The winter of 1979 in southern California reminded people why they had migrated to LA over the decades. The daytime temperatures were in the mid-70s, and the LA basin’s summer smog had disappeared, revealing the snowcapped San Gabriel Mountains.
At Neonex Leisure that day, we were brainstorming the recreational vehicle of the future. At the time we built America’s largest RV, the Arctic Sun, a combination van/pickup truck pulling a 55-foot-long 5th-wheel trailer. Now Neonex Canada had put our California division in charge of designing the company’s next Class A Motorhome.
Each of the other five U.S. managers gave their impressions of the future of the recreational vehicle, disclosing visions of startling grandeur. I was more flippant: “I bet it’s a Honda with a Coleman tent.” Three months later the Second Energy Crisis hit. We shut down our RV plant in two days flat, and I was back in Texas in five.
My point is that, if you had asked every energy or automotive issues guru what the future would hold for automobiles just before the winter of 1978 – 79, the answer would have been completely different if you’d asked them the same thing just 12 months later. That’s what an energy crisis can do.
My joke about a Honda with a Coleman tent was weirdly prophetic. But my fellow managers’ visions of million-dollar motorhomes would also turn out to be spot on — 20 years later.