John Sammut, Newmar Corp. vice president of sales and marketing, spent three days this week talking with the manufacturer’s dealer body at Newmar’s annual Dealer Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Sammut told dealers about the lifecycle changes three models – Bay Star, Dutch Star and Essex – will undergo in the 2023 model year as well as features added to multiple brands.
Newmar model lifecycle changes occur every four years, with each model receiving full interior and exterior refreshes. In addition, Sammut pointed to three areas across brands that will highlight the manufacturer’s 2023 model year.
First is expanding lithium-ion battery options. Last year, the option only was available on the King Aire model. This year, six Newmar models have lithium-ion batteries as standard or optional.
“Now we have added in an additional six brands with that feature, and I think that is relevant and very impactful,” he said. “It is a feature that continues to be asked for. A lot of new buyers coming into the RV lifestyle and looking at RV products are not just going to a campground or RV resort and plugging in. They are doing things where they need to have more power to charge the house functions of the coach between plugins.”
Another upgrade is the ability to move the dinette to the patio side of the coach without interfering with the baggage door space below. Newmar created a new slide mechanism to enable the dinette to be in a door-side slide out without needing additional hardware below to bear the extra weight.
Previously, the additional hardware to support the dinette slide out required designers to lower the baggage door height under the slide out. Now, the baggage doors remain at the same height as the rest of the baggage doors while providing consumers a dinette option overlooking the campsite.
“A lot of customers wanted to have their dinette facing on underneath their awning,” Sammut said. “But it really cut a lot of exterior storage capacity.”
Other notable 2023 model year improvements include raising the Bay Star ceiling height from 80 to 84 inches and including multiplex wiring and 10-inch multiplex monitors.
“(The multiplex addition) was something that that was really recommended by our dealers,” Sammut said. “We have delivered on what they were asking for.”
