In this blog we’ll cover the latest RV and travel data news. August 2026 RV production numbers are out, and we’ll cover the latest travel data so you can better gauge if it’s time to buy, sell, or hold an RV. Later in the news, we’ll look at some important RV industry news from Thor, Forest River and other industry insiders.
RVIA Numbers
On September 25th, 2026, the RVIA posted the latest RV wholesale shipment data for August 2026. Production was down compared to the prior year, with 23,596 total RVs shipped in August, down by 4,616 or 16.4% year-over-year. August 2026 was the lowest production August since before 2016. Compared to Year-to-Date 2025 volume of 241,550, 2026 through August is down by 34,359 to 207,188, or down by 14.2%. August YTD was also the lowest since before 2016.
Travel trailer shipments decreased year-over-year, with 16,253 units shipped in August 2026, compared to 19,311 a year ago, representing a decrease of 3,058, or 15.8%. Travel trailers had their lowest August on record since before 2016. Compared to Year-to-Date 2025 volume of 166,191, 2026 through August was down by 26,124 to 140,067, or down by 15.7%.
Motorhome shipments, which include Class A, B, and C motorhomes, were lower than in August 2025, with 2,809 units shipped versus 3,182 a year ago, a decrease of 373 or 11.7% year-over-year. Motorhomes had their lowest August since before 2016. Compared to Year-to-Date 2025 volume of 24,793, 2026 through August was up by 705 to 25,498, or up by 2.8%.
RV Trader
RVs for sale on RVTrader.com have increased since last month, with 120,035 new RVs listed as of September 30th, 2026. This is up from 95,906, or 24,129 units, or 25.2% from a month ago, and down 6,511, or 5.1% from a year ago. We’ll discuss this huge jump in new units for sale in a moment.
The number of used units for sale has increased since last month, with 75,440 used RVs for sale as of September 30th, 2026. This is up by 238 units, or 0.3%, compared to about a month ago and down by 8,253 units, or 9.9%, compared to a year ago.
Model Year Charts
Our model year chart has been upended this month due to the large increase (+24k) in new units added to the RV Trader platform. You can see that 2027’s are tracking lower than 2026’s as of week 31 on market but higher than both 2024 and 2025 vintages at week 31. To me, this says the industry is still overproducing at this point.
As a reminder, many but not all dealers advertise on RVTrader.com to sell inventory. It remains an excellent proxy for overall dealer inventory. You can follow my account on X at @JohnMarucci to receive weekly updates on this data.
Camping World Ads Effect on RV Trader
I mentioned that we are seeing a real anomaly in the data between July and September new units for sale on RV Trader. This does tell a story. Prior to July 22nd there were consistently 120k+ new units advertised on the platform. That week over 24k new units left the platform, which in my opinion could only come from the largest RV dealer, Camping World. At the same time Camping World spoke about lowering selling costs, so I think this was a correlation to what we saw. Over the next eight weeks, RV Trader ran between 94-95k new units, consistently down by the 24k units.
When we pulled our weekly data on September 16th, the number of new units for sale jumped to back to its pre-July 22nd number and has remained there. My take is Camping World stopped much of their advertising on RV Trader in July, ran that way for 8 weeks, saw a significant drop in sales, and reverted to advertising at the prior level. If I am right, we will see a hit to the dealer’s new unit sales when it reports earnings publicly on October 27th.
BLS RV Manufacturing Labor Stats
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published the July 2026 manufacturing employment numbers for Elkhart County, Indiana. This is an indicator of RV manufacturing growth or decline. July 2026 manufacturing employment level declined to 60,000, down from 61,000 in June 2026 and up from 57,500 in July 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is forecasting that manufacturing employment will rise for August 2026.
AAA
Gas prices have risen in the past month. According to the AAA, the current average nationwide price as of October 1st, 2026 was $4.414 per gallon for regular unleaded, up 32.8 cents from a month ago and up about $1.25 from a year ago. An RV trip of 3,000 miles at 10 mpg would cost $1,324 now versus $948 a year ago, a 39.7% increase. Diesel prices have increased over the past month and currently stand at $6.39 per gallon, up 75.7 cents versus a month ago and up $2.683 from a year ago. A similar 3,000-mile trip, getting 12 mpg, would cost $1,597 now, compared to $927 a year ago, representing a 72.4% increase.
The Latest RV Industry News
There is a huge amount of news out this past month, including the Hershey RV show and the Elkhart RV open house. There are many creators covering both big events in detail, so I won’t cover them here, but I do want to go deep into a few items outside of the shows that I feel are more important.
THOR Quarterly Results
First up is RV maker Thor’s quarterly results. It matters because Thor is the largest RV maker in the country, and results are not good. This has more or less gone underreported given the large RV show events. The short of it is Thor’s sales are down 8.4% YOY and net income is down by a whopping 67.5%. Towables are the real weak spot, down about 23% for the quarter. Thor stock has been hit pretty hard, along with other industry players, and is down by 31.4% YTD (WGO is down slightly more). The S&P 500 is up by 11.8% YTD, so net, an investor who purchased Thor in January, lost roughly 43% relative to the market. You can bet that management at Thor and other industry players are feeling real pressure from large shareholders to make changes.
One way to tell that Thor is experiencing real pain is seen at Keystone RV, often considered one of Thor’s flagship brands. Thor removed and replaced Keystone RV’s long-standing president Jeff Runels with chief operating officer Troy James. Runels ran Keystone for 10 years and is a seasoned president. James is now in charge to improve performance and enhance Keystone’s industry standing. As someone who worked in the corporate world for a while, I can tell you that removing a divisional president is a big move, since many in management and line workers would be very familiar with Jeff. We’ll see how this pans out, but it does speak to intense pressure for Thor to make organizational changes.
Forest River’s New Finance Division
Probably the oddest news this past month was Forest River announcing the formation of Forest River Financial Services. If you recall, unlike Thor or Winnebago, which are publicly traded companies, Forest River is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, famously run by Warren Buffet, until his recent retirement. We can see how Thor and Winnebago have lost 30%+ of their market value YTD (more like 40-45% relative to the market) and can safely assume that Forest River would have seen the same value loss if it were publicly traded. The folks at Berkshire see this on their internal books, which would mean the sale price of the company has been greatly deteriorating YTD.
My take is that the formation of a financial services wing to the manufacturer is an attempt to generate a separate revenue stream mainly because earnings from manufacturing have dried up. My gut is that this is a long shot and will immediately compete against other financing options dealers have access to. It may or may not work, but I look at this as a desperate action that tells the story of a much bigger problem. Thor changed management, Berkshire is adding a new business, both are trying to solve the same problem.
McGhee & Lippert
On September 15th, RV Business interviewed Jarrod McGhee, Chairman of Fun Town RV, and Jason Lippert, former CEO of RV supplier Lippert Industries, and newly hired CEO of Fun Town RV. It was apparent from the interview that McGhee was thrilled to get Jason Lippert as CEO of his organization. This was a huge catch for McGee and Fun Town RV.
McGhee on Lippert
Here are a few telling quotes from McGhee from the interview…the first about snagging Jason Lippert…
“…talent like Jason doesn’t come loose very often. So, when something like that happens, you got to move quick. It was a no-brainer for me. I think about the minute I heard that had happened at Lippert, I think I started blowing up his phone. …when you get a chance to get somebody like Jason who’s known for building culture, for bringing people together, bringing the right team in, that’s where Fun Town is right now. I don’t know of anybody else that I would have even offered this position to, but when I see somebody come along with that kind of talent, I’m going to jump out of the way.”
Here is an interesting story McGhee told about Lippert…
“I’d met him a couple times and we were having a rust problem on the frame, especially around the shackles. So he calls me up and says, ‘Hey, one of my manufacturers said that you don’t like my frames.’ I said, ‘No, I’ve got rust all over them.’ Well, he was there the next day. He flew down, went out in a pasture behind Fun Town with me with about 50 trailers in it and starts crawling underneath trailers. And about the time he crawled into the sixth or seventh one, I was kind of laughing. I said, ‘This guy’s actually going to figure this out.’ He literally jumped on a plane, cleared his schedule, flew down to find out that he did have a rust problem and got on top of it and fixed it. After that trip, Jason went back, changed some things, put zinc brackets in, things that wouldn’t rust on the frames, and we changed the industry that day.”
McGhee is known for being frank about the RV industry:
“What I’m seeing right now is the manufacturer going back to their same playbook they do every time it gets slow. They bring out new (stuff). So, you get six, seven new floor plans and/or five new brands. And new is kind of like calamine lotion poison ivy. It soothes the itch for about two minutes, but you still got the problem. We took an industry that could produce about 400,000 units, and produced 600,000 (in 2021) – produced a bunch of substandard, subquality units, put them out on the market, upset a lot of customers, and we kind of missed our spot in the spotlight. If anybody hears anything I’m saying today, stop building new stuff. Just build what you build really well. I don’t need anything new to sell. What I need is the best built RV you can build me, and we will sell that. The new ones are always the worst quality ones anyway. So, slow down on the new stuff. We don’t need new right now. We need good quality.”
I couldn’t agree more. It’s encouraging that there are dealers out there that understand issues from the customer’s view.
That should do it. All the best in your camping adventures!
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