And there it was, a brand new 1990 Peterbilt 357 motorhome, complete with an Allison automatic transmission, a 3306 Cat diesel, and air-ride suspension front and back. The coach had a washer and dryer, a full sized bathtub, and every possible gadget I could think of. It really was a beautiful unit.
It took a little less than a year to complete and it turned out even better than the old ’63 KW. It was a ride that any haberdasher would be proud of. (wink)
But now there were no excuses, I had to sell it, and fast. But my new salesman, Richard F. , had other ideas. He wanted us to keep it for a while so we had a demo unit. And Anne wanted to start seeing a return on her investment asap.
Someone told me the stress of being broke is easier than the stress of handling a business, and that was quickly becoming apparent. Anne didn’t like Richard. My wife didn’t like Richard. The guys who built the coach body didn’t like Richard. And I was having my doubts about him. But, I needed someone who could sell these things and despite my feelings, I reasoned that if he could sell them, then he was worth the trouble.
For all his abrasiveness, temper and other faults, he did know marketing. He had a friend in Leduc Alberta, Jimmy Sparrow, who owned a big truck stop just south of Edmonton and he agreed to let us put the Kenworth RV on display in his showroom. That was cool. He said knew a lot of people who had the kind of capital we would need to “get one on every RV lot in North America”. He raised the capital to hire a legal firm, to get a business plan done and to do professional marketing and promotions. We were even the “star” of the Western Washington RV Dealers annual big RV show in Puyallup Washington, complete with coverage by all the news networks, full page ads in newspapers, and honestly, it was a pretty heady time for a dirty little truck driver named Jon Los. It looked like we were going to really do it.
The hunt for “the big one” was ongoing. He’d manage to raise $100K here, $50K there, but the kind of money we needed to build a factory, pay for 100 new trucks at a time, and staff the whole operation was always just out of reach.
But Janelle, Richard’s wife, was a praying woman, and she and I spent hours on the phone, praying. Richard, on the other hand, didn’t have time for that, other than saying “amen” once in a while.
I was really starting to have my doubts about the direction this was all going.