Dave Solberg

RV Show—Winnebago National Park Version

Dave Solberg
Duration:   8  mins

Description

Want to get out and visit some of the beautiful National Parks, but afraid to drive a big rig around the tight bends and narrow campground sites? Some National Park campgrounds have length restrictions due to the smaller sites built in the early days of development. The Winnebago Vista 29NP Class A is just the ticket, as it comfortably sleeps six but is under 30 feet. The special paint scheme is complemented by the blackout rims, trim, and special tread tires that hold up better to the rigors of a little “off-roading.”

Join Duane Cyrus and our own Dave Solberg as we walk around the Canyon Land Edition with a very large outside rear television, full exterior kitchen, and a 270-degree armless awning that not only covers the passenger side, but also has a wrap-around Alu-Cab batwing awning that wraps around the back to provide continuous shade for some heavy-duty camping in the heat of the day.

Winnebago has been in the RV industry for 65 years and implements what they call “VOC,” or voice of the customer, to bring features and benefits that their buyers want. Typically in a unit under 30 feet, there is some compromise, such as either a couch or dinette. However, in the 29NP you get both, and with the full-wall driver-side slide-out and passenger-side rear bed slide-out, this unit has the livability of a much larger coach in a convenient length for the National Parks. The full-sized king bed is 70″ x 80″ with an upgraded innerspring mattress, and the walkaround bed features a full-size wardrobe.

If you want to boondock, the 320 amp-hour Lithium batteries, three panel solar chargers, and charge controller provide three times the unplugged power. Plus, the 12-volt compressor driven refrigerator operates at half the power requirement of the traditional residential model running through an inverter. And all this energy can be monitored by the new Winn App that shows not only tank levels, but power available in the batteries, too.

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I'm here with Duane from Winnebago Industries and I get a lot of questions in my seminars from people about is there limitations in the national park? Can I only go 30 feet in the campgrounds? And you guys have come up with the answer. Yeah, this is our 29NP National Park Edition. It's 30 feet long and it's great to take to the national parks because it comes under that 30-foot limitation. This summer, you've got ambassadors that are gonna go around the country. Yeah, we have a great relationship with the National Park Foundation and this year, our social media ambassadors, the Newstate Nomads, are gonna travel to all the national parks in 12 months. So make sure you check them out on social media this year. That'll be fun to follow them. So let's take a look at some of the features. Great, let's take a look. Dave, you know you and I have done a lot of walkarounds together on motorhomes over the years and normally, we start at the front and kinda we'll work our way around, you know, we had a all-over system, but there's so many cool things on the back of this motorhome, I wanted to go this way. National Park Edition exclusives. The blackout wheels, you don't see that on Class A's very often. You don't. Really cool trick and then the black enhancements around and remember we talked about the two different editions. We've got a great looking logo up there. Canyonlands Edition and then the Glacier Edition. Really cool stuff on the outside, check this out. Well, that's roughing it. Yeah, that's rough. Have your own concert out in the national park. Completely connected out in the national park and watch anything you wanna watch, so that's cool, and then back here, a really cool feature that we have on this unit. Take a look at this. You can eat while you have your concert. You can eat, you can grab a beverage, nice cold beverage. You can do your cleanup here in the sink. You've got lots of storage. So something though, I notice here, that typically, your awning stops right here. Now, you've got a a kitchen. Tell me about this. This is cool, huh? Let's put this down for just a sec. This is called a batwing awning and it's actually mounted to the back of the motorhome. It's 270 degrees, so it stores in a box back here with a bag around it and then it just simply spins out and you attach it to that side. Wow, extends your awning all the way out so you can party, you can put your lawn chairs over there. Gear back here, lawn chairs, you know, if the sun moves and you do get sun under your main awning, you can come to the back and just hang out in the back and still have plenty of coverage. Wow. And I wanna point out, this is a thing called a Alu-Cab. The company's actually from South Africa so a lot of companies wouldn't go to the extent that we've gone with this. This is used on safari. Wow. In Africa. These are hard to get. It's really stout, really strong. It's not gonna go anywhere. You can tie it down, it's got additional poles on it. It works really, really well. This is not something you see on the average Class A, is it? No, you really don't, it's really cool. It's something new, we're really excited about it. Looking forward to seeing what the consumers have to say about this. Okay, let's take a look inside. Let's go. You know, Dave, as we walk into this motorhome, I'm just kind of reminded of the fact that Winnebago has been building motorhomes for almost 65 years now, we'll soon celebrate that, and one of the things that we do really well, I think, is listen to our customers. Internally, we call it VOC or voice of the customer and one of the things that we hear all the time and I know you're hearing it in your seminars is that consumers want to go to the national parks with a big Class A, take their family. So we've got a model 29, but a 30-foot motorhome, Class A that gets into all the national parks that sleeps six people with this floor plan. It lives like a much larger floor plan than it is and so families can go to the national parks and do all the fun things that they wanna do. Yeah, 'cause 30 foot is ideal, not just for camp spots. You know, a lotta people say, well, they only have 30-foot spots, which is not always true, but the turns of getting in and out. I mean, you and I have traveled the country and there are some really, really tight corners. Right, and it's fun to go to places like that and just adventure around and the other thing that people want to do now is boondock and so as we listen to consumers, they wanna stay out in these places and as you know, the national parks, kinda can be remote and don't have the power and the water supply. So some of the enhancements that we've made on the National Park Edition that's over and above the regular Vista allow for that sort of thing. So we've got lithium batteries, we've got refrigerators that run off of those lithium batteries so you can boondock for an extended period of time and still have all the fun that you wanna have. Remember also this interior is a limited edition interior, so it's not on the standard Vista. This flooring is just beautiful, it's durable, easy to clean, and then the ability to have theater seating, dinette, and then this overhead bunk that sleeps two. So two here, two there, and then we'll look at the bed in the back in a 29-foot motorhome. It's really, really something the consumers are looking for. Yeah, you don't see that very often, usually, in a 29-footer it was always compromised. Right. You got to the couch or a dinette, you didn't get both, and with this, you do, and what I noticed, you know, that that 12-volt compressor-driven refrigerator runs so much more efficient than a residential style that has to go through an inverter and you know, even the absorption in the refrigerator, it's nice to be able to use the solar power and the lithium batteries and be able to extend your boondocking for a long period of time. Right, absolutely, those things make all the difference in the world, and even back to the refrigerator, the old absorptions that we're used to from years ago, you don't have to be, you want it level in here to be able to sleep. So you wanna be comfortable, but if it's comfortable enough for you to sleep, the refrigerator's gonna be fine. Yeah. The refrigerator will even work fine if you're not. Yeah, well, and even with that, it's so much more efficient in hot weather. You know, you start getting in some of these national parks during the summertime and August especially, out in the West. Right. It is just unbearable sometimes. Right. So this is cool. As we walk to the back, Dave, there's some really cool things I wanna point out to you here and then we'll talk about that cool refrigerator, too, but you know, we remember the one place we had for years, well, we still have one place, but now it's called Win Connect. So all your system controls, this is a voice-of-the-customer thing as well. All of your controls are on a digital control panel that are connected to an app. So you can actually be outside and turn your lights off. You can be outside and open or close your awning. So Winnebago Connect, that's something that's new here. Well, and I see too, that's a good thing to have in here is battery power. You can see you're at 71%,, where normally, you would have those little bars that- Right. You have no clue what it means. Three little indications. Right, and this tells you exactly where you're at and so when you're boondocking, that's neat. You can do that and then you can do the Lithionics app as well. Okay. Lots of ways to get that battery power information. Look at this. This is the full wall slide on this 29NP. So the slide goes from behind the driver's seat all the way back to the bedroom. Gives us tons of wardrobe space back there. This refrigerator, 12-volt as we talked about, you mentioned you knew some testing that was done on this. We did some testing on these and the 12-volt compressor-driven refrigerator runs half of the battery power that you get out of a residential going through an inverter because the inverter's kind of the, you know, kind of demanding. It's a battery hog. It's a weak link. So to speak. So as we walk to the back, look at this, in a 29-foot motorhome, we have a king-size bed. King-size bed. And it's not an RV king, it's a true king. It's 70 by 80 king-size bed. Yeah, well, and one of the things I'm gonna point out here that Winnebago does better in my opinion than anybody else is it is a good mattress. Yeah. So this is a fairly new unit. Yeah, we haven't had this one for very long and the response has been absolutely overwhelming. It's very exciting to see the consumer's reaction to this motorhome. Oh, I can see why, 29-footer, plenty of space. This is cool. Yeah, thanks. The name Winnebago is synonymous with RVs and rightfully so, a legacy of innovation for over 65 years. If you wanna hit the national parks in style, you wanna take the National Park Foundation and this Vista.
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