the Masters Collection.
Gary points out that the CCTV system isn’t just a bonus in traffic. As it records what it sees, it can act as a useful bit of motorhome security, too, and provide video evidence should another vehicle damage your motorhome while it is parked up and you are absent.
Steve Sharpe also says that, although Lowdhams’ Hi-Style line-up is technically based on Swift’s Escape, because of the layouts, in spec it is much closer to the higher-range Kon-tiki. “If you look at the prices, Hi-Style sits somewhere between the two, in a market sector Swift currently isn’t in on its own,” he adds.
Steve works on the design of each new Hi-Style and Voyager Xtra model. When that design includes extras such as stepwell lights and backlit dropdown beds, you can see dealer specials have moved on from the days when they were the same model, with just different upholstery and some snazzy decals.
Interested in a different type of ‘van? We consider the advantages and disadvantages of self-build campervans, which have seen a rise in popularity in recent times.
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