More than 300 people walked through the doors for the grand opening at Airstream El Paso in Texas last weekend. Owner Andrew Meadville said visitors came ready to buy.
“We sold one unit last week, before we even opened,” he said. “I knew the market was here, but the excitement and demand is just palpable. We might hit five or six units sold this week.”
The new Airstream dealership had a VIP ribbon-cutting Friday before opening to the general public Saturday.
“If we had been any busier, it would have been too much,” said Meadville, who owns the location with his wife, Constance. “We were at our limits for sure, but we talked with everyone. I know it is a down economy and a weird time in the industry, but maybe just the fact that Airstream has not had a presence in El Paso in over 40 years helped build the excitement. We are going to ride the wave.”
Meadville said he had eight Airstream RVs on the lot for opening weekend. Several potential customers expressed interest in ordering RVs.
“They want to build exactly what they want, so we are going to work with them to get them the units they want,” Meadville said. “We also talked with several people who are ready to buy right now.”
Additional Basecamp models and motorhomes are headed to the El Paso store this week.
The dealership’s service department is busy.
“We have some appointments with people that have little issues, mostly,” Meadville said. “They came to the grand opening and we talked with them and got them all set to drop off their units this week.”
Hector Pereira joined the dealership from a local Mercedes-Benz dealer to serve as sales manager. Meadville said Pereira’s presence brought in several customers.
“The crossover between the two brands is crazy,” Meadville said. “I would say 80 to 100 of our customers that came in are customers of his from selling the Sprinter vans, and they are ready to buy, so that is just a match made in heaven for us so far.”
Meadville announced plans for the new dealership at the end of June.
