In the summer of 2016, when we were in evaluation mode and in the Elkhart area touring Entegra and Newmar, I stopped in at Precision Paint to pose a few questions.
The first question was, if I could convince Entegra or Newmar to build an unpainted coach, would Precision Paint or a similar company work with us to design and apply a custom paint scheme?
The answer was yes, but with a caveat. (More on the caveat below.)
The next question was what would it cost (design + paint)?
My off-the-cuff estimate was $20K plus or minus, which proved to be about right. Given what we were going to be spending for the coach itself, I was okay with that. (It's actually less than Entegra charges for their special edition "Fired Up" paint scheme, even after discounting.)
The caveat was that the guys at Precision Paint felt it was very unlikely Entegra or Newmar would agree to provide an unpainted coach, one reason being that they’d probably be worried about one of their brand new motorhomes rolling down the road with a (potentially) strange paint scheme.
I asked if allowing them to approve the design in advance would make any difference. The answer to that was maybe, but probably not. A possible concern was that we might come up with something better than what the manufacturers are currently doing and they'd be pressured to offer something similar.
Another concern was that to do the job right, Precision Paint (or any other custom painting shop) would need to get the coach at the same point in the manufacturing process that Entegra or Newmar send a normal coach to paint. As some of you know, these coaches are not otherwise complete when they go to paint. They are partially completed, enough to be drivable, but definitely not finished. They get painted, then come back for completion. To give you an idea, attached are some photos of our coach right after it came back from paint. So the question was, would either manufacturer agree to disrupt the normal flow of production scheduling to allow a partially completed coach to be sent somewhere for custom painting? Answer, probably not.
We eventually abandoned the idea, but I have to admit I’m still intrigued with it.
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Larry & Amy Beckner
Scottsdale, AZ
2022 Newmar Super Star 4061
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