Warrior Lifestyles to Debut New Travel Trailer

| August 16, 2009 | 0 Comments
The former general manager of now-defunct Weekend Warrior Trailers Inc. intends to create a line of private-label travel trailers designed by former Weekend Warrior President Mark Warmoth.“From a distance, we always had that in mind,” said Larry Broyles, president of Poker Clothing Inc., dba Warrior Lifestyles, Perris, Calif.
Warrior Lifestyles was founded in September 2008 two months after Warmoth shut down Weekend Warrior’s operation in Perris and returned its inventory of finished trailers and parts and components to its creditors. The company retails accessories and provides parts and service for Weekend Warrior — once a popular West Coast brand — Rage’n and Extreme travel trailers in stores in Perris and Lake Havasu City, Ariz.Warrior Lifestyles currently stocks about 20 new Weekend Warrior SURVs at the two locations that were acquired from the bank.“
I helped liquidate the company so it was an opportunity to buy stuff during a distress sale,” Broyles said. “Right now, you can buy them back from the bank cheaper than you can build them, unfortunately.”
Warrior Lifestyles also acquired most of Weekend Warrior’s parts inventory and mailing lists. The company employs about 40 people at the two locations, about half of whom perform service on travel trailers.Weekend Warrior, founded in 1988 and credited with starting the towable sport utility (SURV) trend, at one time employed about 2,000 people in four plants totalling more than 215,000 square feet in Perris.The new line of trailers will be built in a factory that once housed Weekend Warrior subsidiary Extreme Warrior Manufacturing LLC in Caldwell, Idaho, under the direction of former Extreme President Don Day.“We are writing a business plan right now,” Day told RVBusiness. “We are going back after that cult-like following that Warrior has. Mark is designing the product for us, but that’s as far as his involvement goes. There isn’t anybody better in the toy hauler market than Mark. He connects with that buyer.”In addition to towable SURVs, Day said, the company also intends to build conventional travel trailers and fifth-wheels at some point in the future.
With an initial production schedule of five units a week, the first 400 trailers are to be sold at the Warrior Lifestyles stores in Perris and Lake Havasu City.
After that, Warrior Lifestyles dealers will be “factory certified” and need to agree to sell “branded consumables” such as Warrior Lifestyles trailer accessories, clothing and bottled water, much like Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealers who are an extension of the Harley-Davidson brand.“We are going to start up very slowly and build from there,” Day said. “We’ve been contacting dealers, and we’ve had a lot of interest for obvious reasons — that Warrior name is so strong.”

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