Anne was right out of a movie. Born and raised near Windsor Castle in England. Widow of a very wealthy businessman. With her Queens English accent, she sounded a bit like the queen.
As she stood there wondering why this “thing” was spoiling her view, I answered her, “I know it’s ugly, and I’m sorry for parking it here, but believe it or not it is a collectors item. It’s very rare and I could easily sell it for four times what I paid for it.” She replied, “A collectors item? Well, I’m very much interested in antiques myself. I didn’t realize it had collectors value. That’s very interesting.” Then she asked, “If you didn’t sell it, what would you do with it?” With the truck motorhome conversions still fresh in my mind, I said, “I’d restore it and make a motorhome out of it.” “A what?”, she asked. “A motorhome.” “I don’t understand.” “You know, an RV.” She looked at me puzzled, “A caravan?” “Yes, I suppose that’s what you call it.” “And why would you do that?”
Thinking on my feet, I replied, “Well, think about it. Most RV’s are built on light duty chassis’ and are basically expensive junk before they even hit the road. A motorhome built on a heavy duty truck would last forever since they’re already designed to go a million miles or more with little to no problems. Plus, the only other comparable RV of that size is a bus conversion, and they’re crazy expensive. For instance, a new Prevost bus shell, with nothing in it costs around $500,000, and then the conversion might add another $100,000 to the cost. With $600,000 invested, it might sell for $750,000, but a truck conversion would be considerably cheaper. It might take $50,000 to restore this old truck, and another $50,000 to built the coach body, so for $100,000 you’d have a reliable RV and could probably get $200,000 for it.”
She stood there, shocked. “Are you quite sure? That’s a 100% profit!” I explained further how it might even be sold for more than $200,000, and yes, I was quite sure of the numbers. She looked at me for a minute and then said, “This is very interesting. Why don’t you put these numbers on paper and pop in tomorrow afternoon so we can discuss this in more detail?” I was like, “Sure, no problem.”
She then walked away saying, “See you tomorrow then.” And it slowly dawned on me, she was interested in building one of these things! Then I began to shake as the possible reality started to sink in.