Thor Industries acquires Elkhart Monaco plant
ELKHART ––Thor Industries is purchasing the plant that Monaco RV recently shut down.
Monaco made its surprise announcement about the plant closure Feb. 10, and Thor was rumored to be interested in the operation.
On Tuesday, Thor confirmed it was buying the plant and that many of the 85 full-time workers could get their jobs back.
“There are many of them we’ve already tried to contact,” said Bob Martin, president and CEO of Thor Industries. “We will definitely try to reach out to these new people. In the meantime, some have come in and applied and applied to our other divisions as well.”
He expects production by Thor to begin at the facility this spring or summer, he said. The company intends to build motorhomes — specifically the Axis and Vegas models — in the 220,000-square-foot plant.
Thor said Feb. 4 that the company's sales of motorized RVs increased by 43.8 percent to $339.3 million for the first six months of its fiscal year ending Jan. 31.
"We are pleased to once again have the opportunity to expand our motorized operations in Elkhart County," Martin said in the company’s release. "With the recovery of the motorized RV market gaining strength over the past year, we have pursued opportunistic expansion of our motorized production capacity, first with the acquisition of the Wakarusa complex and now with this plant on the south side of Elkhart.
“We view this expansion as an important step to meet both our immediate production needs and long-term strategic goals for our motorized business.”
Jeff Kime, president of Thor Motor Coach, cited several additional reasons for the purchase in the company’s release.
"This facility presents us with the ability to expand our capacity while maintaining the flexibility to meet emerging demands for our products in the market,” he said.
“In addition, the increased capacity will allow us to reduce overtime and the current stress on our existing plants and better align our production volumes with higher demand for our products.”
“We have begun operations on two production lines at our Wakarusa plant purchased last year, but that additional capacity isn't sufficient to meet the growth of our markets.
“As a result, when the opportunity to set up operations in this facility presented itself, we jumped at the chance to expand production for what is shaping up to be another strong year of growth."
It’s good for the company, the community, Martin said. “We are glad we can find a very large production space for us to expand,” he added.
JMeenan@SBTinfo.com
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