Airstream's new Heritage Center will be alongside its new factory in Jackson Center, Ohio.
If there’s one thing Airstream emphasizes, it’s the customers who buy its iconic “silver-bullet” trailers. And in the coming weeks, the luxury-RV brand is going to unveil something its loyal fans have been wanting to see for a long time: the Airstream Heritage Center.
In development for years and delayed somewhat by covid, the Heritage Center is on the same campus in Jackson Center, Ohio, as Airstream’s sprawling new manufacturing plant. It celebrates nearly a century of worldwide road trips as well as the trailers in the riveted-aluminum shell that Wally Byam began selling in the 1930s.
The company said that the Heritage Center will exhibit a “time capsule” through an immersive brand experience dedicated to the products, treasures, artifacts and individuals that helped shape Airstream’s past “and continue inspire its future.” The museum features one-of-a-kind Airstream models and a collection of original films and photographs.
Paying attention to its customers’ wants also is how Airstream recently came up with the Flying Cloud Office, a 30-foot version launched in early 2021 that features a dedicated office space with a wide desk, multiple USB ports, sliding drawers and cubbies, an overhead dry-erase board, a comfortable swivel chair and securing strap, a chair mat, blackout curtains and a divider that deadens sound from the rest of the trailer.
Airstream didn’t just figure out the Heritage Center or the Flying Cloud Office by osmosis: It relied heavily on input from hundreds of customers through formal relationships as well as heavy communication via dealers, social media and one-on-one outreach to owners of Airstreams whose price tags can push $200,000.
“These conversations were an important part of developing the Flying Cloud Office because they provided valuable insights into how our products were being used out in the wild,” Airstream CEO Bob Wheeler told me recently. “And going forward, they’ll provide important perspectives on big issues like towing, power and electrification, resource availability and conservation.”
Indeed, customer feedback on products is probably the most important discussion going on right now at Airstream as it adjusts to both legions of potential new customers created by the pandemic as well as to the different ways in which they might want to experience the trailers, compared with Airstream’s traditional customers.
“We’ve been delivered an enormous group of new customers that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise,” Wheeler conceded. “So how do we make sure we don’t squander this opportunity? We’ve been redoubling product development on top of increasing manufacturing capacity.”
Last year, the company also launched a 33-foot Classic model featuring a new “tech stack” on top that provides industry-best wireless connectivity and accurate weather measurements, with interior comforts such as steam pipes that warm the bathroom floors and towel racks.
“We make no changes, only improvements” McKay Featherstone, Airstream’s vice president of product development and engineering, told me, explaining the architecture of the new Classic that is based on extruded ribs and fewer panels for more rigidity. “From the customer standpoint, they only want us to improve something they already care deeply about.”
The new Classic with all the enhancements fetches $20,000 to $50,000 more than the one it replaced. Yet demand for it is only likely to increase a one-year backlog of customer orders that stuffed Airstream’s 625,000-square-foot new factory to the walls with 700 skilled assemblers who are constructing each trailer with artisanal care while also trying to push them out of the building’s 20-foot-high doors to waiting dealers and customers as quickly as possible.
