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Dick Jarmon enjoys the comfortable sleeping space in his 2004 Chevy Express conversion van at his home in Harrison Township. The interior boasts a TV and custom lighting.Van owners enjoy condo on wheels
Conversion vehicle outfitters undergo extreme makeover to burnish their image.
2004 GMC Savana custom conversion by Southern Comfort includes an 18 inch flat screen television and power folding bed. The conversions appeal to a broad range of people.
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HARRISON TOWNSHIP -- Dick Jarmon opens the rear doors of his beige 2004 Chevrolet Express conversion van, punches a button and grins as the third-row seat automatically folds out into a luxurious bed.
The 70-year-old retiree stretches his lanky frame across the bed and points out his favorite cabin features: a 17-inch flat-panel TV, custom lighting and taupe Berber carpet.
"When I take this van to tailgate parties at (University of Michigan) football games, my friends say it's the greatest thing they've ever been in," said Jarmon, the former international sales manager for auto supplier Delco.
Jarmon's van was modified by Santa Fe Automotive Products in Elkhart, Ind., and is calculated to convey the image of a sophisticated little condominium.
It exemplifies one of the most extreme makeovers of any automotive segment in the past several years.
"The old image of the conversion van was porthole windows, loud and crazy paint jobs with airbrush work, shag carpet and funky, flouncy interiors with velvet seating," said John Gambill, conversion van manager at Moran Chevrolet in Clinton Township and a sales manager for Santa Fe Automotive Products.
"But now, it's a contemporary piece of merchandise that is appealing to a broad range of people. And shag is no longer an option."
Even with the product improvements, however, 2005 is shaping up as a "make or break year" for conversion vans, said Rod McSweeney, chairman and CEO of Southern Co.fort Conversions Inc. in Trussville, Ala., and president of the six-month-old Conversion Van Marketing Association.
Van outfitters are scrambling to make sure their products don't get lost in asea of luxury SUVs and mini-motor homes.
Last year, General Motors Corp. and two dozen conversion van outfitters formed the Conversion Van Marketing Association.
The group's mission is to raise consumer awareness of vans that can be customized according to a buyer's taste, such as the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana, and to improve the segment's tacky image.
The goal is to boost sales of GM vans by 25 percent in the next two years.
For the 2005 North American International Auto Show, which runs through Sunday at Cobo Center in Detroit, the association will have a higher-than-usual profile by displaying some of its most elegant products -- with subtle and tasteful paint jobs -- in the Chevrolet and GMC exhibits.
The association also is ramping up a new Web site - todaysconversionvan.com - that eventually will allow consumers to mix and match features as they create their own dream conversion van.
The association plans to donate a special conversion van that will be outfitted like a mobile office, with banks of phones, a desk and TV screens, to Gov. Jennifer Granholm to use on her 2005 tours of the state.
Such tactics are necessary because the conversion van industry has reached "a critical juncture," according to Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore.
Conversion van sales peaked at approximately 200,000 units in 1989-1990, but have steadily declined since, according to the conversion van association. By 2003, when Dodge stopped making full-size Ram vans, annual conversion van sales had fallen to about 38,000. Fifteen years ago, there were about 200 conversion-van outfitters nationwide; today that number has dwindled to about 24..
The industry bottomed out last year, with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 sales nationwide.
Today, only Ford and GM participate in this shrinking segment. The conversion van association hopes spending millions on image enhancement can revive the ailing industry.
"If it doesn't work, the whole conversion market winds up pricing itself out of the market," Spinella said.
"From a price standpoint, there's a lot of competition, especially from the lower end of the motor-home business, which may send the conversion-van business to never-never land. What the association is doing has to work. There really isn't any alternative."
Spinella said that conversion vans suffer from being "a kind of red-state thing."
They are popular in industrial states and the south - Michigan is second in conversion van sales nationwide - and they tend to appeal to a working-class clientele. The average household income of conversion van owners is $53,900, according to CNW, and the vans range in price from the mid-$30,000s to the mid-$50,000s. Besides buffing up its image with toned-down products, the conversion van association said it will work on improving the lease process.
"Conversion vans have been left out of the lease process," McSweeney said. "You can lease one of them, but you aren't given a lot of credit for the conversion. They basically end up being put in the same category as a painter's van. We are in the process of doing research to prove what conversion vans sell for the second time. This study should give us a gigantic boost in 2005."
GM has demonstrated a renewed commitment to this part of the market, McSweeney said.
The automaker upgraded the chassis of its full-size vans in 1996, improving the ride. It added an all-wheel-drive option in 2003 that made the vans more practical for consumers like Jarmon, who often uses his conversion van for long road trips in icy weather.
But what proponents are counting on is the conversion van's uniqueness.
"It's not," Jarmon said, "like your neighbor's vehicle."
Source: CNW Marketing Research Source: CNW Marketing Research
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