On the move

INDIANAPOLIS — With customers like Mary Jo Athman, it's easy to see why RV makers and sellers see a bright future.

Athman, a 35-year-old office manager from Waite Park, Minn., recently bought a new 25-foot trailer — and plans to hang on to her old 1960 model.

The new RV will be used mostly for weekend trips to a family cabin in northern Minnesota's lake country with her husband and their 11-year-old daughter. The old one will provide sleeping space for home guests.

"As far as accessories, the old one has an ice box, if you want to call that an accessory," Athman said. "The new one has the bathtub, the shower, the refrigerator and the freezer, and it's got enough beds so that you don't have to fold out furniture to make your beds."

Sales of recreational vehicles are soaring, thanks to interest rates at historic lows, attractive new features and more leisure time for many people, including baby boomers. Last year was the best ever for the industry, which expects an even better 2004.

"I think we're just kind of riding a pretty good wave of business right now," said Dave Altman, president of Altman's Winnebago, a 32-year-old dealership in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park. "I don't see a bubble there."

As in the 1980s, when RVs had their last big sales boom, today's optimism is an outgrowth of low interest rates and inflation and higher disposable income that have put RVs within reach of more consumers. This time, the industry, which has a manufacturing hub in northern Indiana, also has demographics on its side as wanderlust-inspired boomers respond to a marketing campaign targeting consumers who haven't yet reached retirement age.

Also driving RV sales are the hassles of air travel and fears of traveling abroad — both outgrowths of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Better-equipped vehicles are also are a huge draw, including high-end models with satellite dishes, DVD players, washers and dryers and compartments that slide out from parked RVs to create more space. Such features can drive motor home prices as high as $400,000.

In December, the $12 billion-a-year industry's trade group, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association based in Reston, Va., projected factory-to-dealer deliveries of RVs in 2004 would rise 2.3 percent above last year's shipments. Last month, based on surging shipments in late 2003, the association boosted its 2004 forecast to 2.9 percent growth.

The forecast projects 330,100 RV shipments this year, breaking the record of 321,000 set in 1999 and up from a recent low of 257,000 in 2001. Shipments are on track to post their best six-year period of growth in a quarter century.